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The Walking Dead: Dead City Recap: Knock Knock

Season 1 Episode 2 Editor’s Rating3 stars ***

Photo: Peter Kramer/AMC/B) 2022 AMC Film Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved. This week on Negan and Maggie Do New York, a.k.a. The Walking Dead: Dead City, the survivors discover the hard way that New Yorkers are happy to be nice as long as you don’t get in their way or try to bullshit them. While they learn the lay of the land and get to know some ultimately friendly survivors, Perlie Armstrong and Ginny adjust to their new environments as well. The second episode is mostly exposition and world-building, with a bit of gnarly action and at least one philosophical debate. That’s all well and good for me. It’s cool when a franchise that has been running as long as The Walking Dead still has new corners to uncover and rules to explain.

The episode starts off running as a wild-looking woman named Esther, whom Maggie and Negan encountered at the tail end of the premiere, runs away with Maggie’s bag of supplies. She speaks only Hebrew and leads them to a zip line, which they reluctantly ride between buildings. So it’s not just the Croat’s people who use this mode of intercity transportation. The whole ding-dang city is zipping around like the Dauntless from Divergent. I love it. It keeps them away from the walkers below and looks (dangerous but) hella fun.

Esther takes them to her fellow survivors: two fast-talking, bickering, pissed-off New Yorkers named Tommaso and Amaia. I didn’t really realize until this moment that The Walking Dead universe has been severely lacking in Northeast energy. It felt like a lightning bolt. The original series has every kind of slow- and fast-talking Southerner. Fear had every kind of West Coast vibe. The World Beyond didn’t seem really defined by region. This distinct lack of chill is specific. Their weapons are rigged from power tools. They eat pigeon. It’s a kind of toughness we haven’t seen. It’s a little on the nose that Tommaso calls them tourists, but I appreciated it nonetheless. Unfortunately, Maggie spins them a fiction about why they’re in town — saying their boat crashed en route to Canada — that the survivors see right through.

Meanwhile, in the Hilltop offshoot community, Negan’s ward Ginny settles into her new temporary home. When her new teacher introduces her, he says that Ginny is from Oceanside, a beach community that emerged in the later seasons of The Walking Dead. But is she? I thought Negan said he picked her up on a farm. Why the lie? Anyway, she’s still not talking but seems comfortable enough.

A pep talk Ginny gets from Nina transitions — kind of subtly and beautifully, I think — into a flashback. We see Maggie talking to Hershel about skipping weapons training. He doesn’t want to go. He’d rather draw. He also seems like he may be depressed or experiencing some kind of existential anxiety. “People could come at you with anything,” she warns him. “Then I guess I’d be dead,” he responds darkly. Last week, I said that the way he talks back to the Croat reminded me of his father, but now I wonder if the family member Hershel’s most like is not Glenn, but Maggie’s sister Beth. Before she died, Beth (played by Emily Kinney) was introverted and artistic with a nihilistic side and a history of mental-wellness issues. I’m curious as to whether or not the show will explore this connection. It’s not something I had considered.

Back in NYC, Esther’s crew lock Negan and Maggie up until they can decide what to do with them. While they wait, Negan tells Maggie a little about the Croat. He was a torturer for the Saviors at their Sanctuary before they linked up with Rick and our favorite survivors (Maggie included). He got a little too into the job, however, and Negan had to let him go after he killed a woman against his orders. However, he intended to kill him. The bullet missed, taking out only one ear, and the Croat escaped. “So he’s gonna wanna kill you,” Maggie puts together.

He claims that the Croat is evil in ways he never was, which I find suss. “I was only a monster when I absolutely had to be,” he says. “When I had to put on a show to protect my people.” Is that so? What show was he putting on when he created a society where women were encouraged to “volunteer” to be one of his “wives” for supplies and protection, I wonder? Those women were traumatized. What was the dramaturgical purpose of burning his own people and separating families? Give me a break, Negan. I don’t mind the idea that the former despot has reformed, or done time for his crimes, or satiated his thirst for power or whatever. But I won’t abide rewriting history.

And clearly, he can turn it back on, as we see in this very episode. First, he threatens the New York survivors with a shiv made out of a pigeon bone. Then, when they get attacked by a group of helmet raiders called the Burazi, he takes one as a hostage and violently kills him in front of his people. He’s even doing bad puns and complicated metaphors again. He gives Maggie a pained, embarrassed look when he’s done. I don’t think I would trust him if I were in his situation. But at least, as an audience member at a safe distance, I can appreciate the complexity. Maybe the point is that Negan’s telling himself and really wants to think he was forced to be a monster because he can’t admit he enjoyed it. I can live with that.

The survivors thank Negan and Maggie for their help against the Burazi, who they confirm work for the Croat. His people are responsible for their dwindling numbers. (Tommaso calls the Croat “Van Gogh” … because he only has one ear. He’s cultured!) Maggie then comes clean about why they’re really in the city. “That we can help you with,” Amaia says.

Finally, throughout the episode, Perlie Armstrong the New Babylon Marshal has been on his own Manhattan journey. He visits the now-abandoned apartment of a family member named Joel. When he leaves, he gets caught in a trap made by the Croat’s people … who embrace him with open arms. Alliances are forming. The Native New Yorkers are prepared to help Maggie and Negan get to the Croat so they can save Hershel. The Burazi, the Croat, and Armstrong, who both want Negan for different reasons, have teamed up as well. It’s pretty clear that Dead City is going to end with an all-out-war type of skirmish. At least, I think it is.

Bridges & Tunnels

• In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene at the very end of the episode, Ginny runs away. Are you even a kid in the Walking Dead universe if you don’t run away from home at least once? It’s a rite of passage.

• Is this show low-key about Negan mansplaining leadership to Maggie? He sure does like to give a lot of unsolicited lessons in negotiation and manipulation. I’m not really ready to say either way. He definitely has a valuable perspective. But Maggie has plenty of experience as well. It’s not like she’s never had to communicate with other communities before. For a while, when she was working with a woman named Georgie to trade schematics for food, it was her whole job. Check back with me on that.

• The Burazi are called that because buraz is a Croatian word that means brother. I did not look this up. I learned it from the “Behind the Episode” segment after the episode when it dropped early on AMC+.

• I like how the city is kind of constantly playing music to keep the walkers concentrated in certain areas. That trick has been deployed in various corners of the TWD franchise, but it makes a lot of sense for Manhattan. Practically, it’s probably pretty easy to trap large hordes with a combination of buildings and sound. Romantically, it keeps the city that never sleeps alive!

• Speaking of romance, now that we’ve spent a little more time with Hershel, I need all of you Negan-Maggie shippers to think about what it would be like to tell that sweet little boy that his mother is involved with the man who murdered his father. I know you have the imagination power if you ship them in the first place. Why would you want that for him?

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