NOTE: this post contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Dead City episode 2, "Who's There?"
Fun times as Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) venture deeper into the heart of New York City, encountering new people and are forced to decide whether they are friend or foe.
The episode begins with Maggie and Negan chasing a woman who stole Maggie's bag. The woman clearly knows her way around the buildings, using a zipline to get back and forth between rooftops. Instead of fleeing them, the old woman sends the line back to them to follow her. When Maggie crosses, music starts to play from one of the Croat's vans below, leading a horde of walkers in its wake. Maggie's zipline gets stuck near the ledge. She refuses Negan's help, opting to get across on her own.
Back at New Hilltop, Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) struggles to fit in with the people who live there. She's still not talking and she's very much an outsider.
Once Maggie and Negan catch up to the woman, she starts bartering with them. She doesn't speak English, but after offering them some pigeon meat she gets very upset when Negan asks her to take them to the building with the smoke. Instead, they follow her.
Armstrong (Gaius Charles) wakes up in the dry cleaners with a nasty headache. His partner is now a walker. He's all alone now.
Pigeon Lady, whose name turns out to be Esther (Eleanor Reissa), takes Maggie and Negan to her residence, where Tommaso (Jonathan Higganbotham) and Amaia (Karina Ortiz) chastise her for bringing back strays. Negan and Maggie realize these people aren't working for the Croat (Zeljko Ivanek). Tommaso says they own the city and they don't need them. Maggie decides to lie about their intentions, which Negan doesn't seem to agree with. Amaia immediately calls her out on the lie, much to Esthers consternation.
Tommaso gets Luther (Michael Anthony) to search their bags while they are led through an old building where a group of people are living. They have crops and supplies, but there aren't many people there at all, certainly not as many as Tommaso hinted at. He locks them into an old bathroom. "Don't get too comfortable," he says as he locks the door
The Hilltop residents try their best to make Ginny feel at home, but the young girl clearly doesn't want to be there. In a flashback we see Ginny in Hershel's (Logan Kim) room. When Maggie comes in she's concerned that her son missed weapons training again, and Hershel is in his room drawing. He's he's not worried about it and continues to work on his drawing. When she picks one up and compliments it, he crumples it up and says he's going to his friend's house. Maggie keeps the drawing.
In the present, Negan reminds Maggie they wouldn't be there if not for her lie about where they were from and what they were doing. He says the group that took them are still useful, though, for manpower and information. She presses him for information about the Croat.
Negan explains that the Croat arrived right after the world fell apart and Negan helped keep him going after all of the terrible stuff the man had been through. Not long after that, the Croat became Negan's right hand man. He explains he only put on a show when he needed to keep his people in line. But the Croat delighted in the spectacle and Maggie quickly realizes he was Negan's torturer.
Reluctantly, Negan admits the Croat had a special skill set for drawing out information from people, but he went too far. It happened with someone from the Kingdom, before Maggie's people arrived. Negan through a young woman they'd found was a drifter and he told them to let her go. She confessed to being a scout after the Croat tortured her, but Negan was shaken by whatever the Croat did to her. He knew he had to be put down. He tried to kill him but missed, shooting off his ear instead. Maggie is upset Negan didn't share this before, but he does know how the Croat operates. "Of course you do," she says angrily.
Armstrong sets out into the city. He goes into a building and breaks into an empty apartment. He finds clothing and a gun case, but the gun is missing. There are photos everywhere and soon he finds the body of the person who lived there. He covers the body with a blanket, takes takes the man's rosary beads and lays the beads over him as a memorial. Soon, walkers have found him and are trying to get in, so he escapes through a window and gets caught in the same net that Negan pointed out to Maggie when they arrived.
Tommaso grabs Maggie and Negan and pulls them into the main room. They accuse them of being with their enemy, leading them to their sanctuary. Negan insists they're there to help, or they can at least try to help. Satisfied, Amaia says they need to leave. Maggie wants to stay but Negan tells her they can't stay if the Croat's people know they're there. As they fight the armored men off, Maggie kills one to prove that they're on the same side. One of them grabs Esther and Negan tries to reason with him to save her, but he slashes her through the stomach and kills her. Tommaso cradles the woman until Amaia says they need to go.
In a rage, Negan says he's got the man and leads him back into the main room where the other men from the raid are. As they watch, he drags their man along and uses him to break windows. He makes fun of the man with a neck beard and rat tail, telling them its about to rain as he slices the man's throat. He threatens that they'd better stay away. After he tosses the man over the railing, he turns to see Maggie watching and regret flashes in his eyes. "We'd better go," he says.
Ginny, meanwhile, isn't waiting around. While New Hilltop sleeps, she sneaks away into the night.
Negan tends to a wound on his hand while their new friends recover from the attack. Tommaso is still shaken by Esther's death. He and Amaia thank Maggie and Negan for their help and Tommaso admits they don't have an army. They're the only ones. If they came in a boat, the boat is gone by now because no one leaves the island. Maggie admits they're there for the Croat, who has her son. Amaia says they can help with that.
Armstrong is taken by the Croat's thugs and the Croat himself is there to greet him after taking out a whole group of walkers. "Don’t worry, you're safe now," the Croat tells him.
Watch The Walking Dead: Dead City Sundays at 9 pm ET/PT on AMC and streaming on-demand via AMC Plus.
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