'The Walking Dead: Dead City' Is Having ... Fun?

I suspect there aren’t a lot of folks who have any interest in The Walking Dead: Dead City anymore, and when I do occasionally write about it, it’s usually to say something negative, like this franchise is cooked. And it probably is.

However, it wouldn’t be fair to the 12 of you who read about this show not to at least give it some props when it works, and in this week’s third episode of the third season, it actually does. For so long, this show has been hamstrung by the characters that were created in the original The Walking Dead, but in this third season, the writers are figuring out how to tailor the characters to the actors, and it’s been really refreshing. Because Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan are much more than grunts, animosity, and grudges.

It might sound lame, and it might not square well with the events of the OG The Walking Dead, but Maggie and Negan are friends. And they have really great chemistry together, even more so when you bring in a few really good additions this season: Jimmi Simpson, who plays a bar owner Negan has become close with; Aimee Garcia, who plays a best friend to Maggie; and her brother, Raúl Castillo, one of those great “that guy” character actors. The cast all seems like they’re having a good time, which is not something we can say about The Walking Dead in almost any season, except back when Carol and Daryl were super chummy.

The other thing this season has done — and it’s smart — is to essentially retire the storyline from the first two seasons. The two major villains — the Dama and the Croat — were dispatched (largely unceremoniously), and Perlie went back home. Now, instead of working cross-purposes against enemies, Maggie and Negan are working together to build a community. The two have a lot of experience building failed communities, but — surely — with an end to this franchise in sight, it feels like they’re trying to build a forever home in Manhattan. They’re clearing Central Park to create farmland. They’re using the methane from the zombies to provide power. And they’re working together. It feels very Kumbaya. In a good way.

They also opened a hospital, and this week’s episode was like a high-stakes episode of The Pitt. To build the community, they need people, and to attract people, they turned on the lights. It worked. Two warring communities came onto their shores and — because of the warring — they had a lot of injuries. And in the apocalypse, the trauma unit has an extra feature: if the patient dies, they turn into a zombie, which makes doctoring more difficult. Hershel (the grandson of the OG Hershel) is basically an intern, and Raúl Castillo’s character — who had some medical training — is running the place.

And while Maggie and Renata (Garcia’s character) handle the logistics, Negan is more of a friendly enforcer, though he pulls out his old bag of Negan tricks this week, only to discover that Renata and Maggie’s way is better: instead of pitting the communities against each other, give them a common purpose — clearing farmland.

I’m not suggesting that The Walking Dead: Dead City is suddenly prestige television, nor that anyone who gave up on the show many years ago should return. This franchise has a long history of burning us. But for now, at least? It’s fun. The characters are having fun. The actors are having fun. It’s not always so deadly serious. And they’re all making it work with spit, duct tape, and good vibes.