The Walking Dead: Dead City – Everyone Wins A Prize

The episode begins with Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) back in the time of The Sanctuary where he ruled with an iron fist and delusions of being a savior. His group was named as such, The Saviors, though he was really nothing more than a charming tyrant holding a baseball bat. He sits in the all too familiar factory room where meetings were held to make decisions on how to deal with Alexandria or Hilltop. Smirking as he writes notes on attacks he either has already made or will soon be making, he drinks a beer and looks up when Simon (Steven Ogg) enters to inform him they have a problem. Negan takes a moment, sitting back in his chair, as though he already suspects what, or who, is the issue.

Simon walks Negan down a hallway, telling him that he had passed along Negan’s order, but it had been ignored. He gives him a backhanded, “I told you so,” before reaching a door that is opened by The Croat (Željko Ivanek), excited to share his news. He begins to tell them that he had gotten a confession out of a girl, who admitted to having been sent by The King to spy on them. Simon reminds him that Negan had told him to let the girl go, but The Croat insists it was necessary and part of his process, which takes time. Now having given them the location of hidden weapons Simon insists he would have found them and though The Croat mocks his observation skills. Simon retorts that The Croat’s disturbing process wasn’t necessary and calls him a psychopath. They draw the line with kids and to murder children is the golden rule that they never break. Negan stands in silent disgust as The Croat claims Negan must understand, though even without words it is clear that he does not.

Back in the present day, among the company of Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Negan is lost in thought. Just as she seems to be, though her thoughts are most likely due to the guilt she feels for concealing the fact that Ginny may potentially be on the island. When Amaia (Karina Ortiz) enters to announce she still can’t find Luther, Tomasso (Jonathan Higginbotham) and the rest of their group look concerned, discussing the last time they saw him. Negan; however, trying not to stir up any suspicion, reminds them that Luther was not keen on their plan and didn’t seem to want any part of it, to which they all agree. Tomasso says that he is his own man, that they can’t afford to wait for him and that he will show up after they take out The Croat. Amaia and Tomasso share a comforting hug while Maggie and Negan gather their belongings.

Negan practices aiming with one of their new friends weapons, but winces in pain from the hand he had pulled glass from a few days before. He looks up at Maggie, telling her that it’s ok and is getting better, while hurriedly hiding the tin of beeswax he took from Luther. Maggie asks if Negan is ready, to which he replies yes. However, after a moment he reconsiders and tells her, honestly, that he isn’t. It isn’t because he might die, but rather that the things that will come from The Croat’s mouth that will take him back to a life he wants to forget. When he finishes talking he notices Maggie wincing and upon asking her what’s wrong she begins to explain how much she hates the harmonica as someone can be heard playing one in the background. When Hershel was a baby, someone had been incessantly playing one at night and after repeated attempts to ask him to stop, eventually this led to her burying it when the owner was out on a hunting expedition. Negan teases Maggie for her form of revenge and Maggie coldy remarks that she is sure he would have done something much worse. Negan begins rifling through his bag and asks Maggie if she has seen his matches. She says no but does indeed, as she had used them the night before when contemplating whether or not to burn the dinosaur teddy.

We are shown several parts of the city in disrepair, covered in muck and overgrown before following a dozen walkers passing a subway stop and eventually the restaurant in which the survivors are hiding. As soon as they have, the group open the boarded up door and make their way down the street to begin their plan to take down The Croat and save Maggie’s son. Maggie stops in the street when she hears a noise. Tomasso stands next to her and says that it’s methane from the sewers as Maggie frowns looking down at the hissing noise coming from the steel grate. In the background, as they continue on, Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) is quietly following alongside, keeping to the shadows.

Passing over dead bodies and walkers too weak to reach out, all of which had been there since the beginning of the apocalypse, the group make their way through the abandoned subway. They attempt to dodge the bodies, ensuring not to risk one being a lot less dead than it might appear. They each stick to the same path, taking the journey slowly, until it is clever to walk. Maggie stops, noticing a sign that reads “34th st. PENN. STATION. LIRR ACCESS 31-8.” Eventually they move through the Pennsylvania Station exit and Tomasso leads them to where he had been held. They check room after room, each filled with a chair and various splatters of blood, but Maggie and Negan push to the front and begin working their way through them faster, each increasingly worse than the next. Eventually they reach the last room and have to burst through the lock. Inside a dark haired young man sits seemingly dead with his head hung low, leaving a distraught Maggie afraid to grow closer lest he be confirmed as her son. Negan, seeing the pain in her face, slowly moves closer and lifts the boy’s head who they soon realize is a walker when it begins snapping towards Negan with its teeth. Maggie tries to hold back tears as she looks at Negan, but the relief is too much to contain when he confirms that it isn’t Hershel and she begins to gently cry.

