After nearly a decade of hating each other with a white-hot passion, Maggie and Negan are finally reaching an uneasy truce in Season 3 of “The Walking Dead: Dead City.” Can they really trust each other, though?
As Sunday’s Season 3 premiere opens, a flurry of wanted posters for the duo, “dead or alive,” are being put up all over Manhattan, and we see someone rigging a bomb to one of the vital methane tanks. Maggie is digging a grave for poor Ginny (R.I.P.) in Central Park when Negan stops her, reminding her that she “stabbed me in the godd*mn back.” (And he means that literally.) She apologizes to him and wants to move on, but he doesn’t think she can move on from her long-held grudge: “You’re never gonna let me go.” Maggie invites him to stab her in the back (!) to even the score, and he actually considers it when they’re accosted by two people holding guns on them, ordering them to drop their weapons.
They’re Renata (“Lucifer” alum Aimee Garcia) and her brother Luis (“Task” veteran Raul Castillo), and they think Negan is the Croat’s right-hand man. They need methane, and they want Negan to lead them to it, tying him and Maggie up and hauling them away. Maggie’s son Hershel spots them in the street — but then a huge explosion knocks him off his feet.
It’s the methane tank that was rigged to explode, and the noise brings a swarm of walkers out of hiding. Maggie and Negan sneak away into a nearby basement, where they have to fight off walkers while tied up, while Renata and Luis find the Croat amid all the walkers. He admits that he blew up the methane tanks, rather than hand them over to New Babylon… and he’s mortally wounded, too. Hershel saves Negan from becoming walker food and unties Maggie when they’re joined by Renata and Luis, carrying the wounded Croat. Negan is about to swing on them when Renata stops him: “We were just trying to keep a baby alive.”
Renata and Luis have an axe to grind with the Croat
That takes us to a flashback four months earlier, with Renata and Luis celebrating at a baby shower for their brother Chucho and his pregnant wife. They’re interrupted, though, by the Croat, who reminds Renata she had a deal with the Burazi to provide protection. She says she doesn’t need their protection, but he says they need to provide some value to help bring the Dama’s vision to life. Luis claims he’s training people in emergency medicine, including his brother Chucho, and the Croat asks him to prove it — by stabbing their uncle and telling Chucho to save him. He can’t, and the Croat slices his throat as punishment. He’s about to take out Renata, too, when she releases a flammable gas from a nearby tank and holds up a lighter, threatening to blow them both up: “I’m willing to die for them. Are you?” So yeah, they don’t like the Croat too much.
Luis explains that his sister-in-law is about to give birth, but Maggie warns them the swarm of walkers won’t let them out alive. Hershel and Maggie have a moment, too, where he admits he was looking for her, and the Dama ordered him to kill her. Maggie wants to let go of all the anger and start fresh, away from the Dama: “She’s not gonna hurt us anymore. I won’t let her.”
They return to find Luis strangling the Croat, who informs them there’s one methane tank left, and he’s the only one who knows where it is. (The baby will need an incubator, after all.) He rants and raves that they can rebuild society from right here in Manhattan: “This island, it could be your fortress. Forever.” Renata and Luis look to Negan for help in fighting their way past the walkers, but he’s given up hope, concluding that the baby “doesn’t have a chance” and going to look for a drink.
A walker walks into a bar…
Negan stumbles upon a bar run by a guy named Dillard — hi, Jimmi Simpson! — a real kook who thinks he can talk to walkers, engaging in idle chit-chat with one sitting at his bar. (Don’t worry: He had their teeth and nails removed, so they’re harmless.) Dillard may not be completely nuts, though: He’s built his own personal food chain, with maggots feeding on walkers, frogs feeding on maggots, turkeys feeding on frogs, et cetera. Meanwhile, Renata shows Hershel her necklace of San Lazaro, the patron saint of mercy, recalling her dad saying: “We could choose the fight, or we could choose the light.” Maggie is trying to choose the light, too, and she invites Renata to come back with them to the Bricks for “a fresh start.” Renata wants to stay in the city and fight, though.
The Croat’s wound is getting worse, and they need to move, so Maggie finds Negan, who’s laughing it up with Dillard. He doesn’t think there’s much point in leaving, but Maggie pleads with him: “We need numbers. We need you.” Then: “I need you.” After they get through this, he can go his own way, she says. That’s enough to convince him to grab Lucille and head outside, with him and Maggie carrying the Croat while Renata, Luis, and Hershel clear out walkers ahead of them. They reach the building where the sister-in-law Evie is giving birth, but the Croat can’t make it past the doorway. He admits, “I was so arrogant,” before dying in the arms of Negan, who chokes back a tear before driving a knife into his skull.
Evie is in labor as they arrive, and they roll in the last methane tank to provide power. But Luis sees it needs more power, so he has to leave and finally dispatch his brother Chucho in walker form, using his body to power the tank. They baby is born, and Renata invites Maggie to stay with them in Manhattan. “This isn’t my home,” Maggie protests, but Renata shoots back: “Why can’t it be?”
A truce 10 years in the making
Negan is still nursing h stab wound when Maggie finds him and thanks him for helping them make sure the baby was delivered safely. What changed his mind, she wonders? “You said you needed me,” he replies. He adds that he was only mad when he saw her at Ginny’s grave because he wished she has killed him: “Why didn’t you finish the job, Maggie?” She says she knew he was capable of greater things. And when they smile and laugh together, he says: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. It suits you.” She’s thinking about staying in the city after all, she says, because Hershel likes it here. They still need to find the Dama, though.
Speaking of which: A couple of guys wounded from the bomb explosion are hiding out when the Dama approaches them. They say the bombs wiped off half of midtown, but she insists that other survivors must be out there, and they will find them and rebuild: “Every empire starts with the broken.” She sees the wanted poster for Maggie and Negan and adds: “Our work is just beginning.”
What’d you think of the premiere? And are you buying Negan and Maggie as allies? Give the premiere a grade in our poll, and hit the comments to share your thoughts.