NOTE: this post contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Dead City episode 3, "People are a Resource."
This week’s episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City starts with a look into the past.
In the woods, Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) is confronted by a walker who has been impaled on a tree branch. Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) kills it and then delivers a stern warning to Ginny, who still refuses to talk. He says if she won't talk, he can't help her when she's in danger. The walker is someone who tried to kill them the night before. Ginny reveals she dropped her stuffed green dinosaur; Neegan says they'll go back to look for it.
In the present, Ginny arrives at the harbor, looks out at the city across the river and proceeds to paddle across to the city.
Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan watch as Tomasso (Jonathan Higginbotham) and Amaia (Karina Ortiz) lure a deer. Once it's killed, Luther skins it. When Negan asks to use some of the balm Luther has for the cut on his hand, Luther says no.
Maggie presses Amaia about ways to get into the Croat's (Zeljko Ivanek) lair. She tells the story of how they thought the army arrived to save them but instead they blew up the bridges and tunnels. The Croat arrived offering help and safety. When they refused his help, he declared open season on them. Only one person has ever made it out alive, she says, and that was an accident. This upsets Maggie, but Negan reminds her she's tougher than she looks.
As they see walkers lured by the Croat using the truck, Tomaso reveals he was the one who made it out of Croat's lair. That means they have way back in. Amaia is willing to give it a try, but Luther and Tomasso say it's too risky.
Negan tells them a story about a man who built a sanctuary 12-15 years ago to protect people, using an army of psychopaths to keep them safe. The tide turned when the people rose up against him and they fought back, he says. "It worked," Maggie tells them. Tomasso agrees to talk to the others.
A parade of cars drive into Madison Square Garden. Armstrong (Gaius Charles) is pulled out of the back. The Croat welcomes him. He walks past the Croat’s men as they dip walkers into vats of chemicals. Inside the arena, there's a UFC octagon left over from back in the day. Around it, the Croat's people have made their home on the arena floor.
As Tomasso explains there are old tunnels behind the walls, Negan reveals he knows the Croat and thinks he would have sealed them off already. This bit of news worries Luther, saying they’re going to get them all killed and Maggie's son is already dead.
Armstrong watches as a table for two is set. The Croat comes in, "Not bad for a jail," he observes of the luxury box-turned-cell. The Croat explains he was an alternative energy expert before the fall, so he figured that the dead bodies produce methane gas, which can be pressurized into liquid fuel. That's what runs the whole arena. "What we have built here is a sanctuary," he says. He wants to know why Armstrong is there, and he has to make sure he doesn't pose a threat to them.
Speaking of threats, when the Croat discovers a worm in his meat, he brutally kills the man who brought it in, but not before making him swallow the key to Armstrong's handcuffs.
Maggie sifts through a little box with old photos, her father's watch (which he gave to Glenn) and a portrait of Glenn someone drew. Negan comes in with a hat he found for her son, and he offers to listen if she needs someone to talk to. She reveals the last thing she said to him was that he was stupid.
Negan tells her that Annie and their son went into town to do some trading. When she didn't come back, he went looking and found that she'd been robbed and beaten. He found all five men who did it and though he didn’t want to kill them, he did forcing them to go on the run. He put his wife and son on a wagon to Missouri but never followed them.
Elsewhere in the city, Ginny is surrounded by walkers. She drops her dinosaur and hears Negan's voice in her head, telling her she needs to be able to communicate. She has to focus on staying alive. A scavenger comes along and kills the walker and takes the dinosaur. Ginny follows them.
That night, Maggie and Negan join Amaia and Tomasso's people for a meal. Before they eat, they offer thanks by displaying things that mean something to them and Luther hums a tune.
The Croat details the walker who had been placed in the liquid earlier is how he's manufacturing the methane fuel. "People are a resource," he says. It's also shown that the fumes from the tank makes people high. Armstrong is given some of the gas before being placed in the octagon to fight. The walker who comes in is the man the Croat killed. In order to free himself, Armstrong must kill the walker and get the key, which he manages to do. Once freed, he looks around at the mob of the Croat's people cheering for him.
The Croat congratulates Armstrong on being a great spectacle. He then tells him what happened to his family when the world fell apart. Someone had killed his wife and children and ate them. He was going to kill himself when a man offered him salvation. The Croat finds a letter from Armstrong's brother. Armstrong reveals that he'd had two partners, but they're dead. The Croat asks who he was looking for. When he says it was Negan, everything changes.
That night, Luther shows a wanted poster for Negan and tells Negan he can't be trusted. Luther says he has people counting on him, and Negan knows he's in for a fight. The larger man quickly overpowers Negan, but he slips and falls backwards, impaling himself on an exposed pipe. It was an accident, but it won't look like that. Negan takes the balm from the man and leaves.
Tomasso tells Maggie he's terrified to go back to Croat's lair. He wanted to have a kid with Amaia, but she told him it wouldn't be safe. "You have to make it safe," Maggie says.
The scavenger arrives and Maggie sees the dinosaur. She asks where the woman found it. The woman offers it to her. Maggie goes outside to burn the dinosaur, while Ginny watches her from a car.
In the past, Negan tells Ginny realize the dead man had her dinosaur. After patching up a tear in the dinosaur, Negan teaches her the whistle that his wife did when she needed him.
At the last moment, Maggie decides she can't burn the toy after all.
The Walking Dead: Dead City airs Sunday nights at 9 pm ET/PT on AMC. Episodes are available to watch on-demand via AMC Plus.
The Walking Dead: Dead City recaps
