Doma Smo

Thoroughly enjoyed this episode, the characters and drama reflect all that came before. People lose track that TWD universe isn't just the zombie apocalypse thing but a character study of human nature when things seem bleek and social institutions are a disarray, if not forgotten in the zombie apocalypse thing.

It's basically zombie opera.

'Dead City' takes two of the most fleshed out and unique characters in universe and puts them together to raise the dramatic stakes and leave the puff behind the old TWD. We see Negan post-redemption arc still haunted by Maggie (Glen) and Maggie acting on (motherly) instinct and survival, a reflection of what Negan started with. Juxtaposition. Dichotomy. So on.

This season finale definitely raises the stakes for a potential second season, I look forward to it. One of the major problems with the later seasons of TWD and FTWD was the amount of main characters we had to follow. If you have shows that span decades and character studies for all of them, you can't explore anything without new situations or players. How could we keep up? Especially if they start a storyline with one character but don't go back to that particular viewpoint and story until a month later. You want to invest in that? I prefer the course correction in this show.

The writing hit its stride now that we've been given a new palette and a convincing plot. These characters all have their best moments in this episode. Their arcs are written very delicately. The show honestly has a lot more depth than I expected and this episode in particular is where it's shown most convincingly. Really great scenes from Maggie, Hershel, and Negan made this the best the walking dead content we've had in a while. I'm very impressed by Lauren Cohan, she's really slipped seamlessly into being the lead, Maggie is the role she was born to play. The supporting characters take this show over the top in quality, great casting, great writing, great episode.