The Walking Dead: Dead City 1 & 2

Can’t get enough of THE WALKING DEAD? Despair not, because just in time for Christmas fans are able to purchase THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY Season 1 & 2 as a 4-disc Blu-ray box set. Season 1 already looked more than promising but Season 2 truly kicks ass, with some new characters as bad as it gets and hey, there’s even a zombie grizzly bear AND the return of ‘Lucille’…

Seeing how we already reviewed and discussed DEAD CITY Season 1 separately some time ago, in this review we shall focus on reviewing Season 2, although both seasons are packed into one box set. Season 1 ended with a nail-biting cliffhanger during which Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) was taken by the Croat (Zeljiko Ivanek), leader of the Burazi gang, to meet the Dama (Lisa Emery), his no-nonsense and sadistic ally, while Maggie’s (Lauren Cohan) relationship with her son Hershel (Logan Kim) remained as strained as ever.

Season 2 takes off one year later, with Maggie forced to return from New York while members of her fortified farming community, called the Bricks, found themselves forced into joining the New Babylon Federation, led by Governor Charlie Byrd (Jasmin Walker). Things get off to a nasty start when newly promoted Col. Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles), who joined forces with Byrd, witness the hanging of a poor sod who refused conscription - a special mission forced upon male residents in order to reclaim the city - although Perlie looks on deeply uncomfortable during the execution.

Meanwhile, Herschel falls increasingly under Damas’ spell (as additionally demonstrated via flashbacks) although the same can’t be said for Negan, who remains wary of her (and with good reason). But Dama wasn’t born stupid and always has another trump card up her sleeve, in this case, she arranges for Negan’s wife Annie and their son Joshua to arrive in the city, which gives her ammo for bending Negan according to her will and indeed, he gives in and agrees to help. He’s also presented with an even nastier version of ‘Lucille’ (his barbed-wire wrapped baseball bat). While all this is going on, the New Babylonians are ready to sail to Manhattan but someone grassed them up and the Burazi seem to know of the New Babylonians’ arrival and find themselves attacked with walker bombs. Pearlie and Maggie, together with daughter Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) and son Hershel, manage to flee the inferno but the ‘we escaped’ vibe takes a dramatic turn when it emerges that it was Hershel who grassed up the group… Meanwhile, those Babylonians who survived the attack meet another strange group of survivors called Foragers, led by the equally strange Roksana (Pooya Mohseni), who indulges in even stranger rituals and takes the phrase ‘A stab in the heart’ literally…

Things are somewhat convoluted from then one, with god knows how many splinter groups and Hershel and Damas’ continued relation explained in flashback as well as in the present. An interesting development is the get-together between Dama, Negan, the Burazi and ‘connoisseur of the fine arts’, Bruegel (Kim Coates) - leader of the Silk Stockings, Manhattan’s fiercest gang. The get-together takes place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where Bruegel stages gladiator fights between Walkers in one big hall. It’s a spectacle and a-half alright! Suffice to say, the meeting doesn’t go according to plan, not helped by the fact that New Babylon’s very own historian, Benjamin Pierce (Keir Gilchrist), recognises Dama as a former theatre critic with a fearsome reputation for making or breaking a show. She’s not amused about Pierce’s discovery…

It all gets weirder and nastier by the minute as our characters are increasingly suspicious of one another. Then there’s a battle for methane which is constantly juxtaposed against the relentless battle for raw survival. Negan will lose a loved-one during Season 2 in a truly devastating way while there are some nail-biting moments thrown in for good measure, namely when Maggie, obviously suffering from vertigo, ends up injured on a platform made of glass god knows how many storeys high and is literally frozen with fear, while Walkers crawl along said platform from both sides and the glass begins to crack… Can’t wait for Season 3!

THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY 1 & 2 is available in Blu-ray and DVD format and comes with the following Extras: 2023 Wondercon Panel, Episode Insiders, Show Me More. It’s part of Acorn Media International ‘Christmas Crackers’ Bumper Box Sets - perfect for binge lovers, with other monster franchise box sets including ‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon 1-3’ / Anne Rice’s ‘Interview with the Vampire 1 & 2’ and Anne Rice’s ‘Mayfair Witches 1 & 2’.