The group begins running through their plan again as Amaia sits on the floor marking out position points on a rough drawing of the stadium. The main premise is for Negan to bait The Croat out into the open space so that Maggie can find her son and they can kill The Croat. It’s at the end of this summation that Amaia uses the episode’s namesake “everyone wins a prize.” Tommaso asks how they will know if the plan goes wrong and Negan answers honestly that they won’t, leaving all of them into silent thought before Amaia breaks the silence by telling them not to screw up. As the rest begin to make their way to the various start positions, Maggie and Negan remain. Maggie asks if Negan has thought about how he will get The Croat’s attention and looks down at her pocket to the matches she had taken from him. Standing in the doorway,Negan looks back at her over his shoulder. He tells her that he has a few ideas and that he truly believes the plan will work. Maggie says she has to tell him something, but as she looks down she sees Luther’s tin inside his bag. Bending down, she retrieves the tin but also slips his matches back inside the bag unbeknownst to him. When she stands with it in her hands, Negan tells her that he can explain. However, she has heard enough of him explaining and picks up her bag. Negan tells her not to act as though she’s never done something that needs explaining, but she cuts him off telling him they don’t have time for this. She then walks away down the hall. Negan, frustrated, picks up his own back and follows after.

In a control room a young girl sits spinning a CD in her hands, unsure exactly how to use it, perhaps too young to have ever used one before. The Croat enters, rolling up his sleeves and asks if she knows how to operate it to which she nods, though it is clear she doesn’t and is just too afraid to tell him. He looks at her and asks if she is sure, eventually taking the disk and showing her how to use it. As he continues to roll his sleeves he addresses her nerves, asking if she is afraid of him. But although the young girl tries her best to tell him “of course not,” he says aloud that she is clearly. He begins to talk of when he found her hiding in a fire station with a group he refers to as barbarians, but remarks how smart she was for laying down her weapons. In the first time we see The Croat as anything more than a monster, he kneels to tell her he’s loved watching her blossom into a protector and how proud he is of her. With an almost fatherly compassion, he tells her to never be afraid of him and hands her a boiled sweet from his pocket. Behind him their attention is diverted, by an all too familiar whistle echoing through the halls. The saviours whistle. The Croat turns to the girl for her to confirm that she too heard the whistle before he heads out to search, knowing full well that it is Negan. He grabs his coat, leaving the young girl to hurriedly put the CD in the machine and begin a five minute countdown. The Croat begins to call out Negan’s name as he makes his way into the stadium car park. the whistles still echoing around the walls. Maggie creeps through, ducking as she makes her way to one of the cars. She takes out a tool and places it on the passenger seat and then tries to use her knife to start the car, but realizes the keys are already in the ignition. When she spots Ginny standing amongst the cars, the two share an awkward moment before Ginny turns, running the opposite way. Maggie, distracted by this, forgets the tool on the passenger seat and climbs out to rush after her. As the clock counts down, The Croat lights a candle…

The rest of the survivors enter the main room of the stadium, having expected to find The Croat’s men, but realizing the building is seemingly empty. Over in the car park, The Croat still calls out Negan’s name while he ducks and moves between the cars until he eventually ends up at the one that Maggie had left the tool inside.

The clock, now having reached a minute, continues to countdown as the candle burns ominously lower…

Maggie catches up to Ginny, stopping her from running and looks up when she sees Amaia and Tommaso with the rest of their group. Amaia tells a confused Maggie that The Croat’s men are not there. Negan climbs into the car for Maggie’s tool, but has to hide inside when The Croat grows closer.

Off in the distance the countdown ends, files light up and music begins to play out all around the stadium as Maggie and the survivors stand in the center of the large open space. Finally, the flame of the candle dies out, ending in a blue flash before reigniting in an explosion intended to draw all the walkers into the stadium. From above we see multiple explosions taking out the doors and letting the enormous herd enter from all sides.

The Croat’s men, who were there all along, start running to the cars leaving Negan sliding quietly, unseen, out of the passenger side of the car and pulling out his knife ready as the owner gets into the car. Maggie, Amaia, Tommaso and the rest of the survivors run around the stadium trying to find an exit as walkers flood in from every entrance, even spilling down from the seats above having entered through the stairs at the top. From above them the normal lighting is turned off and instead the moving lights used when there are fights in the ring come on, drawing even more attention as the group have their backs to the ring.

Negan stays hidden beside the car as the driver asks The Croat if he is going with him, but he tells the driver to go instead asking two of the others to remain with him. As the car pulls away Negan has managed to get out from behind it and is moving along pipeworks and tanks full of yellow fluid, with walkers shoved into them like pickles in brine.

Inside the stadium the group, entirely surrounded, each fight hand to hand with walkers but almost all of the group being swarmed and pulled apart. Maggie watches in horror as Amaia lets out a scream as she watches Tommaso become surrounded and disappear from sight into a swell of the herd.

The Croat tells the two remaining men that they have a guest and they span out, attempting to find Negan. When The Croat finds one of the power tool weapons that the Manhattan survivors left behind, Negan sneaks off in the opposite direction just not quick enough to avoid being detected. With a creepy smile on his face, The Croat chases after him like a puppy playing a game.

Maggie continues fighting, but becomes distracted by haunting memories of Hershel (Logan Kim). When she sees an opening in one of the doorways, she begins to run towards it. She finds herself stopping; however, as though the guilt of leaving the others hits her. Upon turning to scan the room, she sees Ginny, alone and afraid, hiding inside the ring. She runs back, calling on Amaia and Pilleuse (Aixa Kendrick) to follow and they head inside the ring, chaining it shut to keep the walkers out.

