The Walking Dead: Dead City review – It’s raining dead, hallelujah!

The advantages of The Walking Dead: Dead City are immediately obvious, a few minutes into the first episode.

The production values are excellent. The two lead actors are seasoned veterans that fans of the franchise are invested in. And most importantly, this unlikely and seemingly insane pairing is based upon a believable story.

There is no apparent reason for Maggie (Lauren Cohan) to align with Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) who killed her husband Glenn (Steven Yeun). But circumstances in The Walking Dead: Dead City force her to make a deal with the devil - who is in a bit of a spot himself, on the run from New Babylon Marshals for murdering a magistrate.

We are told that Manhattan was one of the epicenters of the zombie outbreak and as a result, measures were taken to contain the spread. When our cast arrives at this familiar and now-terrifying site, walkers fall from the skies. Alerted by their presence, they shamble off rooftops, splattering onto concrete in a mulch of carrion.

Welcome to Dead City, reader!

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Is The Walking Dead: Dead City a winner?

It would not be a leap to say that the show is already the best spinoff of the original series.

The consensus is that Fear the Walking Dead lost its way after three strong seasons, while Tales of the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond never really took off.

The Walking Dead: Dead City benefits from the natural charm and wit of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays a character we’ve come to love and hate in equal measure. Lauren Cohan as Maggie is even more bad*ss at this stage of her evolution, with some cool new tricks up her sleeve when it comes to close combat.

But perhaps the most interesting character is The Croat, a former ally of Negan who is the primary villain in this series. Deemed by Negan as an exceptionally insane son of a b*tch, The Croat (Željko Ivanek) is ruthless, immediately unlikable, and indeed as cuckoo as Negan remembers him to be.

The Walking Dead: Dead City also does a great job of humanizing Negan, the erstwhile primary villain of this universe. His bond with a little girl called Ginny, (Mahina Anne Marie Napoleon), who views him almost like a father figure is certainly very interesting. And yet, that does nothing to allay the PTSD that Maggie experiences at having to depend on a man who took away her husband from her.

The relationship between the two central leads is hostile at best, and downright murderous at times. That lends a sense of danger to the series that’s unique in the franchise. And then there is Armstrong.

The New Babylon Sheriff is a man who’s hot on Negan’s trail and will go to every length to arrest him. Morality is a theme that’s at the forefront of the series, and there are twists and turns galore. And by the end, we learn that there is plenty more story to tell.

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Will The Walking Dead: Dead City take off in the same manner as the original series did? Will any show achieve that level of popularity? Only time will tell.

What we can attest to, at least for now, is that this show is certainly worth your while.