“The Walking Dead: Dead City” wrapped up Season 3 on Sunday with a clash that resulted in a number of casualties — and a new alliance we still can’t wrap our heads around.
The finale opens with a flashback to Dillard enjoying time with his pet walkers Cockenspiel and Titicaca, and through his eyes, we hear them talking like normal, non-walker people, with a sitcom laugh track added in for good measure. In the present, he explains to Luis that he had to pretend the walkers were talking to him, “or I’d go crazy.” Yeah, about that: Poor Renata is now a walker, and Dillard has her strapped down and removes her teeth, so she can take Titicaca’s place — all while her brother Luis has to stand there and watch.
Dillard wants to flush out Maggie, so he ties up Luis as a hostage and calls her out. Maggie tells Negan she wants to go right after him, but Negan warns her to play it cool. They’re outnumbered four to one, and Dillard has complete control of the armory, too. Negan thinks the way to go is for him to hand himself over to Dillard, but Maggie stops him: “I’m not losing anybody else. I’ve lost enough.” He claims he doesn’t have anyone left, but she reminds him he has her: “We are forever connected, Negan… Aside from my son, you’re the closest thing to family I’ve got left.”
‘Nobody kills Negan but me’
The plan is for Negan to lead a group of walkers to 96th and Columbus, hoping Dillard will follow. Hershel wants to help, and Negan tries to tell him to sit this one out, but Maggie realizes their plan needs three people. (And Hershel did take down a zombie bear, after all.) While Negan crawls through a mass of walkers, using one of their dead bodies as a shield, Maggie releases another swarm of walkers into the streets, and Hershel heads to the top of a building to scope out Dillard’s guards. He then somehow swings on a rope across the street and smashes his way through a window in the guarded building (?!?), setting off alarms and getting the captive people on his side. Dillard senses something is wrong and tells Kelsey to “put down the doc” while he hops in a cop car, adding, “Nobody kills Negan but me.”
Kelsey is about to kill Luis when she gets distracted by the new swarm of walkers approaching… which gives Maggie time to smash her in the head and free Luis. The two of them take a shortcut through the hospital, where they find Renata still strapped to a table as a walker. Luis asks Maggie for a knife, telling her, “I can’t leave her like this” — and mercifully plunges the blade into Renata’s skull. Meanwhile, Hershel has rallied the captive people to fight back against the guards, but Radomir opens fire with a machine gun, yelling, “I’m too pretty to die!” Actually, he’s not, as it turns out: Hershel flings a knife at his head, stabbing and killing him.
Did Dillard get his revenge?
Maggie is determined to take out Dillard, and she even locks Luis inside the hospital so he can’t stop her. Negan arrives at a warehouse lair and calls out for Maggie, but instead, he’s greeted by a guy with a gun. Negan takes him down, but another guy is about to shoot him — when Dillard shoots the guy dead. (He wanted to be the one to kill Negan, remember?) Maggie shows up in time to shoot Dillard in the leg, but then Dillard holds a gun to Negan’s head, getting Maggie to drop her gun and knife. Dillard says Negan killed his friends, so now he’s going to kill his, pointing his gun at Maggie. A panicked Negan pleads that Maggie isn’t even his friend, and Dillard asks him to prove it. So Negan picks up a knife and stabs Maggie in the gut (!), and Dillard locks her behind a gate with walkers fast approaching.
Negan knocks the gun out of Dillard’s hand, though, and they struggle while a wounded Maggie fights off the walkers, with Luis showing up just in time to save her. Dillard eventually gets a hold of Lucille and starts whistling, holding it up high to smash in Negan’s skull… but suddenly, his arm is chopped clean off by Maggie! She’s about to finish the job when Negan stops her, hugging a dying Dillard close and telling him, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
They toss Dillard’s body to the walkers, and we later see him groaning and lurching along with them, so he did make some new friends after all. Negan plays video games with a new group of friends, Hershel gives himself a tattoo, and Maggie gives Negan a badge, telling him, “I need someone to run security.” The might have Manhattan locked down, but there are four more boroughs out there that needs taming. She pins the badge on him and adds, “I got something I need you to do.” And he’s onboard: “Yes, ma’am.”
Now it’s your turn: Give the “Dead City” finale — and Season 3 as a whole — a grade in our polls, and hit the comments to share your post-season thoughts.