Dead City Season 2 Needs To Be The End Of The Whole Thing

Spoilers ahead for The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1

The Walking Dead franchise has been turning survivors into walkers for over a decade, but it’s time for Maggie and Negan’s The Walking Dead: Dead City to wrap up. The spin-off, starring Lauren Cohan as Maggie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan, is nearing its natural narrative peak, and Season 2 should serve as its definitive conclusion. With Maggie’s arc poised for resolution and Negan’s past coming full circle, stretching the story further risks dragging it into redundancy. The upcoming season presents a perfect opportunity to close the book on their complex relationship while delivering a satisfying ending for fans.

With the looming presence of The Dama (Lisa Emery) threatening Maggie’s son and extorting Negan, the show has raised the stakes higher than ever. However, many fans have felt as though the drawn-out back and forth of Maggie and Negan’s rivalry-alliance is getting dangerously close to overstaying its welcome. Rather than prolonging the tension indefinitely, Dead City should bring the story to an impactful conclusion — allowing the great storytelling of The Walking Dead to guide them.

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Maggie’s Struggle to Let Go

Maggie’s character arc revolves around her inability to forgive Negan for murdering her husband, Glenn (Steven Yeun), in the original series’ seventh season. However, Dead City introduced an interesting shift: Maggie actually seeks Negan out. Throughout Season 1, she manipulates the reformed Negan into coming to Manhattan to help her rescue her son Hershel (Logan Kim), only to ultimately betray him by handing him over to the Croat (Željko Ivanek) and, subsequently, The Dama.

The Season 1 finale attempts to even the playing field between the two characters, with Maggie’s betrayal serving as her long-sought revenge. With this clean slate, Season 2 has the perfect opportunity for Maggie to confront her own demons, let go, and forgive. She will likely want to prove to her son, Herschel, that she isn’t a ruthless villain by making things right and saving Negan, who has been atoning for his wrongdoings since the original series. If she rescues him, it would mark the closing of a chapter.

Maggie will likely continue to confront her feelings surrounding Negan throughout the upcoming season. However, the addition of guilt over her betrayal and the realization that she is heading down the same path Negan was on could push her toward redemption. It’s also possible that she will step further into her role as a formidable leader and kill The Dama — perhaps even using a version of Negan’s bat, Lucille, which was used to kill her husband — in a full-circle moment.

Whether she reaches complete forgiveness and reconciles with Negan or not, Maggie letting go of Glenn’s ghost and moving forward will be a pivotal moment for her character. If Season 2 allows her to move past her own pain and anger, it could be the natural conclusion of her arc, which the show has been exploring for over ten seasons.

Negan’s Redemption and Facing Himself

Negan has spent years trying to change. Yet, the finale of Dead City Season 1 introduced a tragic twist: The Dama sees him as the perfect leader for her new world. She essentially asks him to return to his former ruthless self, even threatening to harm Maggie’s son Hershel if he does not comply. The episode “Doma Smo” left him at a crossroads, trapped in the same cycle he’s fought so long to escape.

This dilemma will put Negan into a pressure cooker that forces him to confront rather than escape or deny his past. The creators have hinted at the return of his old weapon of choice, the barbed-wire bat Lucille, in some capacity. Whether in a dream, hallucination, or physical recreation, the bat will likely symbolize the temptation to fall into his old ways. This also means that he will have the chance to conquer his past once and for all and sacrifice himself in some capacity — proving to Maggie and Hershel in his selflessness that he has truly changed since Glenn’s gruesome murder.

While many fans have argued that Negan’s character can never truly be redeemed, it would be a poor writing decision to let this storyline continue much further. Having now saved Hershel’s life on more than one occasion, there is not much more he can do to prove himself aside from the ultimate sacrifice. Whether he is redeemed in the eyes of Maggie or the audience or even fails altogether, his journey will come to some kind of head when he is forced to face his demons once and for all.

Thus far, Dead City has done a great job showing how far Negan has come, but there’s only so much more ground to cover before his story starts feeling repetitive. Ending with a final, decisive act would cement his redemption and prevent his character from stagnating.

The Dama’s Death As the Grand Finale

Lisa Emery’s reveal as The Dama was one of the most compelling moments of Season 1, but her reign of terror can’t last forever. A villain as powerful as her needs to be defeated in a way that matters. Whether it’s Maggie, Negan, or someone else, The Dama’s death needs to happen in Season 2 for the story to reach a satisfying conclusion.

The show could tackle The Dama’s ending in a few ways:

• Maggie kills The Dama and saves Negan, proving herself a force to be reckoned with who is also capable of growth and forgiveness.
• Negan executes The Dama but refuses to take her place, solidifying that he’s changed and desires to move past the brutal tribal wars of the post-apocalypse.
• Hershel steps up and kills The Dama, potentially to protect his mother or to repay Negan for saving him and positioning himself to become an active character in the franchise.

In the event that they do not kill The Dama, a potential twist ending could see her left alive but powerless — perhaps a fate worse than death, just as Maggie left a suicidal Negan in his cell to rot. Doing so would indeed create an opportunity for The Dama to have her own arc in a later season, but it would also open an endless loop of villain redemption arcs that would get old fast.

A Third Season of Dead City Could Hurt the Franchise

The Walking Dead universe has suffered from unnecessary extensions before, including Fear the Walking Dead, which faced fan fatigue during its eight-season run. Some even think the original series overstayed its welcome beyond Season 7. The longer a show lingers past its natural endpoint, the more it risks losing its impact. As seen with franchises like Star Wars or the MCU, putting out a higher quantity of content at the expense of quality can dilute the value of the IP and make audiences less interested.

With Maggie and Negan’s character arcs both nearing their natural conclusions, there is an opportunity for The Walking Dead: Dead City to stop while it’s ahead and leave audiences wanting more. The saga of these two unlikely allies and their intertwined fates could be cemented as one of the best Walking Dead spinoffs if it sticks the landing. However, if the creators choose to keep the series going as a cash grab, they will risk the show losing steam, losing viewers, and further dimming the light of The Walking Dead universe.

The Walking Dead

Release Date

2010 – 2022

Network

AMC

Showrunner

Frank Darabont, Angela Kang, Scott M. Gimple, Glen Mazzara

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