‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ episode 4 ‘Everybody Wins a Prize’

The episode squanders some great story opportunities in favor of a predictably bland narrative

July 9, 2023

Last week’s episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City concluded with two of the series’ three main plotlines converging.

As Maggie and Negan prepared to confront the Croat with the help of their new friends, Ginny made her way to Manhattan to look for Negan. Along the way, she lost her beloved stuffed dinosaur, which Maggie found and promptly burned to ensure that Negan wouldn’t know she was nearby.

Unfortunately, her plan is likely to unravel since Ginny saw her do it.

Speaking of unraveling, Luther decided that Amaia and Tommaso‘s willingness to help a couple of newcomers isn’t worth dying for — especially when he finds Negan’s wanted poster from New Babylon. This leads to Luther and Negan getting into a fight, which leads to Luther getting a cheese grater to the face before being impaled on an exposed pipe. Meanwhile, Marshal Armstrong continues to be held captive by the Croat, who we learned is using methane created by the undead to produce liquid fuel. The Croat finally gets Armstrong to admit why he’s in Manhattan, which just so happens to be a manhunt for the same dude who shot his ear off.

We still haven’t seen Hershel in a while, but I’m sure he’s fine.

This week, Maggie, Negan, and their new friends put their plan to rescue Hershel and kill the Croat into motion.

As always, the recap portion of this review will contain plenty of spoilers. The sequence of events has also been streamlined for the sake of clarity.

Hidden Transgressions

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

The episode opens with a flashback to Negan’s time as leader of the Saviors (before he’d even met the original Walking Dead gang). Simon walks in and says they have a problem, which turns out to be the Croat torturing/killing the child who was scouting for the Kingdom despite Negan’s order that she be let go. As the Croat defends his brutal actions to Simon, we see Negan realizing that the man is too monstrous even for him.

In the present, Amaia and Tommaso’s crew are perplexed about why Luther apparently took off on them. Negan (who must be exceptionally good at hiding bodies on short notice) brings up that Luther was not a fan of the mission they will be attempting to execute that day. This suggestion is somehow enough to get everyone back on track.

As Negan slips some of Luther’s coveted beeswax into his pack, he admits to Maggie that meeting the Croat will mean seeing a tangible and painful reminder of his past. The conversation is interrupted by someone playing the harmonica, which reminds Maggie of a time she took and buried a neighbor’s harmonica because it was keeping Hershel awake during his infancy. After chuckling about the story, Negan notices that his matches are missing and asks Maggie if she’s seen them. Maggie lies and says she hasn’t.

In case that wasn’t enough subtext and foreshadowing for you, Tommaso pointedly remarks on the methane bubbling from the sewers as their group departs…oh, and Ginny is following them, too.

Whatever It Takes

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

After passing through some walkers that appear to be sleeping (?) on the subway tracks, Maggie & Co. arrive at Penn Station, where they begin checking to see if Hershel is being kept in one of the rooms like Tommaso was. Maggie and Negan end up finding a zombified kid wearing basically the same clothes Hershel was the last time we saw him.

Side Note: Manipulative red herrings like this are significantly more effective when they aren’t so painfully obvious.

Later, the group takes a moment to go over their plan. After everyone but the two main characters leave, Negan assures Maggie that they’ll find and rescue Hershel. This nearly moves Maggie to admit her knowledge about Ginny being nearby, but she’s stopped by the site of Luther’s beeswax in Negan’s pack.

That’s all it takes for her to become disgusted with him all over again and storm off.

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

Later, the Croat is giving the kid who operates the Garden’s sound system a pep talk when he hears Negan’s distinctive Savior whistle. As he excitedly runs off to meet his old boss, Amaia/Tommaso & Co. enter the Garden’s main arena. Meanwhile, Maggie is about to hotwire a cab parked in the Garden’s entry tunnels when she spots Ginny, who runs away. She leaves the cab and pursues the girl, who runs into the main arena and leads Maggie right back to her friends.

Back in the tunnels, the Croat appears with a bunch of his goons, forcing Negan to take cover in the car he and Maggie were supposed to be using to lead the Croat away. At the same time, Maggie & Co. are greeted by the Garden’s lights coming on and the sound system playing Proplaka Ce Zora — a moment that was timed almost too perfectly by the kid in the sound booth.

