The Ending Of The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1 Explained

"The Walking Dead" is over, but the "Walking Dead" universe lives on. "The Walking Dead: Dead City" is the first miniseries of this new era of the franchise, and it brings back some of the original series' best characters. Stars Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan both reprise their roles as Maggie and Negan, two mortal enemies who are forced to work together in a new, dangerous environment.

The new show takes place several years after the end of the original series and raises all sorts of questions about the "Walking Dead" timeline. From New Babylon to the survivors of New York, "Dead City" introduces an array of factions and characters with conflicting motivations that are sure to fuel zombie-adjacent battles for years to come. The show is easy enough to follow even if you didn't keep up with the main series, in part because it's so forward-facing.

As much as "Dead City" tries to be entertaining on its own, it also puts a huge amount of energy into setting up the future of the franchise. There's plenty for diehard fans to enjoy and spend time theorizing about, and there might even be enough fresh elements in the show to get new fans on board. If you want to know what's next for "The Walking Dead," then you need to start with the end of "Dead City."

The opening episode of "Dead City" is a flurry of activity. As the show begins, Hershel (Logan Kim) has already been kidnapped by the Croat (Zeljko Ivanek), and Maggie is busy planning her approach to New York City. Meanwhile, Negan finds himself back in a familiar position. He's wanted for murder by the marshals of New Babylon — a government that we haven't seen before now. Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) is an orphan traveling with Negan. She hasn't spoken since finding her father's reanimated corpse, but she and Negan seem to have struck up a deep, trusting relationship.

Maggie finds Negan and explains that the Croat stole all of her people's food and took off with her son as a hostage. The Croat just so happens to be a former member of the Saviors, and Maggie wants Negan's help tracking him down. Ginny agrees to stay with Maggie's people at a settlement called the Bricks while Maggie and Negan go to save Hershel. The two of them head toward New York, but the marshals, led by Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles), are in hot pursuit. 

Once in the city, Maggie and Negan connect with a group of local survivors who have been tormented by the Croat and his people. They all come up with a plan to attack the Croat that should get everyone what they want, but, as is often the case in the "Walking Dead" universe, the plan doesn't go smoothly.

Back at the Bricks, Ginny decides that she's done waiting around for Negan to return, so she heads to New York City on her own. Maggie stumbles into proof — in the form of a green, stuffed dinosaur — that Ginny is in the city, which puts her in an uncomfortable position. Maggie decides to tell Negan nothing, in part because she's actually been lying to him since the very beginning of the show.

But before Maggie's biggest lie comes to light, one of her new friends in the city betrays the entire group. When the attack on the Croat begins, everyone walks into a trap. Maggie and Ginny make it out alive, but Negan is separated from the rest of the group. He ends up helping an injured Perlie make it out of the city alive. When Negan and Maggie finally catch up, she comes clean about what's really going on: The Croat never attacked her people, he just kidnapped Hershel to get Maggie to deliver Negan to New York.

Negan isn't thrilled, but he lets himself be traded for Hershel. At that point he finds out that the Croat isn't really in charge of the city. Negan meets a woman called the Dama (Lisa Emery) who runs things from behind the scenes. She wants Negan to become the brutal leader he once was and to take charge of the survivors in New York before an inevitable attack from New Babylon. Negan is just beginning to consider her offer when the season closes out.

Though "Dead City" barely puts New Babylon on screen, the government still has a massive impact on the story. Negan is wanted for breaking New Babylon's laws, and he spends almost the entire show being pursued by Perlie, one of New Babylon's marshals. The Dama and the Croat only go after Negan because they think that New York needs a strong leader to protect its people and resources from the threat of New Babylon.

In other words, if New Babylon didn't exist, there wouldn't be a show called "Dead City." Because of that, it's odd how little the show even tells us about New Babylon. We don't know where it came from, how long it's been around, or who's in charge of the government there. We know that the community has an extensive list of laws because Perlie quotes articles and subsections, but we hardly know what any of those laws are, or what purposes they really serve.

Any "Walking Dead" fan who's fully up-to-date with the franchise knows that post-apocalyptic governments are rarely as benevolent as they present themselves to be. The fact that a new one has popped up shouldn't be all that surprising, but it likely isn't a good sign for our beloved characters. There's a good chance that New Babylon has already encountered and caused problems for our friends back in the Commonwealth, and even if it hasn't, conflict between the two communities is probably inevitable.

