The Walking Dead: Dead City – Season 2 Episode 3 'Why Did the Mainlanders Cross the River?' Recap & Review

The Review Geek

19-05-2025

Episode 3
Episode 3 of The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 begins with a flashback to when Hershel is a captive. The Dama apologises to him for the torture. She gives him food, her own coat and even paper to draw on.
At present, the New Babylon survivors enter no man's land aka Central Park. Hershel is surprised as he notices a walker with no heart. A stranger watches him from afar.
Maggie wants to regroup and go back to the mainland but Lucia refuses. She plans to kill some of the Burazis, make some alliances and get the methane. They start crossing Central Park which has turned into a reedy field, full of walkers. Maggie panics as Hershel goes missing. He is surrounded by walkers but the stranger, a girl, saves him.
The Burazis spot them and set up a perimeter around Central Park. While they wait outside, the Croat offers Negan an olive branch. He knows Negan draws the line at hurting kids. So, instead of Negan, he will kill the kid from the boat…
As for Negan, he tries to sow discord between Croat and Dama. The Croat accepts that the Dama is cruel but claims she does it to bring out their potential. She also happened to be the one to save him. He claims he is doing the same thing to bring back the old Negan. Not getting anywhere, Negan offers to hunt down the survivors in the park. The Croat agrees but sends a Burazi, Waylen, with him.
Inside, the survivors, minus Hershel, regroup at Cafe Lake which has its own survivors, a tribe of foragers. The leader doesn't like the racket they are making but allows them to stay till they can escape. She even sends her people to look for Hershel.
Perlie tries to strike an alliance but she refuses. Maggie tells Perlie to back off and points out that New Babylon doesn't benefit anyone except New Babylon.
Meanwhile, Hershel draws a map to figure out his location. The paper he uses has a drawing of a futuristic Manhattan.
A flashback shows him drawing a dilapidated New York City and the Dama asks how he feels about it. He doesn't care about the old look and likes the way the city looks at present. Dama can relate. She brings up Negan but Hershel doesn't care. He is tired of his mom's obsession with Negan. This, too, the Dama sympathises with. She claims that Maggie isn't there for him, but she is. When she leaves, she doesn't lock the door.
At present, Waylen doesn't trust Negan and calls him a mainlander. Bad move as a bunch of walkers attack. Negan lets them bite Waylen who calls him a traitor.
Back in the cafe, Lucia tells Perlie that Maggie only cares about her family. They have to think about everyone. She insists that they have to convince the Foragers to join New Babylon for their sake.
Meanwhile, the strange girl, who is a forager, approaches Hershel. She is fascinated by his drawing and he befriends her. However, a heavily injured Waylen shows up and stabs the girl. Negan saves the kids by killing Waylen. Confused, Hershel tries to shoot him but Negan runs off.
Maggie hears the gunshot while looking for Hershel. She also sees a walker with no heart. Fortunately, the gunshot allows her and the foragers to find Hershel and the girl. As they arrive at the cafe, he notices blood splatter on the drawing.
Another flashback shows him trying to escape. A bunch of walkers attack and the Dama saves him. She takes him to an elevator room full of dark and gory art. She claims the room is for him and takes the lift to the top floor. She points to the view and explains that the island is an empty canvas. She can give him the power and he can remake it however he wants. He starts making his drawing of a futuristic Manhattan which is inspired by the view.
At present, Perlie offers medicines for the injured girl but the foragers refuse, opting for natural healing. The leader explains that they will continue the way they have, like nature intended. Lucia tries to take over since they are distracted but Perlie stops her.
Hershel and Maggie fight as she bombards him with questions about Negan. He lashes out when she is surprised by his apathy. He reasons that he doesn't care about Negan because she cares too much.
Instead, he focuses on the injured girl and gives her the drawing as comfort. The foragers loudly grieve as the leader kills her to put her out of her misery. Perlie and Maggie are emotional seeing how the foragers mourn the girl.
They take out her heart and give it to the walkers, suggesting a symbiotic relationship where they feed the walkers, who leave them alone and provide security from the Burazis. The dead girl turns into a walker and joins the park horde.
Meanwhile, Negan tells the Croat that there are no survivors. Waylen's death was an accident and the park is a death trap. Croat lets it go and calls off the search.
At the end of The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 Episode 3, Maggie sits with Hershel. She wants to understand his connection to Manhattan and he explains how it is broken and ignored. But since the dilapidation is over, it can reinvent itself. He likes the idea since he is constantly reminded of the past. He cannot get it back, so he simply wants to move on and reinvent himself.
In a flashback, Dama shares that to remake the city, they have to make sacrifices. She gives Hershel a new pencil for his drawing and they smile.
The Episode Review
The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 Episode 3 is a bit of a mixed bag. The stakes don't feel high for the moment. Especially with the way the survivors easily escape the Park Walkers. The main protagonists also have way too much plot armour for there to be any real stakes. And because of that, the show needs to take another route where, instead of putting them in mortal danger, they focus on emotional drama.
And that's where this episode shines, the human affairs. Hershel's existential crisis is finally revealed and so is his connection with Dama, why he is enraptured by her. As a teenage boy with an absent mother, he gets the next best thing with a motherly figure promising him power.
Then there is Negan's characterization which is very likely the biggest conflict as the writers need to resolve it to give him a justified closure. In this chapter, Croat talks about bringing back the old Negan.
With Waylen, it shows that there are no two Negans. While this spin-off may have shown how Negan's cruelty is performative, some of it is also just him. He is cruel because he is selfish; he lets one person die so he can save another. He also does it because Waylen is a threat to him. Sounds just like the many members of Rick's group.
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