The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

Television

‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ episode 1 ‘Old Acquaintances’ recap/review

‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ does a serviceable job setting up its story along with some fantastic character moments.

June 18, 2023

This weekend, AMC kicked off the first of its spinoffs following last year’s conclusion of the flagship Walking Dead series.

The Walking Dead: Dead City sees Maggie and Negan traveling to Manhattan to rescue Hershel Rhee, who is now a teenager. Predictably, the reasons for these two teaming up and charging into a ruined city swarming with the undead are both intriguing and a bit convoluted.

We already did a spoiler-free overview/review of all six Dead City episodes, which you can read here. Now we jump into the weekly recaps, which will examine the story as it unfolds. As always, there will be lots of spoilers in the recap portion of the article before the review.

Unhappy Reunion

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

The episode opens with Maggie doing some recon on Manhattan Island from the other side of the Hudson River. As expected, the buildings are crumbling and the dead are everywhere.

She’s interrupted when a much smaller group of zombies (who clearly appreciated the lower housing costs in their pre-undead days) shamble by. Maggie manages to hide from them, but is still spotted and attacked by a ninja zombie. After a brief struggle, she bashes its head in while screaming at the top of her lungs, which somehow doesn’t attract the passing herd’s attention.

At least now we know she’s angry.

After the opening credits, Maggie heads to a bar and pretends to drunkenly flirt with the bartender, who reveals they have a guy working there (Negan) who’s really good at killing zombies. He also lives in the motel next door. She sneaks into Negan’s room while he’s showering and is about to ambush him when two men grab her.

The goons bring her to the bar’s owner, who assumes that Maggie is working for one of her enemies that lives nearby. She’s about to cut off her nose as a punishment when Maggie utilizes an awesome shoe knife to get free and fight everyone off. Just as she’s done kicking everyone’s ass, Negan walks in and wisely decides to flee. Maggie attempts to chase him, but is tripped by a young girl who follows Negan outside.

Maggie gets up and runs out to her truck, where she’s attacked by another bar goon. She fights him off before dropping a map in the parking lot (which is clearly going to be important later) and pursues Negan. She catches up to him and the girl, nearly running them over before getting out of the truck and engaging in some fisticuffs.

The fight comes to an abrupt end after she gets the upper hand and puts a knife to Negan’s throat.

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

Following what must’ve been a very awkward deescalation offscreen, Maggie shows Negan a poster announcing that he’s wanted by marshals from a town called New Babylon. Instead of being concerned, Negan requests to keep the poster before asking the little girl (Ginny) to help treat a wound he got during the chase.

After noticing that Negan and Ginny appear close, Maggie asks where Annie and his child are. Instead of answering, he introduces Maggie as an “old acquaintance” while wondering aloud why she’d come looking for him. Maggie explains that she and her people were raided recently by someone who took Hershel. Their leader (The Croat) resides in Manhattan…and he used to work for Negan back when he was leading the Saviors.

Although she doesn’t come out and say it, Maggie basically threatens to turn Negan over to the New Babylon marshals if he doesn’t help her. He agrees, but only if she has her new Hilltop community take in and protect Ginny.

Paying the Tab

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

The trio departs in Maggie’s truck for Hilltop, which has relocated to a different area. Along the way, they pass the entrance to New Babylon, which is marked with a nice-looking sign and a pair of undead criminals hanging from a gallows.

During a pit stop, Negan explains that Ginny asked to go with her when he was fleeing from New Babylon marshals. Instead of asking WHY Ginny wanted to go with him, Maggie asks why she doesn’t talk. Negan reveals that according to folks who knew her, Ginny hasn’t said a word since she found her father brutally murdered and turned into a zombie.

That night, Negan promises Ginny he’ll come back for her soon before sending the girl off with a person from Maggie’s community. While it’s clearly hard for him to say goodbye to her, it’s arguably even harder for Maggie to watch the man who killed her husband show such warmth and empathy toward a child.

