The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2, Episode 8 Review - I Braced Myself Waiting For Maggie To Kill Negan But Loved What She Did Instead

The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2 was a good season of TV that had a few bumps along the way. That said, the season 2 finale does not have any of the pacing and story issues that plagued a few episodes throughout the show's sophomore run. I needed to get some answers, intense moments, and character development in the finale. All of that came in spades, starting with the Dama explaining that she survived her fiery death by freeing herself and burning a walker to make it look like she had died.

Contrary to what I thought was going to happen, the Dama does not die for good by the end of season 2. Instead, her story with Hershel will continue in season 3, and that will no doubt lead back to Lauren Cohan's Maggie. The latter had quite the storyline ahead of herself in the finale, with The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2 finally answering whether Maggie and Negan could move forward once and for all. That led to a few emotionally charged sequences between the show's leads, as season 2 ends with a tense finale.

Bruegel's Dead City Story Comes To A Startling End

Negan Showed No Mercy To The Villain

Throughout The Walking Dead and both seasons of Dead City, we've seen Negan get ruthless when he needs to. Season 2 features quite a few moments of Negan wrestling with his violent past and who he wants to be, and the finale brings that back through his relationship with Ginny and the unsavory things he has to do to protect her. Kim Coates' Bruegel was one of season 2's standouts and my favorite new character. However, when it became clear early in the episode that he sought to use Negan's love for Ginny, he had to die.

What I did not expect was that it would be in such a brutal way. Dead City season 2's finale will certainly offer a trip down memory lane for fans who watched The Walking Dead, specifically the season 6 finale and season 7 premiere. Negan pulls out his Saviors moves and puts Bruegel and Perlie into a new lineup, just like he had done in the past with Rick Grimes' group. Back then, it ended with Abraham and Glenn being brutally beaten to death by Lucille. Now, Bruegel's death was perhaps even more horrific.

I was fully expecting Negan to bash his head in while Maggie watched from afar. That would have been quite the image, and it did come later, after he was already dead. But using the methane that Bruegel wanted to burn him from the inside out was a diabolic plan that managed to be even darker than anything I'd imagined. After an exciting action sequence involving Bruegel's group and Negan's inside the church, I could feel the episode building to a major ending to Bruegel's story, and it was an incredibly effective one.

Negan & Maggie's Story Finally Takes The Next Step

Dead City's Main Dynamic Is Forever Changed By The Season 2 Finale

After Bruegel's brutal death and all the old memories Maggie had to relive, I was afraid of what that would mean. After all, she had been asked by her son to kill Negan, which would mean she could be reunited with Hershel if she went through with it. The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2 gave us that confrontation, though it was not exactly a full-on fight. Instead, the show had Maggie surprise Negan by attacking him from behind to save Perlie. Then, the characters' dynamic was rewritten, as Maggie had all the power over a vulnerable Negan.

Watching Maggie pick up Lucille, the weapon Negan used to kill her husband Glenn, and slowly follow him as he crawled on the floor was haunting. With their roles reversed, Maggie opted not to kill Negan, but to see how he was in the position she once was and offer mercy instead. What made Maggie's demeanor shift was the fact that Ginny died and became a walker, which broke Negan's heart. I loved this whole sequence, as it outlined just how talented Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan are as performers.

Their characters found an understanding in Negan's pain and Maggie's similar past experiences. It was all displayed on their faces, with little to no words having to be exchanged. With Maggie having the power to kill Negan and choosing not to, Dead City ended the biggest storyline of the show, ushering forward a new arc for the lead characters. I'm excited to see how New York City will be transformed in season 3 now that Maggie, Negan, and Perlie have united to take down the invading army from New Babylon.

However, the fates of two other characters annoyed me. Honestly, I'm over Hershel. I understand he's young and has been neglected by his mother, even if involuntarily, but his actions this season and final decision to let Maggie go and stay with the Dama are infuriating. I'd rather we follow Maggie separately from Hershel in Dead City season 3 while her son and the Dama find their own way around New York City's new predicament. Having Maggie try to find her son again after just letting him go to find out what he wants by himself would just retread old ground.

Season 1's biggest strength was in how well Negan and Maggie played off each other. We lost that in season 2, and even though there were interesting aspects in their separate storylines, the finale reaffirms that the show is at its best when Morgan and Cohan share the screen. That's what I hope to see more of in season 3, and with the way Dead City season 2 ends, I'd say we will not only get that, but also a whole new side of what Maggie and Negan's relationship could be.