This sequence of events likely means two things:

The Croat needs to expand and diversify his playlist.
The Croat timed everything (including the need for goon accompaniment) based on advanced intel.

That second point is driven home even further when some candles he lit beforehand turn out to be bomb fuses, which explode and allow a swarm of walkers into the arena.

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

Maggie tries to lead everyone out, but the group is quickly surrounded and forced to fight for their lives. A bunch of extras get eaten before Tommaso appears to be dragged off to meet a similarly gruesome fate.

While all this is going on, Ginny runs inside the gated octagon. After spotting her (and realizing Ginny is a pretty smart kid), Maggie leads Amaia and another extra inside before closing the gate. Despite the temporary safety this provides, it soon becomes clear that the gate won’t hold for long. Maggie instructs everyone to grab panels off the octagon supports, which they use as shields to push through the walkers.

As expected, the one surviving extra is overrun and eaten. Amaia nearly meets the same fate, but is saved by Tommaso, who is somehow still alive. He then leads them out of the arena and into a boiler room.

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

Meanwhile, Negan avoids getting spotted by most of the Croat’s goons as they get in cars and head out of the tunnels — although he wisely tells a couple to stick around and help him search for Negan. The Croat eventually spots his former friend heading into a stairwell and gives pursuit.

The pair eventually end up in a nailgun faceoff on two of the arena’s catwalks. The Croat assures Negan he doesn’t want revenge, instead revealing that he’d heard from an old friend about the fall of the Saviors and lamenting how he could’ve helped. He then has his goons bring out Marshal Armstrong, who Negan explains is not who he wants.

The Croat says he knows that Negan actually wants Hershel because the Marshal told him (?). He offers to hand over the boy, but only if the two can sit and talk. When Negan refuses, the Croat attempts to show his good faith by pushing Armstrong over the catwalk. Since this is a television show (and the marshal apparently falls like a cat), Armstrong is able to avoid falling to his death by grabbing the catwalk Negan is standing on. Negan immediately puts down his weapon to help him up — a decision that perplexes both the Croat and the audience.

The Croat shoots Armstrong with his nail gun, but Negan is still able to help him up so the pair can flee. They leave the Garden and take cover in a nearby store, where Armstrong gets hold of Negan’s nail gun and officially places him under arrest.

Meanwhile, Maggie & Co. notice that the boiler room they’re in leads to the sewers. Amaia isn’t crazy about heading down into an environment filled with methane and the undead, but Tommaso notes that they’re out of options. As the group descends into the sewer, Ginny gives Maggie a look that is the polar opposite of friendly.

The Verdict

The Walking Dead: Dead City (AMC)

Remember last week’s flashback featuring Negan and Ginny? It was broken up throughout the episode and provided important context for both the characters and Dead City‘s narrative.

This week, we kicked things off with a flashback that had all types of potential. Unfortunately, it turned out to be nothing more than an isolated opening scene. As cool as it was, the flashback offered no new information aside from how much the Croat and Simon didn’t like each other (which was easy to assume).

Meanwhile, Dead City continues to relegate Hershel to brief flashbacks or glimmers of Maggie’s PTSD.

I get that you don’t need to show a child in danger to make us concerned for them. But from a storytelling standpoint, it would really help to at least see Hershel and the Croat interact. Another option could’ve been showing Hershel and that kid in the sound booth talking to each other. Their interaction would’ve been a heck of a lot more impactful than the weird one between Sound Booth Kid and the Croat.

As for the rest of the episode, even the character moments have begun to fall flat. That’s certainly not due to the acting, which continues to be great. But there are only so many times you can run us through the hate-regret-tepid respect cycle between Maggie and Negan before it loses its potency.

There were also some annoying technical issues, which ranged from “sleeping” walkers to Tommaso surviving a zombie gang tackle. I suppose the dormant zombie thing could be explained by decomposition, but there’s no way a return trip to the sewers won’t find a way to make them perk up again.

On the positive side of things, it was nice to be surprised at how welcoming the Croat was toward Negan. This was a much bigger “twist” than the wounded Marshal arresting the man who saved him, which was still totally in character. Dead City also continues to look fantastic. The action scenes were sliced a little more than necessary, but still very good.

Let’s hope next week’s brings the narrative back up to par.

Next Episode: ‘Stories We Tell Ourselves’