The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 Episode 1 Review – Let Maggie Be Happy Again

This review contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 episode 1, “Trillium.”

If you forgot what happened in the first two seasons of Dead City, it’s unlikely you’ll need a recap because the season 3 premiere has Negan briefly rehash the basics for us after he finds Maggie digging a grave for Ginny. Maggie and Negan trade the moral high ground, with Negan upset at Maggie’s role in the loss of his young charge and Maggie apologizing, telling Negan she would undo her actions if she could, but she can’t, and that Negan needs to accept it. Sound familiar? Though the two of them are still swirling around in a whirlpool of blame and guilt and anger and just straight-up misery, they’re finally both becoming aware that their shitty lives are intertwined and that fate (and AMC) will always bring them back together.

When Maggie hands Negan a knife and tells him to kill her and just get it over with, Negan smirks at her bare lower back and says, “I’ll do it!” Are they finally going for it this season? Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan’s chemistry is admittedly off the charts, teasing us with their Doris Day-era Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok schtick. And whether you ship Negan and Maggie because you’re a sicko like me or you don’t because it’s icky as hell, if you’re still watching The Walking Dead in the year of our lord 2026, you know that anything could happen to keep these characters interesting and entertaining after so many years of fighting each other onscreen.

“He killed Glenn FFS!” you cry. Yes, he did, but he’s also tried to redeem himself in the years since, saving Maggie and Hershel enough times to prove he’s not the devil, just a very broken man who once convinced himself that violence was the way to keep order. Glenn, may he rest in peace, is gone, and there isn’t anything Negan can do about that. If, at this point in her life, Negan is the only one who can make Maggie happy for five minutes, who are we to judge? There are literal zombies roaming the streets, and living in the present is the only option. Who knows what the future really looks like? “I don’t ever think I’ve seen you smile,” Negan realizes as this episode closes out. “It suits you.” Maggie is smiling again. Above all, is that not what Glenn would have wanted? “No! Negan literally killed Glenn!” I hear some of you still yelling. Okay, okay. You’re right.

Maggie and Negan’s latest argument is interrupted by newcomers Renata (Aimee Garcia) and her doctor brother Luis (Raúl Castillo), who think they can use them as leverage with The Croat (Željko Ivanek) to grab a tank and save an expectant mother in their big group of survivors, unaware that things have changed in New York Citayyy. At which point, Hershel arrives yelling before a bomb goes off. Excitement! Credits! Though Hershel seemed pretty dead set on staying with The Dama after Maggie refused to kill Negan at the end of season 2, lil bro finally realized The Dama wasn’t really worth his time after she demanded he kill Maggie. And, as a result of this inevitable heel turn, we are free of Hershel being a bit of a wet blanket for a while. With any luck.

Luis and Renata conveniently run into The Croat (and luckily not The Dama) on his way back from destroying all the tanks because he doesn’t want to share his toys with anyone, and the two grab hold of him after seeing he’s been infected. We see in a flashback that The Croat has previously terrorized them using Negan’s tactics, murdering a couple of key men in their group to make a point. Renata proves to be the bravest and most unpredictable among this new hospital-based group, and as she and Luis grapple with the idea of trusting The Croat in his last moments on earth, Negan is still processing Ginny’s death and looks bored out of his mind. Strolling off to drown in drink and nihilism, he stumbles across Dillard (the always incredible Jimmi Simpson) tending bar and casually chatting to some zombie patrons.

Negan asking Jimmi’s character what planet he comes from is something that every fan of the actor’s work has wondered at some point, especially when in McPoyle mode, as he always seems far too off-kilter for this decaying Earth. Still, his barman has a surprisingly upbeat and straightforward backstory (so far), having stayed on alone in his New York apartment above the bar and turning the building into a vertical food chain so he can keep on keepin’ on. Negan is impressed and frankly delighted to meet someone so cheery and self-sufficient in the wake of being stabbed in the back, and so are we.

With Negan out on a jolly, Maggie overhears Renata dropping some deep shower thoughts on Hershel about taking revenge on The Croat, saying she thinks about killing him for what he did every day, but “when the killing starts, when does it stop?” This seems to speak to Maggie, who touches her wedding ring and realizes her beef with Negan has to end. And if not in death, then perhaps in the unlikely friendship the two have been developing. Maggie extends an olive branch to Negan and says she’s tired of being angry. She needs him; maybe they need each other. Either way, we’re done with these two yelling at each other about who sucks the most, and a new chapter is beginning. The Croat also meets his end here, and unless any flashbacks are in the wind, we say a fond farewell to Ivanek, who did a great job of being one of Negan’s biggest personal mistakes through two seasons of Dead City but has no narrative road left to tread.

With Maggie and Negan’s help, Renata and Luis save the expectant mother and her baby and invite Maggie to stay on in their hospital fortress. Maggie agrees, hoping for a fresh start with Hershel, as Negan retreats to Dillard’s bar for some much-needed downtime. Were it not for some brief chat about “finding The Dama” and a last-minute appearance by the twisted lady herself, this middling episode might feel like the end of Dead City, rather than the beginning of a new season.

I’m curious to see where it goes from here now that Maggie and Negan have settled things and The Croat is fully out of the picture, but if I put on my long-suffering Walking Dead enjoyer hat, I may worry that this season will just trundle along for a while with the tiresome Dama spinning her wheels as our survivors start believing they might just be okay, and simply end with the hospital falling before Maggie and Negan move on to the next group. Hopefully, that voice in my head is wrong, and there’s at least some genuinely interesting and less redundant Littlest Hobo-esque intrigue and action ahead.

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 premiere Sundays on AMC.

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