Dead City Season 3 Episode 3 Review: Building a Community Has Never Been More Dangerous

Critic’s Rating: 4.25 / 5.0

4.25

Building a safe haven in one of the places in the world with the most zombies per square meter is not for the faint of heart.

On The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 Episode 3, Maggie and Renata had to come to terms with their decision to light the Statue of Liberty and open their community to anyone.

It was a big, bold swing because how do you know if the people wanting to join are doing so for all of the right reasons?

The last thing I bet either of them bargained for was inheriting a war between two of the island of the dead’s surrounding boroughs.

The good thing is that this episode provided a deep dive into Renata.

Aimee Garcia has been with the series since The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 Episode 1, but this installment allowed me to see what Maggie saw in her at first sight:

A badass who will make balanced decisions that will help her community flourish.

Renata is fearless, but I appreciate how the series put her struggle over how best to choose who stays with the community front and center.

Instead of thinking about the short term, Renata couldn’t help but think about how one wrong move could totally annihilate everything she’s done to build.

The fact that she also considered how events happening now could affect the community years down the line shows that she really is a natural-born leader.

Maggie has also had experience building communities, and I loved that she told Renata she would make the hospital safe, but that Renata would have to decide who stays.

The Walking Dead: Dead City Has Changed Everything

It would have been easy for Maggie to take over at this point, but allowing Renata to continue pondering the pros and cons of everything highlighted Maggie’s trust in her.

I can’t even begin to imagine building a community, let alone in the heart of New York City, but seeing Renata’s happiness as they reached 146 people by the end of the hour made all the pain worthwhile.

I had a feeling the episode would end with most of the survivors from the two new waves dead, and that it would push Renata to ponder whether she’s cut out for this role.

But she persevered, learned all of the facts, and proved why her methodology can work in the long term.

One thing I’ve grown to love is Renata’s back-and-forth with Negan. Negan stands for everything Renata hates in people, but she’s slowly realizing that a lot of what he says makes sense.

What really surprised me is that Negan got off scot-free after killing the Dama on The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 Episode 2.

When Maggie told him all about her demise, I figured she’d be watching his reaction to see if he had anything to do with the killing.

I don’t know that she’d be so mad about him doing the deed, but the sticking point will probably be that he lied to her.

These two have been to hell and back and are navigating the early days of what peace looks like between them.

I don’t know that their relationship is strong enough to withstand lies, but I think she would understand that, deep down, Negan killing the Dama probably aided her community.

Could you imagine if the Dama was still around for this influx of new survivors?

She would find a way to sow seeds of unrest from her jail cell.

As for Dillard, I’m glad that he finally realized that he had to kill walkers in order to survive, so why does that not extend to the zombified corpse of his ex-loved one?

There’s so much that can go wrong by being in the company of walkers, but knowing that he believes the reanimated version of his loved one is talking to him and manipulating him into doing whatever she tells him was quite surprising.

I don’t know that it really makes sense, because I would have thought Negan would have checked out every part of Dillard’s sleeping quarters to understand him better.

It’s a real shame that the one night Dillard’s bar is busy; he’s ostracizing himself from the group because of this hold the zombie has on him.

But maybe that final scene indicates that Dillard believes EVERY zombie is talking to him, and it could help explain why the bar has zombie patrons, too.

Maybe that’s what being lonely in a zombie apocalypse will do to someone.

Then there’s Hershel, who is by far the most improved character in TV history.

Is Hershel Becoming the Best Character?

I can’t believe how far he’s come since The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2.

Seeing his journey into the world of medicine and the focus on it doesn’t feel like what you’d expect from a show in The Walking Dead universe.

He’s really been thrown into the deep end here, thanks to the two communities joining the fold.

He was stretched to his limit and made all of the right decisions even when put under pressure, and you could see how proud Maggie was of him.

I bet she never thought she’d get to this period of understanding with him after everything they went through.

I’m still trying to comprehend how The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 has reinvigorated the spinoff, but every element is converging to deliver a confident series.

What more could I ask for?

What are your thoughts on Renata as this leader? Do you think she made the right calls?

What’s your take on Dillard and his not wanting to kill walkers?

Let’s keep the conversation going — it’s the only way the good stuff survives.

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