The Walking Dead: Dead City
1×02: “Who’s There?”
Directed by Loren Yaconelli
Written by Eli Jorné

* For a recap & review of the Season 1 premiere, click here.
* For a recap & review of 1×03, click here.
Negan and Maggie have to flee some zombies while they’re chasing after the woman who stole their bag. They’re forced to go for a steep climb when the lady takes an elevator shaft to go up through the building. When they reach the right floor they see the woman takes one of those ziplines we already saw to a building across the way. But then the lady sends the zipline handle back so Negan and Maggie can come, too. A bit unexpected. Negan has a little fun doing his zip across, and he sends the handle back just in time for Maggie to avoid more walkers. Right as Maggie’s about to go across she and Negan hear music from somewhere. She slips off and doesn’t quite get enough speed, leaving her hanging a few feet from the edge. She refuses to take Negan’s help and wiggles her way onto the roof with him.
Eventually the duo catch up with the old woman, who offers a little snack. The old woman doesn’t speak English, but Negan tries communicating. The lady advises them not to go towards their destination at the burning building across the city. So, for now, Negan and Maggie follow the old woman. elsewhere, Perlie comes to with walkers stumbling around everywhere. He wants to go for his weapon but there are too many zombies to even try at the moment. Best to be smart.

The old woman takes Maggie and Negan back to a small community known as the Tribespeople. One good thing is the community are certainly not aligned with The Croat. A couple folks, Amaia (Karina Ortiz) and Tommaso (Jonathan Higginbotham), with makeshift guns aren’t excited to see new people. They ask what Maggie and Negan are doing; Maggie doesn’t give the real answer and her bullshit gets called.  They’re taken to a dude called Luther (Michael Anthony), who searches Maggie’s things. Appears that the whole community there have nail guns; a pretty damn good weapon for humans and zombies. They’re all being hunted by the Croat and his people, the Burazi.
We see glimpses of Ginny attempting to fit in with her new surroundings, though it’s not easy for her. We’re also witness to a flashback between Maggie and Hershel. She’s kicking herself for how things have gone, though Negan tries to assure her that’s only because the whole world has gone to shit and they’ve had to deal with violence at their door constantly. Negan also tells Maggie about when The Croat first came to him; the man was in a bad state. He was essentially reeling The Croat in, to keep the violence from spreading. The Croat was used as a torturer, but Negan says he “took it too far.” Negan recounts how he let a drifter walk away, however, The Croat thought “she had beans to spill.” The girl claimed to be a scout under horrific torture. After that, he decided to kill The Croat, and failed; he only shot off part of The Croat’s ear. Until now, the two haven’t crossed paths since that day. The only good thing at the moment is Negan understands The Croat, and that may prove helpful.

“It takes a monster to make one, I guess.”

Perlie looks to be revisiting the past. Definitely not in a happy way. We see him looking through a house, where he sees family photographs on the mantle and also a dead mean sitting in a chair. He places a sheet over the man, then takes a rosary from the dresser and places it on top of the sheet. Afterwards, he loads his gun and heads out. Problem: the front door’s blocked with the undead. So Perlie takes a back way out into an alley. Except that backfires when he’s caught in a trap that leaves him hanging in a net like wild prey in the forest somewhere.
At the building, Negan and Maggie are blamed for leading the Burazi there. Negan says they had nothing to do with it. Tommaso lets his guard down long enough for Negan to grab hold of him. But Negan lets the guy go. He says that he and Maggie want to help them. Amaia hands Maggie and Negan’s gear back, just as the Burazi turn up looking like post-zombie apocalypse Stormtroopers. Negan and Maggie hide in time to avoid detection while the Tribespeople flee. Well, the Tribespeople don’t run, they hide long enough to get the jump on the Burazi. Amaia stops one Burazi before Maggie stomps on his throat and kills him. Moments later, the old lady gets stabbed by another Burazi, so Negan subdues the guy. The old woman quickly bleeds out and Tommaso has to make sure she doesn’t reanimate. Negan tells the others to go while he deals with the Burazi left behind. He pulls the guy back inside, as more of the Burazi head in, too.
Negan smashes the guy’s head through a bunch of glass: “Knock knock!” He talks some good shit at a guy with a neckbeard and a rattail. He holds a knife to his hostage’s throat while telling a dry joke that gets very wet when he makes it rain with blood; he opens up the guy’s guts to make the rainfall even worse, raining down onto the other Burazi. A strange moment here as Maggie watches Negan from nearby. She’s somewhere between scared and kind of understanding the monster within him/why it has to come out sometimes; maybe she even recognises that back in the day the monster in Negan was forced to come out. More importantly, can Negan turn his Savior persona on and off at will these days? Or is it a slippery slope for him to go back to who he was while wielding Lucille? Good questions. It doesn’t exactly look like Negan really enjoyed what he did, either.

That night, Maggie tells Tommaso and the Tribespeople about the real reason they’re in the city: they’re looking for The Croat, whom Tommaso calls “Van Gogh” hilariously, who has Hershel. The Tribespeople don’t have much good to say, only that if they’re looking for The Croat, they’re “looking to die.” Out in the street, a horde of zombies are distracted by lights from a car. From the car emerges several Burazi who clear the alley of the walkers. They cut down the net in which Perlie hangs, then disarm him. One of the Burazi is actually The Croat underneath a helmet. The Croat tells Perlie: “Don‘t worry, you‘re safe now.”
Not so sure about that one.