Perlie really doesn't have it easy in "Dead City," but at least some of his misfortune is probably due to a buildup of bad karma. Early in the show, Perlie reveals himself as a no-nonsense lawman who's willing to dole out brutal consequences to anyone who disobeys New Babylon's rules. Most crimes, it seems, are punishable by death. Perlie's ferocious commitment to enforcing the law is what drives him to chase Negan all the way to New York City.

By the end of the show, Perlie has started to rethink his moral positioning. His pursuit of Negan leads to the death of several other marshals, and almost gets him killed, too. New York isn't safe at all, and Perlie would have been killed by either walkers or the Croat's people if Negan didn't choose to help him get to safety.

On their way out of the city, Perlie talks to Negan about his crisis of conscience. He used to think that right and wrong were easy to see, but now he's beginning to wonder if everything is just varying shades of gray. Perlie is really learning a lesson that people like Rick and Negan learned a long time ago. People are complicated, and the apocalypse has only made them even harder to understand. Everyone wants what's best for themselves, but no one can agree on what that is. There may be a bigger conflict coming, but it's not so obvious anymore where Perlie will stand when it arrives.

"Dead City" takes place several years after the end of the main "Walking Dead" series. In that time Hershel has grown up quite a bit, and he's clearly absorbed his mom's tough-as-nails attitude. The first time he shows up in the new series, he stares down the Croat and says he won't answer any questions, even under the threat of torture.

As the season progresses, we get some deeper insight into who Hershel is now, and he might not be as callous as he tries to appear. When he was still at the Bricks, Hershel was less interested in training with weapons than working on his own drawings. He's also reached the peak of his teenage years, which means maximum parental angst has been unleashed. Hershel and Maggie were butting heads well before the Croat showed up, and by the end of the show it's obvious that one more life-and-death scenario has done little to improve their relationship.

After Maggie finally rescues her son, he accuses her of being more interested in getting revenge on Negan than in saving him. That isn't exactly true, but it's a sign that Maggie's unhealed trauma has inadvertently damaged her relationship with her son. Since Hershel didn't live through those painful early years of the zombie apocalypse, he has a wildly different view of the world. He and Maggie have some work to do together if they want to get their relationship back on track.

Through most of "Dead City," Maggie and Negan have a semi-antagonistic relationship that may have fans of the original series scratching their heads. Season 11 of "The Walking Dead" previously forced Maggie and Negan to work together, and at the end of the season it really seemed that the two of them had come to an uneasy understanding. Negan wasn't about to be Maggie's new bestie, but she at least seemed content to let him live out his life.

"Dead City" somewhat resets their relationship, but it's possible that whatever happened in between the two series put "Kill Negan" back on Maggie's list of priorities. Even though Negan doesn't realize that Maggie intends on trading him to the Croat for Hershel, from the very beginning he seems resigned to sacrificing himself to make up for what he's done in the past. That changes somewhat after he learns that Maggie lied to him not only about the real reason she needed him to come to New York but also about Ginny's arrival in the city. Still he goes along with Maggie's plan to save Hershel.

Does that mean all debts are repaid? Have Maggie and Negan actually put their blood feud to bed? That seems like a genuine possibility. They're always going to have trouble trusting each other, but this time around everyone might have learned something about forgiveness — at least until the next time "The Walking Dead" needs Maggie and Negan to hate each other for dramatic tension.

Put down the pitchforks. We aren't here to be villain apologists. There's no denying that the Croat is evil. It's not just that he kills and tortures people; many fan-favorite characters from "The Walking Dead" have done similar things from time to time. What sets the Croat apart is that he so clearly enjoys causing pain in others. The Croat's sadism is what makes him a villain.

However, there's also a certain logic to most of what the Croat does. He doesn't hurt people on a whim but as a means of getting answers, securing power, or reinforcing established rules. It's also worth noting that the Croat doesn't want power for its own sake. Like Negan many years ago, he has a real interest in protecting his people. The Croat actually takes things one step further than Negan did back in the days of Sanctuary: He has a vision for the future that would give everyone in New York City a safe and sustainable life.

If the Croat sees his plan through to fruition, New York will be completely transformed. He knows how to generate power for the city, giving people access to luxuries that haven't been seen since before the walkers first emerged. The majority of people in New York would have their lives radically improved by the Croat's master plan. Unfortunately, the minority would be essentially sacrificed to the Croat's most sadistic urges, and for that alone, he has to be stopped.

