The Walking Dead: Dead City
1×05: “Stories We Tell Ourselves”
Directed by Gandja Monteiro
Written by Brenna Kouf

* For a recap & review of 1×04, click here.
* For a recap & review of the season finale, click here.
Maggie, Ginny, and the Tribespeople make it into the sewers, though none of them saw what happened to Negan. They’re slightly safe for the moment. Amaia’s stuck on how the Burazi knew their plan somehow. Tommaso gets a flashlight for Maggie, and he seems to not want Amaia near the bag. Any reason? Could someone have given the Tribespeople up to the Burazi? Surely it wouldn’t be Tommaso, right? The big issue is, in the post-zombie apocalypse wasteland, it’s hard to trust anybody. It doesn’t seem like Tommaso would have a reason to give up his people to the man they’ve been running from, but who knows?!
The methane gas gets worse the deeper the group go into the sewer. They eventually come upon a strange formation. Tommaso thinks it’s a buildup of fat. Ginny immediately tries scaling it to get out of a manhole, however, Maggie explains the manholes are sealed. Maggie gets angry at Ginny, she also talks about “the monster” in Negan. The girl, with a ton of reluctance, listens to Maggie and comes back down.

Negan’s stuck at the end of Perlie’s gun, as they march through the dead streets of Manhattan to another location where they hide out a while. He tries to play his card with the sheriff for saving the latter’s life. That doesn’t matter to Perlie; he’s only concerned about who Negan killed, no matter if it was a result of Annie being beaten and raped. Negan tries to leave, he still has a knife, but Perlie shuts that down fast. In a little while, Negan and Perlie are back on the march through the streets. They come across a big horde of walkers, which forces them to find quick shelter. They have to work hard to get into a building, just in time to escape the hungry hands and teeth of the horde gnashing behind them.
Negan and Perlie find some strange shit inside. There’s a weird “avant–garde” mural made out of baby dolls; the arms, legs, torsos, and heads all removed and spiralled out into a fan. Was this a former artist? Or, as Perlie suggests, somebody who lost their mind after the fall of society. Down in the sewers, Tommaso SUPPOSEDLY finds two oxygen tanks. “Crazy lucky,” huh? Maggie’s instantly suspicious of Tommaso and refuses to use an oxygen tank. Ginny’s given one of the tanks while the others share the second tank on and off. They all start questioning if Luther gave them up. But Maggie calls out Tommaso for seeming to know everything, from how to get into the arena, to how to get to the furnace room, and so on. She thinks The Croat cut a deal with Tommaso. She’s seen a lot of dirty tricks in the post-zombie apocalypse wasteland; a lot of terrible people. Tommaso doesn’t hold up under much scrutiny and now Amaia starts to realise the truth. Maggie says the oxygen tanks were in Tommaso’s bag the entire time. He finally admits it: “What I did, it was the only way.”

Negan and Perlie find the artist of the strange mural. The person’s clearly dead; an axe is sunk into his head. But something about the scene reminds Perlie of the scene he found at his brother’s place. An eerie echo. Negan and Perlie keep on going through the building, as they come across a walker or two. Negan throws one of the zombies into Perlie to give himself a chance to get away. Yet Perlie doesn’t stop and he gets the jump on Negan once again. Negan decides not to leave the New Babylon sheriff behind, helping Perlie to his feet before they leave the building.
In the sewer, Maggie tells Amaia she ought to take Ginny back to the Bricks. Things get troublesome when Maggie starts to get weak from the methane. She starts to see visions of Negan killing her friends, and of a ghostly Hershel calling to her. Tommaso pulls Maggie up to give her some of the oxygen. They talk a bit. Tommaso says he was just trying to keep Amaia safe, and he tried to kid himself that The Croat would make an honest deal. Their conversation is cut off when zombies crawl out of the pile down in the sewers and Amaia’s eaten. Tommaso gets chomped in the neck for his troubles trying to save Amaia, too. This leaves Maggie and Ginny together to brave the rest of the sewers.

The Croat arrives at a big hotel where The Dama (Lisa Emery) clearly runs the place. He says things “went well” at the arena and “the threat has been neutralised.” He mentions Negan being in Manhattan. This doesn’t please The Dama. She’s not a fan of plot twists. She wonders how this big play will come to an end without “a hero.” Apparently Negan’s the hero they’re searching for here. The Croat hands over Perlie’s sheriff badge to The Dama. He remarks how there will always be people “who try to bring it all back: the old laws, the prisons.” He thinks ‘they’ are coming for the little slice of apocalyptic paradise they’ve created on the island, and that they need Negan to stop it.
In the sewer, Maggie keeps hallucinating briefly, though she tries to give Ginny the other oxygen tank. She asks Ginny about what the latter saw in her bag: the dinosaur. Maggie says she wasn’t sure at first if it was hers. She also doesn’t want Negan to go because he’s “the key” to getting back what she’s lost. She talks about what The Croat did to Hilltop, as well as how he kidnapped Hershel. Ginny seems to understand, but, typically, says nothing. Above ground, Negan and Perlie make a pit stop at a school bus, where Negan gets a first aid kit to help the sheriff. There’s something genuine coming out in Negan’s attempts to help Perlie. He’s clearly changed over the years, even if his ugly side occasionally, if only briefly, emerges. Perlie then talks about his brother Joel. They were close. They used to work on the docks together. Perlie says Joel had “problems we couldn‘t see” and was always in/out of jail. The family ignored Joel’s issues for a long time until Perlie had to take charge. Perlie resented his big brother for making him play the role instead. He felt abandoned by Joel, so he tried to “abandon him right back.” He shows Negan the letter in the envelope; it arrived three years before the fall of society. Joel died in his apartment alone, where Perlie found him recently. Things nowadays aren’t so “black and white” to Perlie, after everything that’s happened: “Is it grey? Is it something else?”

Ginny and Maggie arrive at a pile of zombie corpses and debris. They start to climb the small mountain. Maggie’s feeling lightheaded but she manages to keep going further. Then they find a zombie, that’s melted into other zombies, crawling out of a pile right as Maggie gets herself stuck. She tells Ginny to go, pushing her literally to leave, and the zombie, full of other zombies, goes for Maggie. She’s pinned down beneath the zombie, as other zombies burst out of its corpse. She manages to kill all the zombie heads, even one last surprise head. She crawls out of the corpse pit like an absolute warrior. Maggie goes on and sees LIAR written above an opening to a pipe. She heads through but she’s starting to get weaker and weaker, her hallucinations getting more elaborate, now involving The Croat and Hershel. She imagines The Croat handing her one of the Wanted posters with Negan on it. Maggie eventually makes it out of the sewer to fresh air, though. On the street, Ginny shoots a flare gun into the sky, which Negan sees from the bus a couple blocks away and Maggie sees, too. Though they won’t be the only ones, either.