Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of The Walking Dead: Dead City.
As the ultimate arch-nemeses ofThe Walking Dead, pitting Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) against Maggie (Lauren Cohan) in their very own spin-off show was a bold and exciting choice. Season 1 ofThe Walking Dead: Dead Cityleaned into the contentious nature of their relationship, where Maggie was persistent in her boundless hatred and Negan, despite his guilt, couldn’t resist poking the bear. At the center of the show’s expanding cast and developing storylines was this relationship, and it was one we sorely missed in Season 2. They spent most of the season separated, robbing us of the delicious drama of their interactions and thus weakening the series. However,the monologue in the closing scenes ofthe Season 2 finalepromises us a major change, one that we hope a potential Season 3 will commit to.
Maggie and Negan’s “fury-filled, yet forced to rely on one another” type of relationship may have been the initial draw toDead City, but unfortunately,it ended up also being the reason they were separated for most of Season 2.By the end of Season 1, Maggie had betrayed Negan to the Croat (Željko Ivanek), resulting in her returning safely to Bricks with Hershel (Logan Kim) and Negan being imprisoned on the island of Manhattan. Throughout Season 2, Maggie and Negan only ever met momentarily, but there was never a glimpse of their usual interactions. Instead, each time they come face-to-face,the first being in Episode 4, the scenes are emotionally-charged and desperate, as they usually only have minutes to exchange vital pieces of information. It was only a shadow of why we started watchingDead Cityin the first place.
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She’s back?
Maggie’s blind hatred of Negan, while understandable, was starting to get old in terms of repetitiveness, and the fact that her hate was the cause of their separation cinches the necessity for change.Dead Citycan’t keep buckling under decisions that are defined by Maggie wanting to make Negan suffer.Dead CitySeason 2’s slump in viewership and critical receptioncompared to its first season testifies to this, with critics citing Negan and Maggie’s separation as an “unwise decision,” among many other reasons for the show’s fall off. Subsequently, the Season 2 finale’s closing monologue offers hope for a change that the series desperately needed.
At the end of the Season 2 finale, Negan and Maggie have a joint, narrated monologue that describes how they should be moving forward. They talk about how trying to re-capture the past — like how New Babylon is attempting to rebuild the old world — is fruitless, and that surging towards the future, like howHershel and the Dama (Lisa Emery) envision it, is also misguided. They conclude that people need to work through their past in order to get to a future, staking claim to that middle ground compared to the rest of the cast. It’s the first time in the season that they are properly together as a united front and the monologue hints that they will finally work through their history and forge something new out of it,one that isn’t bogged down by stubborn hatred and overwhelming guilt.
Luckily, we don’t have to theorize too much, as executive producerScott M. Gimpleconfirmed duringan interview withEntertainment Weeklythat the monologue does indeed demarcate a hopeful turning point in Maggie and Negan’s relationship. “This bit felt like a very important emotional conclusion, that real change had finally been achieved between these two characters,” he explains. “That Maggie had gone to the very brink of extinguishing Negan. She didn’t.Negan had gone through a journeywhere he was forced to become something he really didn’t want to be. And I think there’s been a big, big change between the two of them and then within themselves.” Gimple further hints: “I think they’ll forever be in a better place.”
The finale sawNegan re-do his iconic line-up scene, in which Bruegel (Kim Coates) bites the dust (or chokes on the methane-fueled fire) and Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles) only manages to escape because Maggie quite literally stabs Negan in the back. However, upon seeing the pitiful form of Negan dragging himself on the floor, bemoaning the death of Ginny (Mahina Napoleon), Maggie decides to spare his life.Both characters reach the precipice of their personal extremes, paving the way for the change in themselves and their dynamicsas demonstrated in the final speech. It was a highly-anticipated moment for both of them, one we realize now was necessary for something to change, and it’s the hopefully permanent, concrete milestone the show sorely needed if it wants any sort of future.
AlthoughDead CitySeason 3 is yet to be confirmed, the only effective way forward for Maggie and Negan’s story is to have them together, as a genuine team. The end of Season 2 has the cast strictly divided on multiple fronts, with the second wave of the New Babylon army presenting one danger, and Hershel abandoning his mother in favor of the Dama on the other.Perlie, Maggie, and Negan are forced to work together after the fallout from the Manhattan battle, but it is the relationship between the latter two that will dictate the future of the show, given their shared history.
Also, Maggie and Negan are undeniably at the heart of the show, and, as previously mentioned, are the reason we started watching it in the first place.It is vital that they remain together for the foreseeable future, whether peace holds between them or not. Of course, we don’t expect them to becomethe new Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride), but their dynamics lay the foundation of the series' storytelling and themes.Dead Cityneeds to commit to the promise invoked in that final speech, where the two are on the same side, working together no matter how dramatically, and striving for a better future.
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.