Later, when the pair stop to rest, Maggie has a nightmare in which she relives the moment Negan killed her husband. When she awakens, Negan tries to bond with her about when his father promised to take him to New York and never did. When that fails to break the ice, the pair trade verbal barbs a bit.

Before they fall back into malicious silence, Negan proclaims that what he’s wanted for by New Babylon isn’t the crime it appears to be.

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

Back at the bar, New Babylon marshal Perlie Armstrong and his crew (Jano and Gritz) show up looking for Negan. Turns out our old friend is wanted for killing another New Babylon marshal along with four other men — a crime punishable by getting sawed in half.

For some reason, the bar owner covers for Negan and says she hasn’t seen him. Armstrong correctly assumes that she’s lying and drags her outside to a fence being swarmed by walkers. After he’s done citing penal codes that allow him to execute her, she spills the beans on Negan’s employment at her bar and that he was taken by a woman they’d never seen before. Armstrong then cites another code about aiding and abetting a fugitive before feeding her to the walkers, anyway.

As the Marshal & Co. leave, Jano notes that the woman is likely the same one who’s been following Negan. Armstrong interrupts his deputy to assure him that what he did to the bar owner was a necessary evil for keeping the peace. He then looks down and finds Chekov’s map.

Welcome to the Big Apple

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

After reaching the Hudson River, Maggie explains that one of the buildings on Manhattan Island begins billowing smoke every morning and night at approximately the same time — making it the most likely place for the Croat (and her son) to be residing.

As they begin loading up a boat to go across, the Marshal and & Co. arrive nearby. Armstrong tells Jano that when the zombie apocalypse first started, the military blew all access roads into the city in an effort to contain the spread.

After his deputies depart to do a sweep of the area, he takes a moment to look at a New York address written down on a card.

Later, Jano is ambushed by Maggie while he’s taking a piss. Instead of killing him, he takes the deputy hostage and brings him on the boat with Negan. This forces Armstrong and Gritz not to shoot at them, but it doesn’t stop the pair from untying their own boat from the top of Armstrong’s truck and giving pursuit.

Out on the water, Negan attempts to throw Jano overboard and is stopped by Maggie, who says he’s their insurance policy against the marshals. This leads to an argument where Negan points out how Maggie’s hatred of him appears to be re-emerging. He follows up by asking how many husbands and fathers she’s killed since the awful thing he did to her.

Maggie responds that she’ll never forgive him for murdering Glenn — a sentiment he actually appears to respect/understand.

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

When the trio arrives on Manhattan Island, Jano notices that there aren’t any zombies there to greet them. Meanwhile, Negan makes an earnest plea for Maggie to watch after Ginny once this is over. She responds by pointing out that this seemingly noble request could be due to a decision on his part not to return to her.

Once they head into the city, Jano attempts to make a break for it. His escape is thwarted by a casual trip from Negan, which results in Maggie warning him not to try anything like that again. As they resume their journey toward the burning building, zombies in the surrounding buildings hear them and begin dropping to the ground. The group takes shelter under Delmonico’s Steak House, which turns out to be filled with hungry walkers.

Before the glass holding back the zombies can break, Maggie directs everyone across the street to the large scaffolding. The group waits out another round of falling zombies and continues forward. Unknown to them, an old woman watches their progress from a nearby rooftop.

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

Later, Negan manages to stop Maggie moments before she steps on a net trap. Things become even more ominous when the group hits a dead end and sees/hears a truck playing music and leading zombies around the island. A few of the walkers notice the trio, forcing them to take shelter behind a wall of garbage bags. When the bags turn out to be filled with cockroaches, they decide their best option is to fight through the zombies.

*Side Note: These folks clearly aren’t from Florida, Georgia, or South Carolina. If a cockroach is strong or smart enough to survive the poison traps we put out, it earns a name and social security number.

Before an epic battle can take place, Pearly and Grtiz show up and begin mowing down the walkers with automatic weapons. Jano tries to get their attention, but is forced by Negan to take shelter with him and Maggie in a nearby dry cleaning shop.

