The Walking Dead: Dead City is making some big changes for its third season. After two years of bickering and occasionally stabbing each other, longtime enemies Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) and Negan Smith (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) plan to work together to bring back Manhattan in Season 3. Yes, really. We can’t guarantee there won’t still be plenty of bickering, though.
The third season of AMC’s Dead spinoff welcomes a new showrunner, Seth Hoffman, who is known for writing some of the series’ favorite episodes: Season 4’s “Too Far Gone” and Season 6 entries “JSS,” and “No Way Out,” which introduced the beginning of Negan’s saga in The Walking Dead Universe.
There’s also a highly-anticipated alt-reality episode coming later in the season. TV Insider caught up with star Cohan on the carpet after AMC’s Upfront this spring, where she teased a bit of that installment. “There’s a little bit of an alternate reality that we explore [in Season 3] in Dead City,” she confirms.”And it’s as emotional and uplifting as you would expect. We had the most amazing time.”
As for Maggie and Negan’s new dynamic, Cohan is looking forward to the change of pace. “In this season, it almost feels like an alternate universe [for Maggie and Negan as well], because they’re really taking a different path, one they’ve never taken before. It’s akin to partnership,” she says.
She continues: “When I reflect back on the show, when Rick [Andrew Lincoln] was going to kill Negan and he didn’t and Maggie completely lost her mind, that woman is still real. Those beliefs are still real. And yet, things in this universe keep being put in front of [them] that are more achievable when they’re not at each other’s throats. And I think that, as well as other things we explore this year, show the reward of forgiveness more than we’ve ever had an opportunity to show.”
We’re looking forward to seeing how these two survivors, well, survive each other.
The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 3 Premiere, Sunday, July 26, 9/8c, AMC and AMC+
—Reporting by Kelli Boyle