Did we even care about them in the first place?

The Walking Dead spin-off The Walking Dead: Dead City had a successful run on AMC and has thankfully been renewed for Season 2. The series, which follows Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) as they take on Manhattan in search of Maggie’s son, introduces a number of new characters to the Walker universe that greatly add to the lore of the flagship series. In fact, Dead City and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon are fixing Robert Kirkman‘s ever-expanding universe.

However, in the penultimate episode of Dead City Season 1, “Stories We Tell Ourselves,” the show attempts to raise the stakes by killing off a number of its supporting cast. Jonathan Higginbotham and Karina Ortiz, who portray Tommaso and Amaia respectively, reach their bloody demise while trekking through Manhattan’s Walker-infested sewer system. Typically, when characters die in The Walking Dead franchise, whether we like them or not, we feel something. Unfortunately, these Dead City deaths barely impacted the story.

The Walking Dead: Dead City

Maggie and Negan travel into a post-apocalyptic Manhattan long ago cut off from the mainland. The city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world.

Release Date

June 1, 2023

Cast

Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Michael Anthony, Gaius Charles

Main Genre

Horror

Genres

Adventure, Horror, Thriller

Seasons

2

‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Started To Lose Its Momentum

“Everybody Wins a Prize” saw Maggie, Tommaso, Amaia, and a handful of unnamed extras facing off against a horde of Walkers in one of The Walking Dead universe’s most thrilling set pieces. As the extras were picked off one by one, things were looking grim for the team, especially when Tommaso was pulled into the pack of flesh-eating undead. Suddenly, the stakes of this scene felt high, with the Walkers being presented as a genuine threat. Of course, Tommaso showed up later on, having survived the onslaught. The episode ended with a cliffhanger that promised an intense trip through Manhattan’s sewers, an adventure that we didn’t really get.

“Stories We Tell Ourselves” was a bit of a slog in comparison to the previous episode’s nail-biter. An episode filled with characters revealing their inner demons, it stretched some plots a little thin, ultimately killing off Tommaso and Amaia mid-way through, because let’s face it, did they really have a purpose to be in Dead City’s finale? As the crew rested in the sewers among countless lifeless Walkers, rotting hands reached out from the piles of undead, tearing the troubled couple apart. The scene is relatively short and in comparison to the masterful Walker battle, it felt completely anti-climactic. One can’t help but wonder why they would bring Tommaso back, only to kill him in the following episode in a far less thrilling way? After their deaths, Maggie took on a Rat King-like Walker. Couldn’t that have been a more interesting way to kill the couple off? Poor Amaia barely got a final scene! Dead City killed off its most uninteresting characters in the least emotional way possible.

‘Dead City’ Made It Hard to Care about Tommaso and Amaia

Dead City has received acclaim for being a far more focused version of The Walking Dead, with the development of Maggie and Negan being at the forefront of its earlier episodes. However, as the series continues, it’s fallen into some of The Walking Dead’s old ways, introducing boring side characters and splitting up the heroes we’d signed up to watch in the first place. It’s this storytelling that continuously killed the momentum of its mother show, resulting in less focused character work.

Tommaso and Amaia were introduced in Dead City’s second episode, “Who’s There?” and have barely been developed since. That is, until “Everybody Wins a Prize” attempted to rush in some character development before they met their demise. As Tommaso’s betrayal was revealed, the relationship starts to collapse, climaxing in what could have been a heartbreaking death for their characters. Alas, a lack of character development in Dead City‘s previous episodes left their deaths feeling empty. After forcing some development in their final scenes, it was a case of too little, too late for the young couple, but in a silver lining, the show was able to return to its biggest success just in time for the finale.

‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Is at Its Best When Following Maggie and Negan

Dead City truly excels when it sticks to its initial pitch: the Maggie and Negan show. After a complex history in The Walking Dead, Dead City set out to be a character study, exploring their relationship, and to paraphrase Negan in the series premiere, ask, “Who really is the bad guy?” We’re yet to find an answer to that, but Maggie’s hidden intentions to trade Negan for her son are starting to raise some red flags. Of course, she has to protect Hershel (Logan Kim) no matter what, but is she going about it the right way?

It’s been gripping watching the two characters work together, even sharing a few heart-to-hearts on their journey. Dead City’s showrunner, Eli Jorné, has developed Negan beyond what The Walking Dead did, and as an audience, you truly root for him. With his child companion Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) now aware of Maggie’s true intentions, the stage is set for a less-than-friendly reunion of the dynamic duo. Splitting the characters up was an important part of telling this section of their story, but the characters they split them up with, including Gaius Charles’ Perlie Armstrong, were far less interesting to watch.

Having continuously dragged the series’ slower episodes down, it’s probably a good thing that they’re out of the picture now, as it allows Season 2 of The Walking Dead: Dead City to hopefully focus on far more interesting storylines. What sort of chaos awaits Negan and Maggie in New Babylon, and what does the Dama (Lisa Emery) have in mind for our protagonists?