Dead City Season 2: Why The Dama Needs Negan Despite The Walking Dead Villain's Redemptive Arc Explained By Scott Gimple & Lauren Cohan

The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2 finds Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) on opposite teams once again, though this time, Negan's picking up his beloved Lucille with a more reluctant air about him. He finds himself under the Dama's thumb, as she employs him and the Croat as her ambassadors to the other clans in New York City. Meanwhile, Maggie and Hershel have (somewhat unwillingly) joined up with New Babylon and are preparing to launch an attack on the Manhattan tribes.

Negan is known as The Walking Dead's most iconic villain, but later seasons and Dead City season 1 presented him as a man reckoning with his past. Given that his most infamous action was murdering Maggie's husband Glenn with his signature bat, it's no wonder the two continue to have a stormy relationship regardless of his supposed redemption. And with The Dama using him for her own ends in season 2, the question becomes whether Negan can play a villain once more without losing himself in the role, and whether Maggie is willing to pull him back if he does.

ScreenRant interviewed Cohan and The Walking Dead Universe's Chief Content Officer Scott Gimple about Maggie and Negan's major relationships in The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2. Cohan discussed Maggie's fractured relationship with Hershel and the surprising evolution of her bond with Negan's ward Ginny, while Gimple explained why Negan is key to the Dama's plans and how new antagonist Bruegel fits into the picture.

Negan’s Villainous Flair Is A Key Ingredient In The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2

“That Comes From The Dama's Need To Put On A Show”

Due to it being set farther in the future than most other Walking Dead spinoffs, Dead City makes fascinating use of the juxtaposition between the Old World and the New. Characters like Hershel and season 2 newcomer Benjamin were born in the aftermath of the virus taking over, or otherwise only have memory of life as it is now, creating another lens through which to look at the world before.

Meanwhile, older characters like The Dama use the “Old World” as a weapon, obsessing over art and performance, and figuring out how to control others with those tools. In season 2, Negan has become one of her most effective tools. As Cohan put it, his forced defection to her team “comes from the Dama's need to put on a show.”

Gimple was in complete agreement with that assessment and expanded further. “The Walking Dead universe is all about characters, and that is the Dama's character. She puts an incredibly high priority on performance, on art, and she's gone to great lengths to procure Negan. It's like trying to try to bring somebody to your casino to perform, or putting them on America's Got Talent. That's really a rough metaphor, but she sees the power in performance.”

“Negan's an able fighter, but he's not going to win the war with Lucille. He's going to win hearts and minds with his performance of a villain.” That is the key to striking fear into their respective bands of survivors, and The Dama's easiest route to maintaining power in Manhattan. “It's about the character of the Dama and what she prioritizes. The Croat is brilliant, but he's not a showman. Negan is.”

Dead City Season 2 Will Test Maggie & Hershel’s Relationship In New Ways

“They’re Two Human Beings Who Are Going Through A Great Amount Of Trauma”

Maggie’s raison d’être in season 1 was rescuing her son, Hershel. Now that they’re reunited, it naturally changes how The Walking Dead heroine handles herself in Dead City season 2. Cohan was nearly as relieved as her onscreen counterpart to have the boy back, declaring, “Obviously, whenever you're fighting for anything, it's good to remember exactly why. It's nice to have the thing you're protecting the most in sight and with you.” That being said, “being reunited with Hershel is complex.”

“He comes back, and it seems like things will be rosy, but it's a complicated relationship,” Cohan teased. The tension between them goes beyond their apocalyptic surroundings. “They’re two human beings who are going through a great amount of trauma,” the actor explained. “Maggie especially doesn't necessarily see and understand everything that Herschel might need in this moment, or the pain of wanting to have this closeness with his mom while also wanting to define himself as a man.”

One of the biggest wedges between mother and son is her ongoing grudge against Negan, despite her mission to save him from The Dama in season 2. “Maggie's still fighting with herself, and fighting her own demons too,” Cohan admitted. Not that Negan deserves grace and forgiveness after his brutal murder of Glenn in the flagship series, but Maggie deserves to let go of her simmering rage to focus her attention on the future with her son.

But it’s not all darkness, according to Gimple. “You see them good together,” the EP added. “You see the history and bond they have, and you understand what we're protecting. There are some warm moments that make you realize, ‘Yeah, that's the thing that she's protecting.’ There are some really lovely moments between them.”

Kim Coates’ Bruegel Is Giving Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan A Run For His Money

“He Is A Fusion Between A Brutal King And A Jester”

Newcomer Kim Coates (who left quite a legacy in Sons of Anarchy) plays Bruegel, a formidable force in Manhattan who seems quite different from the other leaders such as The Croat and The Dama. Gimple described him as “a wheeler-dealer. He is both incredibly modern and of the moment, and yet you could see him in an old Western being the guy who is trying to blow up the town so that he can run his railroad through it.”

He had plenty of praise for the “brilliant” Coates, and explained that Bruegel “is a fusion between a brutal king and a jester. He's one of the most unique villains that we've seen on the show in years.” The humor will become quickly apparent as season 2 progresses, and Gimple offered an apt comparison. “Jeffrey has definitely been an incredibly funny villain at times, but if there were a Def Comedy Jam battle between Bruegel and Negan, I'm not sure who would come out on top. They're both hilarious.”

Maggie & Ginny’s Dynamic Is As Rewarding As It Is Adversarial In Dead City Season 2

“Those Sequences Break My Heart”

Fans know Maggie would do anything for Hershel, but we see her Mama Bear instincts emerge time and time again with Ginny in season 2. While the relationship began as antagonistic, given that Ginny was a ward of Negan’s, it has blossomed into a pseudo mother-daughter bond. “I love an opportunity to talk about Mahina [Napoleon],” Cohan gushed, though she admitted that “those sequences break my heart because they're so relatable. I remember being that teenager. I just remember when nothing that your parents could do was okay; no matter what they would do.”

The actor once more pointed to the Dead City themes that go beyond the end of the world. “I like the fact that Ginny might express things that Herschel doesn't express, but it's all because they have to walk their own road. Barring the apocalypse, they have to walk their own road. The greatest strength a parent can have, and the greatest gift a parent can give their kids is to let them explore and maybe fail sometimes.”

At the same time, the fact that The Walking Dead takes place in an apocalyptic world is precisely why that universal message of parenthood hits home a little harder. “How do you do that when failing means very terrible things?” Cohan asked. “That's also relatable to this world. But I just had such an amazing time with Mahina. She's just such a tender, amazing person.” Though she did not offer a specific episode number for fear of spoilers, she did tease that “Ginny's got incredible stuff this season.”

The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2 premieres May 4 only on AMC and +AMC, with new episodes airing every Sunday.