The Walking Dead: Dead City Victim Speaks on That Twist (Exclusive)

[This story contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Dead City season 1 episode 5, “Stories We Tell Ourselves.”] “The show started out with a bang. But then there was a plot twist,” says the Dama (Lisa Emery), offering meta-commentary in Sunday’s “Stories We Tell Ourselves” episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City. “You thought you had your hero, but he got away. What good is a hero offstage? So, naturally, the ending fizzled — and let’s face it, everyone knows the ending is all that matters.” 

The penultimate episode of the season took a twisty turn when it was revealed that Maggie (Lauren Cohan) lied about the circumstances surrounding her son’s abduction by the Croat (Željko Ivanek). As it turns out, the former Savior didn’t kidnap Hershel (Logan Kim) as part of an extortion plot to steal their harvest. The Croat took Hershel hostage to force Maggie into luring her old enemy, the fugitive Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), out of hiding and into Manhattan for the Dama’s mysterious reasons. 

But that’s not all. After the last of Amaia (Karina Ortiz) and Tommaso’s (Jonathan Higginbotham) tribe of native New Yorkers died during an ambush inside the Croat’s New Sanctuary, Maggie figured out that Tommaso tipped off the Croat. And he’s been a mole the entire time — giving away the tribe’s hideouts to be raided by the Croat’s Burazi in exchange for a way off the island with Amaia.

Before she could come to terms with her boyfriend’s betrayal, Amaia was torn apart by walkers in the methane-filled tunnels beneath New Sanctuary. Tommaso tried to save her, but he died when a “fleshie” bit his neck and bled him out, forcing Maggie to put him down with a stab to the brain.

“I don’t think she had enough time to forgive him,” Ortiz told ComicBook in an interview recorded before the SAG-AFTRA strike. “I think she was still processing it, and also, she’s dealing with barely being able to breathe [from the methane]. She’s kind of almost given up for that moment because we just lost everybody [from the tribe], and that’s really heavy to carry.”

Amaia agreed to work with Maggie and Negan to bait the Croat into leaving his fortress so they could save Maggie’s son and kill the man whose Burazi had been hunting her tribe. Tribespeople Esther (Eleanor Reissa), Luther (Michael Anthony), and Rizza (Aixa Kendrick) met their end one by one, until it was just Amaia and Tommaso. In the end, Tommaso died knowing it was his fault.

“While it was on his end, he’s somebody that I trusted. Being one of the leaders, I put my people in danger,” Ortiz said. “And so I have that guilt, as well. It’s sad. It’s sad that they don’t get that chance to have a conversation. I think she was still processing it. I think she understands, ultimately, why he did it. And in this world where it’s kind of like there’s no right or wrong, good or bad. She’s aware of that, but also, that was the family they had left. That’s not something that anybody would be able to just get over right away.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Dead City premiere Thursdays on AMC+ and Sundays on AMC.

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