‘The Walking Dead: Dead City' Boss Breaks Down That Maggie-Negan Game-Changing Choice in Season 2 Finale
Almost a decade ago, The Walking Dead took a baseball bat to its sprawling ensemble and changed the course of the show forever. Hard as it is to believe, Steven Yeun's Glenn was smashed out of the story all the way back in 2016. Nearly 10 years on, Lauren Cohan's Maggie has yet to satisfy vengeance against Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the man who giddily beat her husband to death. At long last, Maggie finally had Negan dead to rights in the season two finale of The Walking Dead: Dead City, the spinoff show starring these two blood-crossed rivals — and just as she got up at bat, she decided to walk away from the plate.
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Sunday night's Dead City finale, titled 'If History Were a Conflagration,' sees Negan deciding to go full heel in order to defeat Bruegel (Kim Coates), the franchise's newest psychopath, in a battle for supremacy over the post-apocalyptic New York City. Both men are vying for control over a game-changing supply of methane produced by walkers that could power the city back online.
Maggie, meanwhile, is tasked by the Dama (Lisa Emery) with finding and assassinating Negan so she can finally move on from her decades-long grudge. With her son Hershel (Logan Kim) spurring her on, Maggie takes on the assignment, and even makes it as far as stabbing Negan in the back — only to suffer a crisis of conscience, realizing killing the man won't bring Glenn back, and finally accepting that the only way to move forward is to truly let go and find peace with Negan.
If anyone thought Maggie would actually go through with killing Negan then good, showrunner Eli Jorné and team did their job. But killing the character off was never truly on the table — according to executive producer Scott M. Gimple, who oversees the Walking Dead franchise in its many iterations.
'We wanted you on the edge of your seat,' he tells The Hollywood Reporter. But ultimately, he says, this Walking Dead spinoff series is 'as much about Negan as it is about Maggie.'
According to Gimple, the story choice boils down to wanting to find a new iteration of Negan and Maggie who can finally set aside their past and move forward toward a future where New York actually stands a chance of returning to civilization. 'For these two characters, if keeping Negan alive is holding on, is killing him actually letting go? I like how this goes right up to the edge of that choice, almost like it's A Christmas Carol, where she's all-but killed him, and has found that it's not fulfilling the journey she's been on for herself — the journey of who she was and who she's becoming.
'This has been a very long story,' he adds. 'It's been years and years that we've seen Maggie and Negan in this cycle. Maggie has been completely and totally justified in her hate and anger and trauma, but for the audience, we've been watching her live with that for so long. It's been eight years [of real time], and I want to see Maggie surmount this thing and evolve from it.'
While a third season of Dead City has not yet been announced, Gimple ensures that any future stories told about Negan and Maggie won't be overly friendly now that the two have buried the hatchet.
'They're not going to be skipping and holding hands,' he says, 'but hate is corrosive to the person hating, and I think that's what this season portrayed. It's not necessarily sunshine and rainbows, but I do think this is a happy ending.'
Maggie ends the season finding resolution with Negan. But her son? Not as much.
Hershel is deeply disappointed in his mother's choice, and decides to stick with the Dama, the deadly woman who continues to corrupt the late Glenn's teenage son. Here, Maggie makes another choice, deciding to let Hershel follow his own path for the time being.
'It's funny to think about it this way, but this situation boils down to being a very difficult parenting decision,' says Gimple. 'It's kind of like letting your kid go off and follow a jam band. 'I don't approve of this, but it's your choice.' It's an enormous amount of faith Maggie's putting in Hershel at the end here. If she had killed Negan, maybe she'd get to have a relationship with her son right now. But if she had killed Negan, would she still be herself? And if not, what does that relationship with her son look like? It's complicated stuff.'
How will Maggie and Negan, and even Maggie and Hershel, navigate the new turns in their relationships? Again, Gimple won't confirm a third season of Dead City just yet, but he does think about what the future holds for these characters.
'Where do they go from here? What do these choices mean, and what kinds of stories help us harness that relationship, that challenge, that showcase their new dynamics?' he asks. 'The last two seasons featured a dynamic that's now concluded [with Maggie and Negan settling their score]. Now, it's time to show you something different.'
***
Walking Dead: Dead City season two is now available via AMC and AMC Plus.
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