'The Walking Dead: Dead City' Finally Justifies Its Existence With a Stellar Season 3 | Review

When AMC's The Walking Dead was at its peak, the series could do no wrong. As has been discussed so many times, the show seemed to fall off a cliff thanks to too many character deaths and survivors who did nothing but mope around. Still, the universe The Walking Dead created was popular enough to lead to several spin-offs, the most intriguing of which was The Walking Dead: Dead City. Unlike others, which paired characters who loved each other, The Walking Dead: Dead City forces bitter enemies Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to become reluctant allies. After a pretty good first season, Season 2 was more disappointing, but not only is the third time around vastly better, it's the best season of any Walking Dead spin-off. At the end of The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2, Hershel (Logan Kim) is being manipulated by the Dama (Lisa Emery). Maggie stops trying to persuade her son to leave and instead decides to stay in New York City so she can remain close to him. Meanwhile, Negan has just lost Ginny (Mahina Napoleon), and after Maggie finally stabs him, she can't bring herself to put him down forever. Although you'd be forgiven for expecting another paint-by-numbers season of a bickering Negan and Maggie battling new and old villains in the Big Apple, the series' writers must have heard certain complaints, because Season 3 shakes everything up. The Dama is one of the franchise's weakest villains, and although she's still around, she's no longer the threat she once was. The Croat (Zeljko Ivanek) is barely around too, and that's refreshing. Creating a new big bad every year for Walking Dead heroes to face got old a long, long time ago. When Negan and Maggie meet brother and sister Luis (Raul Castillo) and Renta (Aimee Garcia), it seems like viewers are in for more of the same with another group of thinly written protagonists for our heroes to save. While The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 does start this way, it becomes so much more than a story about good guys vs. bad guys. Now, it's time for everyone to come together and rebuild a crumbling city. A show can't succeed without a reason for the audience to care. Season 1 of The Walking Dead: Dead City delivered with Maggie needing Negan's help to save Hershel, but Season 2 failed by repeating the same setup. Season 3, however, wakes up from a dead slumber and returns to the strengths that both the actors and longtime fanbase deserve. The walkers are more of a background consideration, which could've resulted in a boring story, but The Walking Dead: Dead City makes up for it by pivoting from a horror series to a fascinating drama. Season newcomers Renata and Luis are ready to build a new world; they've made it this far, and they want their people to survive. Maggie believes in the same dream — as does Negan, even if he'll never admit it out loud. The best shot of the entire season is one where the decaying torch of the Statue of Liberty is turned back on, but a crucial question still lingers: how do you restart the world in a crumbling city that has become a danger to live in? Decaying buildings and caved-in streets are as much of a threat as the undead. The Walking Dead: Dead City's new characters are welcome additions to the season. Renata becomes a great friend for Maggie, while her brother, Luis, gives Maggie someone to confide in. As she does, one of her biggest emotional dilemmas revolves around whether she can let go of Glenn (Steven Yeun) and move on, adding a new dimension to her character. Negan also evolves through the forging of a new friendship with Dillard (Jimmi Simpson), a former cop now living in a bar, where he serves restrained walkers as a means of survival in a lonely world. Regardless of any new developments in Season 3, The Walking Dead: Dead City is still about the relationship between Maggie and Negan, and its strengths are even more obvious when reflecting on what a disservice Season 2 was to the lead characters. All Maggie did was cry about Glenn and Hershel siding with the Dama, while Negan was stripped of all his charisma. By contrast, Season 3 infuses the world of the undead with more life again. Hershel returns and finds his own way to contribute to this new world. Negan is now free to pursue his own goals, but still chooses to stay close to Maggie, and not just out of guilt for the past. While the season never goes as far as embracing a series-destroying romance, it does acknowledge that these are simply two people who are ready to put everything aside and live. Maggie and Negan are each other's fate, and accepting this is what ultimately brings them closer. It marks a nice change of pace from the hate that always lay under the surface. More than once, Negan ponders what it would have been like if he and Maggie had met in another lifetime, which results in The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 imagining a pre-apocalypse world, heartbreaking cameo from the original series included. Given these happy moments, you might think that the series must be losing the edge it once had, but those fears should be put aside. In fact, The Walking Dead: Dead City's only misstep comes toward the end of the season, when the story tries to force another big bad that ultimately doesn't work. What does work, however, is Negan getting his groove back, walking very close to the edge of his old self in the process. It's terrifying for the characters who are just getting to know him and raises the stakes in surprising ways. A fourth season of The Walking Dead: Dead City has yet to be announced. If the series ends here, it's a fitting conclusion, but if it returns, Season 3 confirms the right path forward, moving away from tired formulas and trying something different while also refocusing on the best traits of its leads. The Walking Dead: Dead City is no longer shambling around like a rotting walker. With Season 3, it comes back to life in the best way possible. The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 premieres July 26 on AMC.