What to Remember Before You Watch The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2

It’s been 651 days since The Walking Dead last took a bite out of the Big Apple, but on Sunday night, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) return in The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2. Once again set on the Isle of the Dead that is New York City — which has been without electricity ever since the lights went out at the onset of the outbreak some 18 years earlier — the new season finds Maggie and Negan in the middle of a literal power struggle between the New Babylon Federation and the gangs of New York.

Whether you’ve forgotten a few things since we last saw Maggie and Negan in 2023, or if you need a refresher on the cliffhanger that ended the first season, here’s everything you need to remember before the new season of Dead City premieres tonight, Sunday, May 4, at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.

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Maggie and Negan went into New York City together — and Maggie left him there

Last season, Maggie was forced to track down Negan after his former Savior underling, the Croat (Željko Ivanek), kidnapped her son Hershel (Logan Kim) from their home at the Bricks, the new Hilltop colony. Negan, a wanted man pursued by New Babylon Marshal Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles), agreed to help Maggie get her son back from the Croat if she would take in and shelter his orphaned ward, Ginny (Mahina Napoleon). Maggie also reminded Negan that she owed him: he brutally murdered her husband, Glenn (Steven Yeun), in front of her when she was pregnant with Hershel.

After Maggie and Negan survived the mean streets of New York City together, it turned out that the Croat strongarmed Maggie into bringing the fugitive Negan from the mainland to Manhattan. Maggie gave up Negan to the Croat, who proceeded to hand him over to the Dama (Lisa Emery), a power broker who wanted Negan to unite and lead the city’s gangs to defend the island’s natural resources from New Babylon.

Power equals power

That “natural resource” is the methane gas that the Croat produces by turning the island’s abundant amount of corpses into fuel, enough to generate electricity and restore power to New York City. (After all, people are a resource.)

Whoever controls the methane operation wields the power, so the Dama mounted their defense just as New Babylon Governor Byrd (Jasmin Walker) had Armstrong inform her about the methane to replace the thousands of acres of corn fields required to produce New Babylon’s ethanol supply.

Negan: Wanted dead or alive

After doggedly pursuing Negan from the mainland to the island, Armstrong claimed he shot and killed the fugitive when questioned by his superiors. In reality, the marshal let Negan go because he saved his life (a not-quite-selfless act: “They pin your death on me, and I’m wanted twice as bad,” Negan explained).

Meanwhile, someone else switched sides to bring Negan to justice: Ginny, who learned that Negan lied to her. Ginny’s father was one of the four men Negan killed along with a New Babylon magistrate — but only because the five men attacked and robbed his wife, Annie (Medina Senghore), almost killing her. When Negan found out that Ginny followed him to New York, he falsely claimed he only took her in because she was a “debt” that he had to pay, but those harsh words were his way to get Ginny to return to the safety of the Bricks with Maggie.

Mother Dama

Season 1 ended with Maggie rescuing Hershel from the Croat and the Dama, who cut off Hershel’s toe and then gave it to Negan as a reminder to keep her new enforcer line. But once mother and son were reunited, Hershel expressed his resentment towards Maggie: “Seemed like you cared more about revenge,” he said of Maggie’s “obsession” with the man who murdered his father.

“I’m right here. But you don’t see me. It’s like my whole life you’ve been looking over my shoulder, watching for him, waiting for him,” Hershel told Maggie. “But you never see me.” Back at the Bricks, Maggie found Hershel’s drawings of a woman whose face she didn’t know: the Dama.

Tranquilitas Ordinis

“Tranquility, order, justice, the law.” That’s the motto of New Babylon, capital city of the federation of states that harshly enforces the law among its treaty-bound members. But the colonizing New Babylon Federation began to expand its powers when Governor Byrd set her sights on new territory: New York City.

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