The Walking Dead: Dead City
1×06: “Doma Smo”
Directed by Gandja Monteiro
Written by Eli Jorné

* For a recap & review of 1×05, click here.
Negan yells out for Maggie, then he hears a Savior whistle. And suddenly from the dark, Negan also  sees Ginny, which means Maggie’s not far behind. He’s upset that Ginny came, of course. Yet Maggie says she “just wanted to be with you.” Negan loses it a bit at Ginny. He’s angry that she’d jeopardise her safety. But that doesn’t change the fact that Ginny feels safe with him. She hugs Negan tight. Perlie says he can take Ginny right now. Negan also says: “You don‘t know me, kid. I am not who you think I am.” Suddenly, Ginny speaks, she asks him to stay with her.
Then Negan reveals he killed Ginny’s father; her dad was one of the men who assaulted Annie viciously. He says she’s “just a debt” he needed to pay. Harsh words. Though he’s being harsh to drive Ginny away. A last ditch effort that we see visibly shakes Negan, as he tries not to cry after Ginny runs off with Perlie. He and Maggie share a haunted look before they head off again into the death of Manhattan.

The way Maggie sees Negan has been changing. She’s begun to see the necessity of some of his actions. That doesn’t mean she’ll ever forgive him for what he did to Glenn and so many others. It doesn’t excuse it. But Maggie’s beginning to see that part of who Negan became was a transformation of necessity. Just like she now recognises the way Negan had to make a difficult decision to chase Ginny away for the girl’s own protection. She and Negan talk about things while they keep watch in a building together. She talks about being a girl when her mom got sick and her mom telling stories of “the real Santa” who came down to Macy’s in Manhattan to visit children. She daydreamed of coming to New York and going to Macy’s so she’d get to be friend with Santa. She imagined the real Santa taking all her old toys that were broken “and find a way to replace them.” Underneath it all was a little girl’s hope that the real Santa could fix her mother. Maggie and Negan don’t have time to reminisce too much longer when they see a vehicle headed up through the city. That means it’s time for another trek through the undead streets.
They head for a building with smoke puffing out the top. Inside, Maggie and Negan head upstairs when he asks her about what Ginny was trying to tell him. Well, Maggie’s not forgotten all that Negan has done to her. She tries to take this moment to pull her knife on him but he gets the jump on her. He evades her knife attacks and goes running further into the building. They wind up on a platform above a bunch of walkers. Maggie stabs Negan in the shoulder, and he kicks her off the platform. She lands on a stack of boxes and he follows her down. Below, Negan gets a knife to Maggie’s throat and forces her to drop her other knife. They have a frank chat. Negan realises that The Croat never cared about any Hilltop harvest: Maggie was bringing Negan to Manhattan all along for The Croat in exchange for Hershel. “Maybe some part of you always wanted it to end this way,” Negan says. He knows that nothing will ever be able to make her get over what he did. “And you shouldn‘t,” he tells her. It’s at that moment the two are joined by The Croat and his Burazi.
The Croat’s certainly pleased with what Maggie has done. He didn’t quite expect that she’d succeed. Nobody should ever underestimate Maggie. Nor should they underestimate how much she’d do for her son. Right now, there’s no telling what’s in store for Negan. But The Croat’s already made it clear he isn’t looking to kill Negan, right? He could’ve done that already a bunch of times. So, what’s the plan? And what is The Dama’s interest in Negan? For the moment, Maggie’s seeing Hershel for the first time in ages, and she’s handing Negan over to The Croat. For his part, Negan willingly goes along, stepping into Hershel’s place while Hershel goes back to his mother. Yet you can see Maggie isn’t 100% feeling good about it, even if it means having Hershel back, and her son knows what she’s had to do to facilitate their reunion. A heavy moment all around.

What about Perlie? He drops Ginny off at The Bricks, then he heads back out onto the road alone. He stops where three people were hanged right outside New Babylon; the zombies are still there, writhing around, their teeth chomping. He goes back to his friends at New Babylon and lies about killing Negan. New Babylon’s leader (Jasmin Walker) would’ve liked to have Negan brought back to “make a statement.” She then starts talking a little of Perlie’s girls, as well as the “body politic” of New Babylon. She shares a cigar with Perlie. Then she gets around to asking him to tell her about the methane in Manhattan.
The reunion of mother and son isn’t wholly a happy one. Hershel’s annoyed by his mother. He says he felt safer being kidnapped than being at home with her. Maggie gives him a hat like the one Glenn used to wear. Then she tries talking to Hershel, but he says she’s more concerned with revenge and what Negan did to her than she really is with her own son. Maybe there is a little truth in that.

The other reunion between The Croat and Negan is a lot darker. The Croat talks about their past. He likens Negan to “a rockstar” whose microphone was Lucille. Once when they were dealing with a group of people, Negan handed The Croat to Lucille, which gave the latter a sense of purpose. “You let me have a crack at it,” the mad scientist says. He talks about swinging Lucille and having no idea what he was doing. That is, until Negan talk The Croat “how to do it right.” This is when The Croat learned about “complete and total submission” through gruesome brutality. He looks back at it fondly. Negan doesn’t quite see it the same, though he remembers feeling that way at the time. The Croat tries to tell Negan that he’s gained a sense of control over the brutality; that what happened to the girl back then won’t happen again. Not sure if that’s comforting, or somehow more upsetting.
At The Bricks, Maggie brings the stuffed dinosaur into Ginny’s room and lays it next to the sleeping girl. Then she goes to see Hershel. She admits that her obsession with what Negan did has consumed her, and she doesn’t want it to damaged the rest of her life any further. She tells Hershel that she’s going to finish things with Negan, so she can finally move on.
At the theatre, The Croat brings Negan to meet with The Dama. The two men head to the woman’s lavish quarters. The Dama sends The Croat off so she might get time to chat with Negan alone. She’s thrilled to finally meet Negan, particularly to know that he’s real and not The Croat’s delusion. She enjoys Negan’s theatricality. She says that Manhattan requires fierce leadership with a special “political talent” for performance.
The Dama wants to unite New York. She hands him the literal “keys to the kingdom,” so long as he’s ready to be the old Negan. Then she places a box in front of him and he unlocks it to see something strange. The Dama talks about her former guest, who was Hershel. The kid told her about the man who murdered his father. The Dama knew that Negan felt responsible for Hershel in some way because of all that occurred. She “kept a little piece” of Hershel, which is what’s in the box: Hershel’s pinky toe. And she tells Negan that she can always go back to take the rest of him. At the same time, Maggie sees Hershel’s drawings of his time while kidnapped, including a sketch of The Dama. Regardless of the fact that Negan and Maggie are separated now, they remain linked.

Great use of “Slipping Away (Remix)” by Nine Inch Nails here at the end of the episode, too.