The Walking Dead: Dead City – Season 2 Review

Let’s start by showing yall the trailers shall we?

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Non-Spoiler Rundown:

Season 2 of Dead City dives deeper into trauma, betrayal, and redemption — or at least the illusion of it. The Croat is no longer the center of evil this time; the real threat is emotional baggage. Maggie (Lauren Cohan) is still haunted by the past, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is trying to outrun it, and newcomer Marshal Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles) finds himself awkwardly navigating both.

The plot has evolved from the basic rescue-mission formula of Season 1 to a more tangled web of shifting alliances, moral ambiguity, and psychological warfare. New Babylon has entered the picture, the Dama is not as dead as previously believed, and Negan is still figuring out how to not make things worse despite his every step being a trigger for someone.

Season 2 goes heavy on character moments, slow-burn tension, and moody atmosphere. The action is still there — and so is the gore — but the real fight is internal.


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🧟 Character Rundown:

Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) – Still carrying trauma and anger, Maggie continues her obsessive tug-of-war over whether Negan deserves redemption or execution. Season 2 deepens her emotional unraveling as her dynamic with her son Hershel deteriorates, and her hatred for Negan consumes everything else.

Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) – A deeply broken man in this season. Haunted by guilt and loss, especially over Ginna, Negan ends up in a morally grey space that leans darker by the finale. He’s no longer trying to earn forgiveness—he’s trying to survive what’s left of his soul.

Hershel Rhee (Logan Kim) – Maggie’s teenage son, who is fed up with her obsession over Negan. Season 2 explores his resentment and his strange alliance with The Dama, which pushes him away from his mother and into increasingly dangerous territory.

Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles) – The marshal with a complicated sense of justice. He’s reluctantly aligned with Maggie and Negan now, but keeps questioning what justice even means anymore in a world where the rules no longer apply.

Also, this season he’s given vaguely anything to do, he’s just there.

The Dama (Lisa Emery) –  She plays a key role in corrupting Hershel emotionally and philosophically, using her psychological grip to control others.

The Croat (Željko Ivanek) – Surprisingly returns and for once seems like a reluctant ally, helping Maggie under the condition of self-preservation. Still a deeply twisted individual, but his loyalty to the Dama is conflicted, and he ends up walking away from everything.

Ginna (Mahina Napoleon) – The young girl Negan cared for in Season 1. She’s bitten and turns into a walker by the finale. Her death devastates Negan, emotionally breaking him beyond repair and fueling his final moments of rage.

Bruegler (Kim Coates) – The methane-obsessed madman and new antagonist in Season 2. He’s fixated on extracting fuel and manipulating everyone around him to achieve his goals. He dies a gruesome and fiery death at the hands of Negan in the finale after pushing all the wrong buttons.




Character Highlights:

Negan: Honestly, the most compelling character in the entire show. Watching him unravel and try to protect Ginna is tragic. His past always looms like a shadow, and this season tears him down even further.

Maggie: She’s becoming harder to pin down, which is both good and bad. Her indecision about Negan, her inconsistent parenting, and her inability to let go make her frustrating, but layered.

Marshal Perlie: He’s the moral compass with a badge and a gun. Torn between duty and personal growth. Still a little underbaked, but less annoying this time.

The Croat: Surprisingly nuanced this season. His scenes with Maggie reveal layers of guilt and trauma. Still a maniac, but a broken one.

Hershel: Gets more depth, more agency, and more reasons to be mad at literally everyone.

Ginna: The emotional heart of Negan’s arc — her fate in this season hits hard.



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Pros:

Nuanced character writing, especially for Negan and Maggie.

Great atmosphere — bleak, gritty, and hopeless in the best way.

Twisted character relationships that evolve and implode.

Some genuinely gut-wrenching moments.

That final monologue narration over the “crossroads” was a poetic closer.


Cons:

Maggie’s flip-flopping motivations become exhausting.

The “should I kill Negan?” theme is overstretched.

Some side characters feel underused or too conveniently handled.

The Dama’s survival stretches plausibility.

Hershel is annoying, even though he’s right. He’s still kinda whiney.

The writers can’t seem to do anything with Negan, they are stuck in this limbo where they keep redeeming negan then reverting him back to his old self, just either write something new for him or kill him off!

Perlie as a character gets nothing to do this sesson, he’s just there.

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Rating: 8/10


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Spoilers Below – Proceed With Caution

The Dama finds her pet rat’s dead body in her room—flattened.

The Croat walks in, trying to be apologetic for earlier tensions, only for the Dama to immediately accuse him of murdering her rat.

She goes full meltdown and bites his damn finger, he freaks out and shoves her.

She falls backward—into lit candles—and sets the whole room ablaze.

Croat just… leaves.

Then we cut to Negan casually scraping the rat off his shoe like it’s a normal Tuesday.

A burnt body is later found, and everyone assumes it’s the Dama. Plot twist: nope. She’s fine. Apparently fire has no effect on her warlord energy.

Let’s talk about that finale.

So it turns out the Dama survived the fire and has been quietly manipulating Hershel the whole time. She knocks Maggie out, keeping her prisoner, while Maggie finally realizes just how deeply the Dama has gotten into her son’s head.

Meanwhile, Negan sets a trap for Bruegler, luring him and his men to a lavish table setup. When Bruegler refuses to eat (suspecting a trap), Negan flips the table to reveal caged walkers underneath. Chaos erupts. His flamethrower-wielding men attack Bruegler’s crew. Bruegler flees to the lower tunnels only to be cornered by the Marshal and Negan.

Negan lines both of them up and starts doing the “eeny meeny miny moe” routine — an obvious throwback. He then changes his mind, turns to Bruegl, grabs a methane pipe, shoves it in his mouth, lights it on fire, and watches him combust from the inside before bashing his head in with the bat. Brutal. Disgusting. Classic Negan.

Right after that, he hunts down the Marshal, nearly kills him, and says, “You should’ve killed me when you had the chance.” Only Maggie interrupting stops him — she stabs Negan in the side. He runs, bleeding, into the tunnels.

And what stops Maggie from killing him? Zombie Ginna.

She finds Negan on the floor, sobbing, and hears the groans of the reanimated girl he saw as a daughter. Maggie gives him the blade she used to stab him so he can mercy-kill Ginna himself. He does.

They drag Negan into a room, and Marshal Perlie tends to his wound while Negan breaks down, saying: “I was so busy doing this all for her… and I didn’t notice. Now she died alone.”

Then Maggie returns to see Hershel. She tries to explain everything. But Hershel? He’s had enough. He yells at her: “You always promise! You keep saying life’s going back to normal.” When she admits she couldn’t go through with killing Negan, he snaps. He tells her he’s leaving — and chooses to go with the Dama.

Really that’s it? The Dama was this Nad dictator but now she wants to help Hershel design a new city from his drawing vision?

With what power? She doesn’t have the resources!

In the end, Maggie rejoins Negan and Perlie. The three of them stare out toward the city as New Babylon’s troops move in for the methane. And then we get a shared narration about crossroads — about walking forward despite broken pieces, even if the path is unclear.

Maggie isn’t alone anymore. But the road ahead sure as hell still is. Anwyays hope y’all enjoyed today’s review, till next time.