The Croat, from several floors below, calls Negan’s name as he follows after him up the stairs. Negan briefly looks down with a smirk on his face before continuing up the levels, spiralling round. The Croat and his men look at each other before continuing after him.

Now inside the ring three strong women and one brave young girl alike fight the walkers through the holes of the cage, killing them with knives and sticks as they continue to press the fences of the cage inwards. Maggie takes a moment to circle the pen for an opening or anything they can use and finds it when she sees the padding attached in between each fence. Pulling one down and discovering the ability to hold it like a shield, she shouts for the others to do the same. With four padded shields, Maggie calls for them to fall in and create a barricade.

The Croat and his men chase Negan up an old escalator just in time to see a door in the far corner swing shut. He orders his men to go round the other way as he follows Negan through the door and holding up the stolen weapon, cautiously moves through the darkened stairwell after him.

Maggie’s group begin using their shields together to move the walkers out of their way, occasionally lowering them to kill one that gets too close. The group momentarily breaks when Pilleuse gets bitten and dragged off to the side, leaving Amaia trying to help her. However, Maggie keeps her and Ginny moving forward towards the doorway. Amaia is grabbed from the side and almost bitten until Tommaso comes running in from the side just in the nick of time to rescue her, having not been eaten as it previously had seemed. When through the door the group of them begin trying each and every door to see if they can find a way to escape the herd before it begins following them. Tommaso finds a way through one of the doors and leads them to a room full of tanks, presumably of gas and the four of them scan the room for a way out.

The Croat moves through the lighting area above the stadium, cautiously looking for a sign of Negan and takes a moment to look over the edge at the now relatively quiet stadium full of dead bodies. He calls out that Negan shouldn’t be afraid and that it is only him. He turns to see Negan on the level below him, both armed with the same makeshift power guns and both aimed at each other. The Croat excitedly calls Negan his brother and lowers his own weapon, calling a truce. He tells Negan that when he heard of his handiwork at the bank and that he had aligned with the other survivors, he knew Negan assumed it was revenge that he sought. The Croat asks about the baseball bat, Lucielle and when Negan says its gone, The Croat asks if it was from hitting too many people over the head and genuinely seems to be concerned for the loss of the bat more than the loss of his own ear. He goes on to say that he heard about the war with Alexandria, Hilltop and The Kingdom against The Saviors and that he wished he had been there, only being able to imagine how much of a mess Simon caused – which he did. The Croat wanted Negan to see The Sanctuary he has built and excitedly talks of taking over the whole island. It’s now that The Croat brings out who Negan wants, or at least that’s what he tells him, but instead his men reveal Perlie. He says that he thought Negan would want him as he has been pursuing him doggedly, but Negan interjects that he is there for the kid. The Croat tells him that the marshal had already told him and wants to know what the widow (Maggie) had offered him in order to get his help. Negan shakes his head and tells him to give him the kid, but The Croat says that to get Hershel back will be difficult and requires a conversation. He gestures for Negan to go up a level and talk to him, but realizes that Negan doesn’t trust him. So, he decides to give a token of brotherly love and respect by throwing the marshal over the edge, assuming that Negan would be pleased. The marshal manages to cling to the metal rail on the level that Negan is on, with a huge drop below him to the stadium floor should he fall. Negan hurries over to help try and pull him up, which confuses and angers The Croat, who seems to have expected the old Negan to be standing in front of him. Frustrated, The Croat fires the weapons, which appears to be some kind of nail gun that has been fixed to fire out a metal wire with a claw that latches onto the marshals leg. Negan tries to help Perlie safely over the edge and The Croat sends his men down to their level while he keeps the claw latched on and begins to pull it back. With his flesh already ripping, Perlie pulls it out of himself while The Croat speedily tries to wind the wire back in, but luckily Negan manages to pull Perlie over the edge and begins carrying him away.

Maggie, Tommaso, Ginny and Amaia begin to move a large metal barrel of gas in the way of the door to prevent the walkers from getting inside while they decide what to do. Looking back around the room Maggie sees a sign for sewer access and calls out for them to escape down the tunnels. They begin moving barrels out of the way to get to the manhole while the dead begin slamming against the door to get in. Amaia isn’t happy about the plan, knowing they won’t be able to breathe and how many dead will be down there, but Tommaso reminds her they have no alternative.

Negan and the marshal, having made it out of the arena, hide inside a small convenience store. Negan keeps an eye out and begins saying he thinks they lost him, but behind him the marshal still has ideas of punishing Negan for his supposed crimes and tells him he is to be executed. Negan holds up his hands, but makes sure to tell Perlie he’s a dick.

Back over in the locked room the survivors make their way down the tunnel, but none of them are particularly looking forward to it. Ginny looks to Maggie for reassurance, who tries to look confident about the plan, nodding that it’s ok. However, as she pulls the barrels back to cover the exit, she looks the most afraid of all.