As we approach the beginning of the end for Dead City, we find that Episode 5 is a mine field of confessions, twists and a very real sensation that the Walking Dead spin-off may not quite be the contained mini-series we were led to believe it was, as enough new revelations flood from the script to make wrapping everything up neatly potentially impossible. I’m not going to lie, as every new admission and shift in the status quo revealed themselves as the vision of a chilling new future manifested itself in my mind – that of The Walking Dead ending after eleven seasons only to be reborn as three completely separate new series that also doesn’t know when to quit.
Still, until such a future comes to pass, Dead City’s fifth installment is still keeping the show spluttering along, using the same old tricks to diluted effect as the show continues to muddy the waters of right and wrong to potentially ridiculous degrees.
When we last left Maggie and the tribespeople, they’d infiltrated Madison Square Garden in order to get the drop on the villainous Croat, liberate Manhattan island from his clutches and rescue Maggie’s son, Hershel who’s kidnapping got this whole shebang rolling. However, despite formulating a plan that saw Negan try to lure put his past protege, it turns out that some backstabbing was afoot as the Croat has laid a trap for them that sees the iconic structure swarming with Walkers and a hopelessly overrun Maggie lead Ginny, Tommaso and Amaia lead them to try to escape by one of the most dangerous routes imaginable: the New York City sewers.
Meanwhile, Negan is having his hands full with Perlie, the Babylon City Marshal sent to bring him in for murders other than the ones we know. Torn between trying to help the wounded lawman and bolting at the first opportunity, Negan figures that if he hangs around, maybe he can convince the steadfast marshal that things aren’t quite as black and white as they may first appear and as time goes on, Perlie soon begins to open up about his personal life and the link he has with New York.
Elsewhere, the Croat pulls up to a location (that seems to be Broadway) in order to have a meeting with a mysterious woman known as the Dama who’s existence surprisingly hints that the guy we thought was pulling the strings may, in fact, be lower down the food chain than we initially thought. Ether way, the order is clear as day: get Negan.
Back in the sewers, Maggie and co. are having to deal with some earth shattering revelations themselves as Maggie figures out that the Croat only knew they were coming because Tomasso told him while Ginny knows the true reason Maggie had convinced Negan to join her on this ill-fated rescue mission.
After something of a deliberate pace that’s sort of been stuck in second gear, Dead City uses it penultimate episode as an excuse to shift a sizable log jam in the various plot threads and dump a ton of previously hidden motivations on us in an attempt to spark up some much needed excitement. Thus we find out that no less than four characters are clinging on to withheld information that changes the landscape of the show and surely the most surprising is the reveal that the Croat actually has to answer to a woman by the name of the Dama who also has some sort of desire to ensnare Negan as all their mysterious plans seem to hinge on possibly recruiting him back into the fold as a despotic, uber baddie. While its genuinely surprising to see that the Croat isn’t at the peak of the New York chopping order, it does sort of make you wonder why the show bothered with him at all if, in fact, there was yet another arch villain waiting in the wings. Maybe if the show had hinted that there was a scale of villainy in the first place, maybe it wouldn’t have been so damaging to the character, but as a result, the Croat now seems far less imposing than he once was and even then, he was a fuzzy photocopy of Walking Dead baddies gone by.
Elsewhere, Maggie conveniently figures out that it was Tomasso who gave up the tribespeople to the Croat in order to guarantee a safe future for Amaia… or something. To be fair, his motivations don’t make a hell of a lot of logical sense as he also claims that he thought the people he betrayed might get a lighter deal from the Croat despite the fact that it was the Croat who tortured him in cold blood in the first place. Sure, Tomasso could just be blurting out panicked lies in order to make himself seem less horrible, but the way the whole thing is handled is fairly representative of the lazily scripted twists that brought The Walking Dead so low in its later years. Also, the fact that both Tomasso and Amaia are killed soon after makes the whole thing a moot point, with the whole scene straining to feel far more deeper than it actually is.
Similarly, despite some fine acting, the bonding scene between Jeffery Dean Morgan’s Negan and Gaius Charles is fairly colour-by-numbers when trying to enforces the overarching shades-of-grey themes that’s supposedly driving the show. However, the tools the show is using are annoyingly simple, especially considering that a man of the law who has been operating in a zombie apocalypse for many years would suddenly question his entire outlook on life because of Negan of all people. Also, if the “bad guys arent truly bad” schtick made sense, how do you explain the Croat, or the Governor, or Alpha? It’s interesting to add human traits to your villains, just as much is it is to add darker streaks to a good guy’s moral code, but if the show continues to bend over backwards in order to keep making excuses for it’s most endearing anti-hero, it just may break it’s back.
Thankfully, it’s Maggie who manages to keep things on the tracks by having a secret that not only makes sense, but is played pretty damn well too. You see, the Croat’s men didn’t steal any grain from the Bricks and the didn’t kidnap Hershel out of spite either; no, it’s Negan that Maggie needs to get her son back and it suddenly explains not only why she would seek him out to help, but it also nicely spells out why Ginny left the safety of the Bricks to start with – because she found out. On top of a revelation that finally feels genuine, we also manage to get our most memorable Walker moment of the season so far with the introduction of the “Walker King”, a multi-armed, multi-headed creature that’s been formed by a quartet of the living dead becoming fused together to create an awesome beast. Yes, it gets taken down rather easily and yes, its strongly reminiscent of the multi-limbed Marauder that showed up in the final moments of Evil Dead Rise, but the fact that the show has tried to do something funky with the Walkers at all should be commended.
With only a single episode left to go, if Dead City actually manages to end cleanly, with all of its threads accounted for, I’ll eat my moldy, zombified hat, but as it stands, it’s going to have to work hard if it’s to succeed stopping Dead City being ultimately another dead end.
🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 