The finale for ‘The Walking Dead: DEAD CITY’ season 3, just dropped on AMC & AMC+. After a strong and crazy penultimate episode, we’re dropped into a zombie sitcom complete with unfunny jokes, and a laugh track. As Dillard continues to unravel we learn more about how his mind works. As it has become clear Dillard needs to be taken care of, taking out a a completely unhinged person in a zombie apocalypse is harder than it seems.
If you’re not caught up on DEAD CITY, check out the spoiler free review for Season 3 HERE.
If you are caught up, feel free to proceed for a spoiler filled break down.
***WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD***
Last Seen on The Walking Dead: DEAD CITY
On the last episode of Dead City, Hourglass, we saw Dillard unravel. As Negan debates his next course of action after murdering someone (who kind of had it coming), and accidentally killing one of Dillard’s walker friends, Dillard walks in. He’s understanding of why Negan murdered the living person, however, he’s not so understanding when he sees his walker girlfriend dead dead. To get him to leave and not get caught up in Negan’s crap, Negan takes out Dillard’s other undead friend. As any rational person would do, Dillard cuts his own face, says Negan did it, rallies the craziest of the zombie survivors, kills Renata, throws on his before times cop uniform, and decides him and the crazies are gonna take down Negan AND the city! After Maggie unsuccessfully tries to get Negan to turn himself in (or drug him), they’re surrounded by Dillard and his new best friends. Yet at the very end Negan and Maggie manage to escape with some help.
Check out a FULL recap of last week’s episode: “HOURGLASS”
The Story for “TENEBRAE”
We kick off with another view inside the mind of Mason Dillard and how he survived so long on his own. He had his friends/toys. His own personal zombies, and Negan killed them both. Dillard decides to make an undead Renata his new “friend.” He takes her teeth and her nails as he explains why he’s doing what he’s doing to Luis, Renata’s brother.
Negan & Maggie Have Become Family
As Dillard holds Luis hostage, and uses his megaphone to yell for Negan and Maggie, they discuss how to “uncluster this f*&^.” Negan attempts to go off and fix the problem himself, until Maggie stops him. They argue like an old married couple, and act like their misbehaving children just interrupted their conversation as walkers start to show up. Maggie continues to yell at him, while he uses Lucille 2.0 on a walker in the same way he killed her husband years ago. This moment made me smile at how their relationship has progressed, and then it got very real.
Negan is trying to protect Maggie and Hershel, and she tells him, she’s not losing anyone else. He’s not turning himself in to Dillard. She flat out says, she’ll never forgive him, but she’s moved past it. Negan is family. This genuinely moves him, and she knows it. Maggie has a plan. Time to execute it.
The Plan
Crawling under a walker, unleashing walkers, and Hershel ziplining to turn on an alarm, sets their plan in motion. Maggie saves Luis. They come across walker Renata and Luis puts her down. All while Hershel gathers other people and rambos one of Dillard’s guys with a knife thrown right at his head. He brought a knife to a machine gun fight, and won. Now it’s Dillard V. Negan! The showdown. From best friends to enemies all in one season. Maggie gets a shot in from the shadows, but Dillard came prepared with a bullet proof vest. If Thanos taught us anything, she should have gone for the head.
We then continue to learn more about the insane mind of Dillard. He just wants his best friend back, but Negan has got to prove their pals, and take out Maggie. At a loss, Negan gives Maggie a non-fatal stab. Much like she did to him in the season 2 finale. He then charges Dillard, but as Dillard goes to take out Negan, Maggie cuts his arm out, and much like The Croat, Dillard dies in Negan’s arms.
ONE WEEK LATER
We end with a happy ending. Dillard is a walker, Luis continues to train med students, there’s a mural of Renata, Negan has new friends to play video games with, and much like comic book Maggie, she’s in charge. She then says they have Manhattan, time to take the other 4 boroughs, and she makes Negan the head of security because he’s fearless. He tells her “I am scared. Every single day.” Nevertheless, he accepts. He can’t tell Maggie no. She puts the badge on him, and tells him she has something she wants him to do. He smiles a very eager smile, and says, “Yes Ma’am.”
Final Thoughts on the Finale
My favorite part of the finale was Maggie and Negan finding peace with each other. Is the progression of their relationship realistic? No, but neither is a world with walking corpses everywhere. They’ve hurt each other, turned on each other, and fought for each other. They’re family now. They seem to have unintentionally created a sibling relationship. The kind where you can hurt each other, but if anyone else messes with that person, watch out! Only a sibling can torture a sibling. Those are the rules. In a sick twisted way, Negan and Maggie are family.
Maggie said she’ll never forgive Negan for what he took from her, but honestly it seems like she has. This doesn’t mean she’s ok with it, but she had to have forgiven him for her to be able to trust him the way she does. I don’t ever see them being romantic, but he’s her person. She trusts him with her own life, and Hershel’s. It’s been a lot of fun to see this relationship change over the last decade, and this finale truly shined a light on that.
Final Thoughts on the Entire Season
Of the three seasons of Dead City, this was definitely my favorite. They went places we hadn’t seen before, and continued to find new ways to entertain us with zombies, and zombie survivors. Having an entire episode, “FOUND/LOST”, that felt incredibly intense when nothing bad happened, was a ton of fun. It almost felt more teeth clenching than if Maggie and Luis had been hiding under a dumpster surrounded by walkers (sorry Glenn). Another highlight for me was the What If episode “GENESIS”. I loved getting to see how Negan and Maggie are somehow better together no matter what their circumstances. As well as seeing how they both truly are who they are. We also got to see Beth again, as well as watch Maggie compliment how good Negan is with a baseball bat. That was some seriously sick and clever writing.
My last favorite of season 3, was Mason Dillard played by Jimmi Simpson. Simpson absolutely nailed this role! I found myself rooting for him even when I wanted him to lose. Dillard gave us comedy relief this season, made Negan smile, showed us another type of zombie apocalypse survivor, and gave us some shocking moments. This season would not have been as good without him. I’m sad to see him go, but excited to see where we go in the future. While season 4 has yet to be confirmed, between that ending and AMC having a very long panel at NYCC next month, I have a feeling the next season will be confirmed soon.
More Walker Entertainment will be coming in 2027
While Season 4 for Dead City has not yet been confirmed, AMC recently dropped a teaser trailer for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, Season 4. This will be the final season, which will come out in 2027.
In addition to Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, season three also stars Jimmi Simpson, Raúl Castillo, Aimee Garcia, Logan Kim and Michael Emery. The Walking Dead: Dead City is executive produced by Scott M. Gimple, chief content officer of The Walking Dead Universe, showrunner Seth Hoffman, Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Brian Bockrath and Colin Walsh. Director for episode 8: Michael Slovis; Writer: Mira Z. Barnum & Justin Boyd.
Check out more reviews from Lauren
Did you watch the Season 3 Finale of DEAD CITY? What are your thoughts?
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