Summary
“Doma Smo” isn’t much of an ending. Instead, it’s a turning point for a story that’ll likely continue for a couple more seasons at least.
This recap of The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1 Episode 6, “Doma Smo”, contains spoilers, including for the ending of The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1.
In the penultimate episode of Dead City, there were undead abominations, telling graffiti, surprising revelations, and a last-minute act of impulsivity that threatened to bring the entire gang back together in the most urgent of circumstances.
The season finale, “Doma Smo”, begins by doing away with all this so quickly that it’s almost laughable. Negan and Perlie immediately find Ginny after she launched the flare, and Maggie isn’t far behind. Negan insists Ginny can’t be there, obviously for her own safety. She doesn’t want to leave. So, he forces her — in the midst of her efforts to actually speak out loud — by confessing that the reason he’s wanted by the marshalls is that he killed five men, her father being one of them.
Ginny doesn’t mention — didn’t try to write it down or sign it or anything — that Maggie lied about the grain and plans to offer Negan to the Croat in exchange for Hershel. Perlie — “He’s good people,” Negan says of the man who has done nothing but try to arrest him throughout the season — offers to take her where she needs to go, and he does, despite him never having met her and nobody telling him where she’s actually going.
The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1 Episode 6 Recap
Luckily things don’t remain quite this silly.
Why does Maggie hand Negan to The Croat?
Ginny’s efforts to tell Negan something, combined with Maggie’s extremely shifty expression, tip Negan off to the fact that something’s amiss. He figures it out just in time to defend himself when Maggie comes at him with a knife. They have their Anakin and Obi-Wan moment, and Negan gets the better of her.
Negan correctly deduces her plan all along. The Croat never took any grain — he took Hershel to strong-arm Maggie into offering up Negan. And the irony is that, together, they could have sprung Hershel from captivity without having to play ball. But Maggie can’t get over Glenn’s death, and Negan’s responsibility for it. “And you shouldn’t,” says Negan, coming to terms with the idea.
The Croat arrives and takes them both away, Maggie keeping a knife to Negan’s throat and a look of horror in her eyes, perhaps at having realized she’s on her way to becoming the version of him that she hates. You’ve probably seen gifs of all this doing the rounds on social media since the tussle is a little sexually charged and the lingering, damp-eyed looks are a bit darkly — and oddly — romantic. Is this a love story after all?
What does New Babylon want with New York?
Negan, resigned to his fate, willingly hands himself over to The Croat in exchange for a hilariously ungrateful Hershel. All Negan asks is that Maggie looks after Ginny, who has been safely delivered back to The Bricks by Perlie, seemingly in about five minutes.
Perlie returns to New Babylon with a made-up story of having killed Negan, but New Babylon’s incredibly sinister leadership — note how Perlie’s kids are quietly threatened to force him into accepting a cigar — are only interested in one aspect of his story. The best way to cure tobacco leaves, after all, is central heating. They want to know about the methane.
Hershel is, to put it mildly, not thrilled to see Maggie, especially in context. He moans that she didn’t really rescue him, but instead got her opportunity for revenge. That’s all she really cared about — all she has ever cared about, apparently. Hershel is obviously being whiny here, but you can see his point. So, too, can Maggie. Shortly after returning to The Bricks, she returns Ginny’s dino toy and tells Hershel that she’s going to finish this thing with Negan so she can finally put it behind her.
The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1 Ending Explained
The Croat, with the enthusiasm of a small child watching his parents get back together — a metaphor he actually uses himself — introduces Negan to the Dama, who lays out a plan.
The idea is to unite all of the disparate settlements in New York under one banner and to use Negan to do it, the idea being that people will rally around a charismatic leader who isn’t afraid to smash someone’s head into a pulp if the mood strikes. He’s reticent, obviously. But the Dama has planned for that. She offers him a small key, which opens a small box, which contains a gruesome trinket — Hershel’s little toe.
As it turns out, The Dama kept a piece of her captive. She earned his trust enough that she can always go back for more pieces if she needs to, meaning that she has a way to force Negan into doing what she wants. At the same time, back at The Bricks, Maggie riffles through Hershel’s sketches and sees surprisingly decent renderings of the vault where he was held and a fetching portrait of The Dama.
The final shot, which brings the right half of Negan’s face together with the left half of Maggie’s, makes the point that there won’t be any moving on for either of them just yet, and their stories remain inexorably intertwined. See you in that reported second season.
You can stream The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1 Episode 6, “Doma Smo” exclusively on AMC and AMC+. What did you think of the ending of The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1? Let us know in the comments.
