Man, what a mess this episode was, honestly I have been ok ish into this season of Dead City but episode 7 just crashed and burned in the worst way possible. The whole thing felt like the writers got drunk and decided to throw every stupid idea they had into one episode, like seriously what were they thinking with all this nonsense, the entire episode felt like dizzy. Maggie's out there looking for Hershel and runs into the Croat who is supposedly gonna help her but really just wants to drag her around Manhattan doing tourism over broken glass and walker traps, meanwhile Negan was having some kind of mental breakdown at a hospital talking to his dead wive like he was in some bad trip. The episode starts with Maggie searching the theater for her son but instead finds the Croat who initially plays dumb about Hershel's location until she threatens him, then suddenly he remembers there might be another place the kid could be hiding out, so the guy who have been trying to kill her every time he gets the chance now going to help her? tf?!. At the same time Negan's taking care of Ginny with help from this young guy Benjamin who apparently doesn't remember anything from before the apocalypse started since he was too little and was very traumatic for him, which honestly just felt like another way for the writers to make us feel sorry for these characters instead of actually giving them interesting things to do. The whole setup just screamed "filler episode" from the very beginning and it never got any better, actually it got worse as it went along with all the ridiculous hallucination sequences and pointless danger that wasn't really dangerous at all.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18546730/
- Platform: Prime Video
The hospital scenes with Negan were probably the most annoying part of the whole damn episode because they kept promising something scary or interesting but never delivered on any of it, so Negan goes to this supposedly dangerous hospital where "no one comes back alive" to find medical supplies for Ginny and what does he find there besides some sleeper walkers that barely move unless you poke them, what was that about? aside from them been kids doesnt make much sense. The whole place was supposed to be this deadly maze but Negan just walks through it like he was shopping at the grocery store, occasionally bumping into a zombie child that doesn't even attack him properly. Then comes the hallucination bullshit where he starts seeing his dead wife Lucille and then Annie and their kid Joshua, having these deep conversations about how he failed everyone in his life, like come on writers we get it Negan has guilt issues you don't need to beat us over the head with it through fake ghost conversations. The worst part is they could have just done flashbacks to show his regret and it would have been way more effective than this supernatural nonsense that makes no sense in the Walking Dead universe, like are we supposed to believe walkers cause hallucinations now or what. Even the medical equipment he finds at the end feels like an afterthought, just something to justify the whole pointless hospital adventure that added nothing to the actual story except padding the runtime with boring dream sequences that went nowhere, I really thought he would bring back some pills or medicine for Ginny instead gets this artificial breathing machine.
Maggie's storyline wasn't much better because they decided to focus on her fear of heights in the most over the top way possible, turning what should have been a tense rescue mission into a weird therapy session on top of a skyscraper. The Croat leads her through this obstacle course of traps he apparently set up himself, make me wonder a few things about why he had make it so difficult to access his own safe house but whatever logic isn't really important in this episode anyway since a lot of things are very vague and make no sense. They have to cross this glass bridge between buildings that starts cracking under Maggie's weight while walkers pound on it going after her and instead of creating real tension the scene just drags on with Maggie frozen in place being scared of heights like she has never been in dangerous situations before, would have been better if it just breaks and then she was left haging, that type of moment did arrive but felt too long. The Croat tries to talk her across with some philosophical garbage about how fear of heights is really fear of jumping, which honestly was one of the better moments in the episode but still felt forced and unnatural coming from this character since he had no real intentions or motives to help her. Maggie starts hallucinating too for reasons that are never properly explained, maybe it's stress or maybe it's magic who knows at this point but she passes out and wakes up to find the Croat fixing a flashlight like they're camping instead of fighting for their lives. The whole sequence felt like it was written by someone who has never actually watched The Walking Dead before because since when is Maggie afraid of anything, this is the woman who's killed countless people and walkers but now she's scared of being up high.
At least the Croat got some decent character development even though it came way too late to really matter for the overall episode, his backstory about losing his mother when he was twelve and finding her dead body was actually touching in a way. He admits he brought Maggie to the building not to find Hershel but because he wanted someone to help him commit suicide, which is dark but at least makes sense for his character unlike most of the other stuff happening in this episode. The conversation between him and Maggie about pain and loss felt original and fresh coming from him for once, even if it was surrounded by all the other ridiculous nonsense going on around them and you can tell the actors were trying their best to make something meaningful out of the terrible material they were given, at least thats my impression. But then the episode pulls its biggest twist by revealing that Hershel actually is at the location the Croat mentioned, complete with their secret flashlight signal, so maybe he wasn't lying after all about trying to help Maggie find her son, felt exhausting having seen them to go way back, just moving through so many places. The reunion between mother and son starts out sweet but then gets ruined by the reveal that Dama is still alive and has been manipulating everything from behind the scenes and Im done with her character she is one of the most annoying characters from the entire TWD Universe, a woman who has no grip or leverage other her voice over all this grown men?, it all felt like the writers couldn't figure out how to end the episode so they just threw in a shock revelation that makes no sense but at least was shocking at first. The question is how did Dama survive being crushed and burned, why did everyone think she was dead and what was she been doing this whole time while her organization fell apart, none of these questions get answered because the episode is too busy with pointless hallucinations and height phobia therapy sessions.
The only decent part of the whole episode was Negan's transformation back into his old savage self at the very end, where he tells Benjamin that instead of showing mercy like he used to do he's gonna line everyone up and kill them all. This felt like the first real character development we have gotten from Negan all season, even if it came after forty minutes of boring hospital wandering and fake conversations with dead people, for once felt like the old Negan, similar to when he just arrive to the city with Maggie on episode one, when he open up one of Croat's guy, at least it promises that next and last episode might actually have some action. The Croatian title "Novi Dan Novi Pocetak" means new day new beginning but honestly this episode felt more like old crap new packaging, recycling tired themes about guilt and fear without adding anything fresh or interesting to the characters or story. Benjamin's comment about not remembering life before the apocalypse was supposed to be profound but just reminded me how much better Carl's character from the OG series was and how the show killed him off for no good reason, now we're stuck with discount Carl talking about medical cream while the real action happens somewhere else. The whole episode felt like a setup for the finale but it was such a boring and frustrating setup that I'm not even sure I care what happens next, which is pretty sad considering how much potential this show had when it started. Rating this mess gets a solid 5 out of 10 and that's being generous, mostly because the Croat scenes were decent and Negan's final moment showed some promisebut everything else was just a waste of time that could have been spent on actual plot development or character growth instead of weird psychological nonsense that doesn't fit the tone of the series.
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