Spoiler alert: new details emerge about the third season of Dead City, the The Walking Dead spinoff focused on Maggie and Negan.
The first episode of The Walking Dead season 7 is perhaps the franchise’s most infamous moment (or for some, the most reviled) in this horror saga. In a gory and gratuitous turn, the terrifying Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) kills Glenn (Steven Yeun) with his baseball bat, Lucille. A traumatic event for the fans, but first and foremost for his wife, Maggie (played by Lauren Cohan).
From that point on, a fierce hatred—and later a notably fraught collaboration—will fuse the widow and the killer. A dynamic the creators decided to stretch beyond the main series’ hiatus into the spin-off The Walking Dead : Dead City. However, after two seasons released in 2023 and 2025, the situation may be changing. SPOILERS AHEAD.
THE WALKING HATE
As Entertainment Weekly reveals, the long-running feud between Maggie and Negan is finally expected to reach its end in Dead City season 3. The outlet insists: no more forced collaborations—the leads of The Walking Dead spinoff will finally be allies, operating on the same wavelength. And the cast seems to be the first to celebrate, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan leading the charge:
“The relationship between Maggie and Negan had to evolve. I really wanted it. Negan kept saving her, saving her child, and yet she hated me. I think we were all ready to move on. It isn’t fair: ‘I’ll kill you the moment I get the chance,’ you know?”
Lauren Cohan echoes the sentiment:
“This is a major turning point in the Maggie–Negan relationship. They will finally collaborate. We teased it, we hoped for it, we may have even tried for it, but this is the first time it’s actually happening.”
For Maggie’s actress, this calls for a completely new way of seeing her character:
“If I don’t kill him, I have to live with him and learn to know him as he really is. And that means a long healing process, both for their relationship and for her personally. What’s different this year is her vulnerability. She tells him, ‘I need your help.’ It’s something she’s never tried with him before. She pushed and manipulated him to help, and he did so, knowingly or not, to repay a debt. But this is the first time she’s shown such openness with him.”
This upheaval in the show’s dynamic is fueled by the arrival of Seth Hoffman at the helm. The writer isn’t entirely new to the The Walking Dead universe, having worked on seasons 4 through 6 of the flagship series. More importantly, Hoffman isn’t about to surprise fans only with Negan and Maggie’s reconciliation.
Season 3 is also set to include… an episode set in an alternate reality. That’s at least how Entertainment Weekly describes it after visiting the New York set. The set looked like a pristine, zombie-free city. Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan’s characters wandered through it as if no threat existed. And Negan wore an ankle monitor.
All of these mysterious elements are bound to click into place when the new season arrives, and the release date is now known. The Walking Dead : Dead City will return on July 26 on AMC and AMC+ in the United States.
