Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City not only marked the end of Season 2 but also a new beginning. How’s that, exactly? Let’s discuss.
NEGAN PULLS A FAST ONE ON BRUEGEL | Early on in “If History Were a Conflagration,” Bruegel suspected that Negan’s New Babylon strategy session at the church was just an excuse to poison him and his men. But nah, the food was fine. Negan had just stashed an unusually quiet bunch of walkers beneath the banquet table. Cue the carnage. Meanwhile, the Dama played her mind games with Maggie in hopes of convincing her to kill Negan. “Don’t do it for me, do it for you,” the former theater critic urged. “Free yourself and Hershel.” Natch, Maggie’s son was all in on the plan. Do it, he said, then “we can start over.” Admitting that she had never truly recovered from Glenn’s murder, Maggie agreed, and off she went to exact vengeance.
R.I.P., BRUEGEL AND GINNY | Back at the church, Negan cornered Bruegel, who tried to shift the blame to Perlie. Didn’t work, though. Waving Lucille 2.0 around, Negan did the whole eenie-meanie thing, landed on the marshal, but couldn’t deny that Bruegel was the one he really wanted to “strike out” first. When Bruegel babbled on anew about the methane, Negan filled him with the much-ballyhooed gas, then lit him on fire from the inside out. Perlie was next on Negan’s hit list, but before he could take a swing, Maggie stabbed him in the back. Rather than finish the job, she then let him stagger away. By the time she found him crawling toward Ginny’s cell, she’d picked up Lucille… but didn’t use the bat. Seeing Negan weep over Ginny, who’d died and turned in his absence, Maggie showed him mercy.
BFFS? | As the hour drew to a close, Maggie and Perlie helped Negan to an apartment, where the marshal removed the knife from his would-be killer’s back. Maggie excused herself to break it to Hershel that she hadn’t offed his father’s murderer. She wasn’t going to drag her son away from the Dama — really?!? — but promised him that she’d stay in the city, just in case he needed her. Back at the apartment, the question became, where would Maggie, Negan and Perlie go from there? As New Babylon marched into the city, with cowardly Pierce now among them, they decided to move forward — together — and “work through what was.” Better late than never, it looked like in Season 3, Maggie and Negan would unpack the heavy baggage of Glenn’s murder (and then some).
