Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 Episode 3.
The premiere episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 saw Maggie (Lauren Cohan) being forced to go back to New York City by New Babylon, while Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is forced by the Dama (Lisa Emery) to recruit other groups to fight on her side when the New Babylon forces arrive. In the second episode, appropriately titled “Another Shit Lesson”, everything indeed does go to shit, as the amateurs of New Babylon are easily defeated after refusing to listen to Maggie’s advice. Their destruction could have been a lot worse had Negan not seen Hershel (Logan Kim) getting off the ferry.
The man who killed Hershel’s father hesitates, letting the boy escape, but his mercy doesn’t go unnoticed by the Croat (Zeljo Ivanek). Negan pays for his compassion, with the Dama killing a friend of his. Her people are now searching for the ferry survivors, who have fled into the remains of Central Park. What horrors await them in Dead City’s third episode, “Why Did the Mainlanders Cross the River?”
New Babylon’s Ferry Survivors Are Attacked in Central Park

The episode starts with a flashback, as a captive Hershel is offered food by an apologetic Dama. She sets the boy free from his restraints, speaking nicely to him and gaining his trust. It’s what Hershel’s thinking about now, as he marches with Maggie and the ferry survivors through Central Park. During their trek, a walker attacks, killing a woman before quickly being dispatched by Hershel. He notices that the walker has a strange hole in its chest, but what he doesn’t see is a girl watching him in the distance. Meanwhile, the Croat, Negan, and another man, Waylen, are driving through the streets, but the Croat doesn’t think they’ll find any survivors. He tells Negan that he knows he let the lifeboat get away because he draws the line at kids, so he promises that if the child is found, he’ll deal with them instead. All Negan can do is sit there glum and silent.
As Maggie and Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles) discuss finding shelter and taking a rest, hothead Narvaez (Dascha Polanco) is focused on continuing the mission and searching for the methane despite their depleted forces. Perlie agrees with Narvaez, but he also thinks that Maggie should be allowed to do things her way. That might not matter, because as the group moves through a field with grass taller than they are, hidden walkers emerge, taking out several in the group as if this was a scene from The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Surrounded, those who live are split up as they run off. Among them is Ginny (Mahina Napoleon), who is forced to leave the bag containing her secret gun behind, which is found by Hershel. Hershel runs into the mysterious girl who was watching him, who pulls him to safety, then walks away without a word.
Negan Saves Hershel Again in ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Season 2 Episode 3

Negan finally speaks during an outdoor lunch with the Croat, asking why the Dama treats him so horribly. The Croat talks about how the Dama saved him, which sounds a lot like how she saved Hershel. He knows she can be cruel but she seeks to bring out everyone’s full potential. The Croat also knows that Negan has gone soft. Negan asks to go into Central Park alone (we know he wants to save Hershel) but the Croat isn’t stupid, so he has Waylen go with him.
Unable to find Hershel, the rest of the group, now at the entrance of Central Park, are forced to leave it by a horde of walkers, even though on the other side stands a group of people dressed in garb from another time. The group takes them in, and we are introduced to their leader, Roksana (Pooya Monseni), who doesn’t appreciate the walker attention they’ve brought. For now, though, she’ll protect them until the threat has passed, and have her people look for Hershel. Perlie shoots his shot, trying to persuade the group to come back with them, but they won’t leave. This is their home. When Maggie tells him to let them be, he gives up and listens, but that doesn’t stop Narvaez from getting him alone and telling him that Maggie’s wrong.
Hershel sits alone by a fountain, Ginny’s gun next to him, as we’re taken to another flashback of the Dama entering his cell as he’s drawing the destroyed New York skyline. She brings up Negan, but Hershel doesn’t care. It’s his mom who’s obsessed with him. The Dama continues to manipulate him, saying that they’re alike and his feelings matter, even if his own mother doesn’t notice him. The Dama is the one who really sees him, and the confused look on Hershel’s face tells us that’s all he wants. Back in the present, the girl comes out of the woods and finds Hershel’s drawing.

Related

Every ‘Walking Dead’ Spin-Off Show, Ranked From Worst to Best

The Walking Dead franchise has had its hits and misses.

Negan and Waylen are now in a Central Park tunnel, but when the latter is attacked, Negan throws walkers in his path and leaves him behind to die. Waylen doesn’t go down easy, though, and the next time we see him, he’s badly wounded but still alive as he stumbles upon Hershel and the girl. He attacks them, stabbing the girl in the leg, giving time for Hershel to pull out Ginny’s gun. Scared to pull the trigger, Waylen approaches, only to be stabbed to death from behind by Negan. An angry Hershel aims the gun at Negan, pulling the trigger but aiming wide, allowing the man to escape.
Hershel Has Been Corrupted in ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’

Image via AMC

Hershel helps the girl escape and get back to her group, but he plays dumb when Maggie brings up hearing a gunshot. Another scene from the past shows that the Dama left his cell door open, giving him his freedom. Walkers wait in the hallway outside, but the Dama is there to help him. She takes Hershel through the theater she lives in, showing him a large, grand room filled with art, and tells him it belongs to him. She speaks to him about reinvention, before revealing that his room is an elevator. The Dama sends it to the top floor and opens a window, exposing the skyline and Central Park beyond. She wants to rebuild the destroyed world, to make new rules and be new people, and Hershel can draw it for her.
Back in the present, shaken from his memory, Hershel gives Ginny her pack back without saying what he found inside. He then admits to his mom that Negan saved him, before getting angry about how much she thinks about him. Meanwhile, everyone stands around quietly as the girl dies. The group wails in unison at her passing before cutting out her heart. Now we know why the earlier walker had a hole in its chest.
Negan returns to the Croat, telling him that Waylen is dead but conveniently leaving out the part about him causing it. He lies again and says that the New Babylon soldiers are dead, but the Croat looks suspiciously at the blood on his hand. As Episode 3 ends, the girl’s body is left in the park, where it reanimates as walkers eat her heart from an altar. Maggie goes to Hershel and brings up their conversation by asking if the city has a hold on him. Her son says he’s not afraid of New York. He sees it as abandoned and ignored, an island that no one saved. That’s over now, and New York can be free and rebuilt. He might as well be talking about himself. One last flashback sees the Dama telling Hershel that he is going to have to make some hard sacrifices, and when he goes home, there may be some things he’ll have to do. Has the time come for Maggie to be afraid of her very own child?

The Walking Dead: Dead City

Hershel’s transformation is the only thing keeping this dull season together.

Release Date

June 18, 2023

Network

AMC

Directors

Kevin Dowling, Loren Yaconelli

Writers

Brenna Kouf

Pros & Cons

Hershel has become a more compelling and corrupted character.
The walker attack in Central Park is creepy.

Maggie’s obsession with Glenn is getting redundant.
A glum Negan barely speaks anymore.