NEW YORK GROOVE

SCOTT M GIMPLE DISCUSSES MAGGIE AND NEGAN'S NEXT ADVENTURE IN THE BIG APPLE FOR THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY

- TARA BENNETT

THE ENDING OF THE FLAGSHIP THE WALKING DEAD SERIES after 11 seasons in 2022 certainly didn't slow down AMC Networks' ambitions for their television universe. In fact, it freed up several of its most popular actors/characters for their own spin-offs, including Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride for their European-set Daryl Dixon; Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira reuniting for Rick and Michonne's interrupted love story in The Ones Who Live; and former mortal enemies Maggie Rhee and Negan (Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan) hiking up to New York City for a dire mission in Dead City.

Of the three series, the biggest head-scratcher of the bunch was Dead City, mostly because after former Saviors leader Negan brutally bashed in the head of Maggie's beloved Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) in season seven, he became persona non grata to her and the audience. The original series played up that loathing by forcing their storylines to merge here and there, but always under duress. That discomfort never let up, even after Negan reformed his nihilistic ways and managed to turn some other hearts and minds. Maggie remained stalwart about her #NeverNegan stance, and that's always made plenty of sense to the audience - and Cohan and Dean Morgan themselves. So how do you craft a series around that moral detente?

One of the most interesting and unexpected outcomes of Dead City's first season was how well it used its road-trip premise as a plausible opportunity to force Maggie and Negan to acknowledge their connection points and take stock of how they've both grown, failed and kept trying in this bleak post-apocalyptic world. The whole point of their John Carpenter-esque,