Dead City is dead, dude! Or at least, The Walking Dead: Dead City aired its Season 2 finale, and nothing will ever be the same between Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Though honestly maybe it will be, who knows. Regardless, you may be interested in having a breakdown of what happened, aka a The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 ending explained. Plus, will there be a Dead City Season 3? And if so, when could Dead City Season 3 premiere?
Whoa, cool your jets, Nosey Nancy. We’ve got answers and educated speculation about all of this. So let’s give you a recap of the finale, “If History Were a Conflagration,” and then we’ll get into the rest of your questions.
The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 Finale Recap:
Things pick up relatively where we left off, with Maggie being held captive by The Dama (Lisa Emery). Meanwhile, Negan is by the bedside of Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) who isn’t doing too hot. And then there’s the war to prepare for. Bruegel (Kim Coates) is putting weapons together and keeping Perlie (Gaius Charles) under his thumb… But Perlie is only concerned with Ginny, which gives Bruegel an edge on the lawman.
At Negan’s stronghold, Bruegel brings a statue for him, while Negan serves a feast. We, the viewers, assume that he’s serving [Terminus voice] tainted meat, as we were told he used to do back in the day at Sanctuary. They taste it, and in fact it’s not tainted…. The table is hiding walkers, and the pews in the church are covered in fuel, which Negan’s men set on fire. A huge fight breaks out, and it looks like Bruegel’s men are on the losing end. Except the statue was a Trojan Horse filled with weapons. Bruegel’s men fight back, Negan grabs his bat, and the battle is joined.
Meanwhile, Dama and Maggie talk about Hershel’s (Logan Kim) role in things. Dama tells Maggie she’s caught in a loop with Negan, and encourages her to end the cycle by killing him. Hershel talks to Maggie, too, and she admits that she can’t kill Negan, despite she wants to. Hershel tells her that they can move on as a family only if she kills Negan… They let her go, and Maggie heads off to do the deed.
Back to Bruegel, he’s outnumbered, and Negan gets Bruegel and Perlie on their knees. He even does the “eeny meanie miney mo,” something that Maggie sees — telling her that Negan hasn’t really changed (though he has). Instead of a bat beating, though, Negan tells Bruegel, “You really want the methane that bad? Take it,” shoves the gas in his mouth and sets him on fire. Then he hits him with a bat.
Perlie takes the opportunity to escape; and while Negan’s chasing him, Maggie sneaks up and stabs him in the back. She picks up New Lucille, and stalks Negan, who is just crawling to go see Ginny one last time. Maggie is about to bash him, but then they both see it’s too late… Ginny has died and become zombified. Negan takes her out with a stab to the head. RIP Ginny!
Sad ending, huh? But wait, there’s more.
The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 Ending Explained:
Having a change of heart, Maggie and Perlie pull the knife out of Negan and patch him up. “I was so busy thinking I was looking out for her, that I missed it,” Negan says. “That she died alone.”
That’s enough for Maggie to go back and see Hershel while Dama lurks around the corner. Hershel knows instantly that Maggie didn’t kill Negan, and Hershel is pissed.
In the midst of all of this, though, New Babylon shows up in force, flipping the figurative table of power on its head. Maggie, Negan, and Perlie see them marching their forces into the city, ready to take control of the zombie-fueled methane supplies.
So what to do next? Well, Perlie has a parable: “Walking through the woods, a man comes to a fork in his path. To go left is to go home. His past. To go right is to go out into the unknown, his future. He knows his past. It’s comforting. But will it be like he remembers? And his future is full of possibilities, but what if he gets lost? Which way does he go? He goes left.”
Maggie, in voiceover, then reiterates the parable in her own words: “Back home, to the way things were. But all that’s waiting for him is an old story that hurts too much to remember.”
Negan adds, “So he goes right. But there’s nothing there for him either. ‘Cause what’s the future without the past? What’s an ending without that old story?”
“The truth is there is only one way forward,” Maggie continues. “One way to move on. We gotta work through what was.”
“To get to what will be,” Negan adds.
Anyway, it goes on like this for another minute, over a montage of Maggie and Negan’s history together while they mull over — metaphorically that their relationship keeps moving forward, but only if they do it together. “We move on. Together. And we get there,” they say in conclusion.
So if you need the ending explained, New Babylon has taken over Manhattan — which was what they were trying to do at the beginning of this season — and Negan and Maggie are working together — which I’ll be honest I thought they were doing at the end of last season, but I guess not?
Cool show, bro.
Will There Be A The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3?
As of this writing, The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 hasn’t been officially announced by AMC. Daryl Dixon is filming Season 3 in Spain, and has been picked up for Season 4, so The Walking Dead Universe does have some sort of future. But Dead City Season 3, which hasn’t been a hit on the same level as the Norman Reedus-starrer, so is its future in flux?
Maybe, maybe not. Cohan has talked very vaguely about what she would expect to happen with Maggie and Negan in Season 3, which seems to indicate there have been at least some conversations. There are also unconfirmed rumors from the fan community (who, for what it’s worth, have become extremely reliable over the years when it comes to the franchise) that Season 3 has been in pre-production in Randolph, Massachusetts, since earlier this month.
Even less confirmed is scuttlebutt that showrunner Eli Jorné has left Dead City, as he’s now working on Severance, and former The Walking Dead writer Seth Hoffman will take over as showrunner for Season 3 and potentially Season 4; which (we’re getting really into rumors here) could film back-to-back and wrap up the show.
But until you hear it officially from AMC, it didn’t happen. Even if the fans are usually right on the money.
When Will The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 Premiere?
So for the sake of argument let’s say Dead City has been renewed for Season 3. When could it potentially premiere? Luckily for our educated guessing, Walking Dead shows tend to run like clockwork at this point. Dead City Season 1 filmed from July 19 to October 24, 2022, and premiered on June 18, 2023, about eight months after wrapping. Dead City Season 2 filmed from April 8, 2024 to July 15, 2024, and premiered on May 4, 2025, 10 months later.
Assuming they are in pre-production now, we could expect a three-month production schedule for the show, likely around the same time as Season 1. That said, if they are filming two seasons back to back, production could go longer — though that wouldn’t necessarily impact post-production on Season 3.
Given Daryl Dixon Season 3 is premiering in September of this year, I’d take a not-so-wild stab that Dead City Season 3 could premiere June, 2026, similar to the debut of Season 1. That way AMC gets a Fall show (Daryl Dixon) and a Summer show (Dead City) for at least the next two years.
The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
New episodes of The Walking Dead: Dead City premiere on Sundays on AMC and AMC+. The episodes premiere at 9 pm ET on AMC and AMC+
Here’s the full list of episodes in The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 with premiere dates:
- Sunday, May 4, 2024: The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 2, Episode 1 – “Power Equals Power”
- Sunday, May 11, 2024: The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 2, Episode 2 – “Another Shitty Lesson”
- Sunday, May 18, 2024: The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 2, Episode 3 – “Why Did The Mainlanders Cross The River?”
- Sunday, May 25, 2024: The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 2, Episode 4 – “Feisty Friendly”
- Sunday, June 1, 2024: The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 2, Episode 5 – “The Bird Always Knows”
- Sunday, June 8, 2024: The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 2, Episode 6 – “Bridge Partners Are Hard To Come by These Days”
- Sunday, June 15, 2024: The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 2, Episode 7 – “Novi Dan, Novi Početak”
- Sunday, June 22, 2024: The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 2, Episode 8 – “If History Were a Conflagration” *season finale*
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