"Dead City" plays a fast one on its viewers. From the beginning, the Croat is set up as the show's big bad. He kidnaps Hershel, and he's the one tormenting anyone in New York who isn't part of his group. He's a terrifying, larger-than-life villain, and he's also a brilliant scientist who's found a way to harness the methane that's trapped in the city's sewers. The natural assumption is that the Croat is calling the shots for his people, but near the end of the season, "Dead City" reveals that this isn't the truth at all.

It turns out that the Croat is actually second-in-command. A mysterious woman known as the Dama is actually in charge of the Croat and his motorcycle helmet-wearing cronies. The show doesn't reveal very many hard facts about the Dama, but she seems to have a slightly different vision of New York's future than the Croat. In fact, she acts like she's only tolerating the Croat because of his scientific expertise.

The Dama controls the Croat from the shadows, and at the end of the show, we learn that she wants the same power over Negan. The Dama has heard the Croat's stories about Negan's glory days, and she's the one who really wanted Negan brought to the city. She wants Negan to be the figurehead leading her people, and she anticipates a war with New Babylon. Beyond that, her real motives are one big question mark.

Over the past 13 years, "The Walking Dead" has gone through multiple evolutions and become something that fans back in 2010 never expected. "Dead City" is a continuation of the original series, but it's also another point of evolution in more ways than one. The characters have changed, but so has the real world and the audience that enjoys the franchise.

Sitting down with Collider, "The Walking Dead" universe executive producer Scott Gimple talked about how "Dead City" connects to our modern world. Maggie and Negan being forced to work together makes for great drama, but the tension of the show reaches outside of the screen, too. "To tell you the truth, it's the kind of story that I think actually is an incredible utility to the audience nowadays and one that they can relate to," Gimple said. Exploring how people with different points of view can still work together is always valuable, but it's especially worthwhile in polarized times.

In that same interview, showrunner Eli Jorné talked about how themes from the original series are still being developed in "Dead City." Jorné said that the entire franchise has always tried to present heroes and villains as fully three-dimensional human beings. "Dead City" is no different, and instead of seeing clear-cut good guys and bad guys, Jorné said, "You're gonna find a lot of gray messiness, in the best way."

Maggie is one of the most beloved characters in "The Walking Dead" franchise, and that wouldn't be the case without Lauren Cohan. Over the years, Cohan has given her all to the character, and it's hard to imagine any other actor making Maggie as compelling. It makes sense that Maggie is the first character to get a spin-off show now that the main series has ended, but even though many years have passed in-universe since the end of "The Walking Dead," Maggie is still fighting the same demons.

If anything, Maggie's internal struggles have only become more pronounced in "Dead City." In an interview with Shondaland, Cohan got right to the heart of what is happening with her character. "What we see of Maggie's life when we first meet her again is a really frayed existence," Cohan said. Maggie has been focusing on pure survival for so long that she's somewhat lost touch with her ability to do anything but fight.

In "Dead City" Maggie is literally fighting her way back to Hershel, but she's also trying to break down the emotional barriers that stand between her and her son. "I want that closeness, I want that relationship, but there are these concrete blocks in my heart that are making connection almost impossible," Cohan said. Partnering with Negan is the first step Maggie needs to take to remove those concrete blocks, but her adventure in "Dead City" alone might not be enough to entirely clear the way.

"The Walking Dead" franchise is bigger than ever. The main series has splintered into a number of miniseries, but those smaller shows are going to give fans the widest view of this zombie-centric world yet. If "Dead City" is anything to judge by, the upcoming miniseries will definitely hold onto the DNA that made the original show enduringly popular.

"Dead City" proved that "The Walking Dead" still has some life in it, and it also set the stage for plenty of conflicts yet to come. Now fans are dying to see what the relationship between New Babylon and the Commonwealth is. There's inevitably going to be a war in New York over the city's near-infinite supply of methane gas. A number of new characters, factions, and locations have all been introduced, and future miniseries will absolutely be able to expand on them.

Fans can also expect to see Maggie and Negan back in fighting form in the near future. "Dead City" has already been renewed for a second season, though it will likely be a while before that season officially arrives on AMC. In the meantime, fans will be able to catch up with Daryl, Michonne, and Rick Grimes himself in shows like "Daryl Dixon" and "The Ones Who Live." The universe is growing, but no matter where our favorite characters go next, one thing's for certain: trouble will follow.