TWD: Dead City's Season 2 Premiere Returns Negan to Villainy and Brings In a New Version of [Spoiler]
The Season 2 premiere of The Walking Dead: Dead City Sunday seemed like old times — almost.
Negan, with a schmancy new Lucille in hand courtesy of fanboy The Croat, put on a helluva show to shock and awe Manhattan's three warring gangs (leaders of which included Kim Coates' Bruegel and Jake Weary's Christos). The reformed baddie's goal? To convince the enemies to band together with The Dama's forces to fight off the New Babylon Federation.
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But, and it's an important 'but,' the Saviors' former leader wasn't being a cocksure menace again just for s—ts and giggles, as he once might have. Though knowing what a badass Maggie is, he was no longer worried about Hershel and his toes, Negan stepped up as ordered by The Dama for fear of what she would do to his wife Annie and son Joshua. (The Dama apparently knows all, including the whereabouts of Negan's family.)
Now, if I may digress for a moment, I'd like to give Jeffrey Dean Morgan's polarizing character some credit. We were told that a year had passed since the Season 1 finale, and in that time, Negan had been locked up in a cell, which had driven him crazy on the mothership. Not only that, but he was being fed an unsteady diet of cockroaches. Dunno about you, but I probably would've folded on day one when I found out that Negan's violinist friend couldn't play 'Good Luck, Babe.'
MEANWHILE, AT THE BRICKS | Elsewhere, Maggie's new community was rocked by the arrival of New Babylon governor Charlie Byrd and her marshals, who were quick to demonstrate what happened to civilians who tried to avoid being drafted into going on an exploratory mission to 'bring back Manhattan.' (Poor dude was still hanging at the end of the episode.) Perlie — who'd been made a colonel after lying that he'd killed Negan — tried to sell Bricks residents on the idea of resurrecting the city. But none of them were as dumb as… well, bricks.
Alone with Perlie, Maggie struck a bargain: She'd accompany his group to NYC so long as none of her people went unless they did so voluntarily. Cue Ginny insisting on going. She even pulled out the classic 'You're not my mother!' to settle the matter. At least Hershel listened when Maggie refused to let him return to the island. Or he listened for a hot second. Obsessing over his drawings of The Dama and the city, it was obvious where he was headed.
Why not, really? He had mastered that knife-throwing trick at last.
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After you grade the premiere below, answer me this: Did anyone else think that during Maggie and Ginny's 'assessment,' the walkers that cornered the young girl didn't seem terribly interested in biting her? Or at all interested?
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