After Maggie splits off to look for an exit, Armstrong enters and instructs Gritz to guard the door. He begins searching the shop while making an appeal to Maggie, explaining that he’s a good man with a wife and three daughters. He doesn’t know why she’s with Negan (or why she and her group took Jano hostage), but he’s willing to listen. If he finds her first, however, the conversation will be a bit more confrontational.

Meanwhile, Jano is attacked by a ninja walker with a rat squirming around in its mouth. Negan is able to put the walker down before it kills him, but his screams attract Armstrong’s attention. The marshal fires his weapon at Negan, but ends up hitting and killing Jano, instead.

A few moments later, the walkers outside break through the door and overtake Gritz.

Definitely not a day to include on the leadership portion of your LinkedIn profile (The Walking Dead: Dead City/AMC)

Visibly upset but undeterred from his mission, Armstrong sees Negan attempting to break down a door and moves in to serve some justice. He doesn’t notice or hear Maggie sneaking up behind him, but still manages to fight her off and get the upper hand.

As he pins her to the ground, Maggie frantically explains that she needs Negan to rescue her son. When that fails to move him, she takes a chain off her neck and whips the marshal across the face. This allows her to knock him to the ground and take his gun.

Instead of shooting Armstrong, however, she simply knocks him out.

*Side Note: I get that they want to show how Negan’s comment about all the husbands and fathers she’s killed had an effect, but I still have trouble accepting that she’d allow someone to live who could still royally screw up her mission to rescue Hershel.

After tossing away Armstrong’s gun (which seems very short-sighted), the pair find a utility closet to hide in. Negan strikes a match and uses it to see what’s around them. In one of The Walking Dead franchise’s few legitimate jump scares, the old woman from before appears and blows the match out.

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

Elsewhere, the Croat visits a captured Hershel Rhee and begins taunting him about how the man who killed his father also lived among Maggie’s people. When Hershel steadfastly refuses to take the bait, the Croat begins unpacking his torture devices. Thankfully, he’s interrupted by one of his goons announcing that someone got away.

We then head outside, where the sun has risen and a man who’s clearly been beaten/tortured is running across a rooftop. The Croat calmly walks out with two goons and asks the escaped prisoner to tell him what he needs to know. Instead of obeying, the man attempts to zipline across to another roof.

The Croat snips the line with a pair of pliers, laughing at his prisoner’s brutal fate before bemusedly remaking on his indifference to it.

The Verdict

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

So in case it wasn’t clear, the guy who used to work for Saviors-era Negan and kidnaps/tortures children is evil. Everyone got that?

All joking aside, it will be good to get more information (or at least more screen time) on the Croat next week. For now, though, The Walking Dead: Dead City has done a serviceable job setting up its story. Despite a mildly convoluted premise, the pairing of Negan and Maggie is even more electric than advertised. In fact, their moments of dialogue with each other are by far the best moments of the opening episode.

There are still plenty of things that don’t add up yet, like why Negan isn’t with Annie and his child, who would’ve been born by this point. It’s also clear that Ginny still has a major role to play — one that definitely needs to explain why a child who found her father brutally murdered decided that Negan was the dude she wanted to roll with. “Old Aquaintances” provides a good springboard for those plotlines to be explored, although they still loom large enough to possibly overshadow the main narrative.

The cinematography is also breathtakingly gorgeous. Even taking the unique setting into account, it’s arguably the best that the Walking Dead franchise has ever looked on screen.

On the negative side of things, the shifting rules about how zombies act are something we’re all used to by this point. What I can’t get over is Maggie leaving Marshal Armstrong alive when he’s clearly a threat to saving Hershel. Don’t get me wrong — I’m glad she did. I absolutely love the character and the way Gaius Charles portrays him. I just don’t think the ruthless woman we know would’ve done that.

I do think she would’ve kept Jano alive for insurance purposes, although I can’t be the only one who’s glad he bit the dust. The last thing a great pairing like Maggie/Negan needs is a plucky hostage to drag around.

Let’s hope the screen time he could’ve eaten up is given to the Croat and Hershel next week, instead.

Next Episode: ‘Who’s There’