Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched The Walking Dead: Dead City’s latest episode, so be warned!
For all that Lauren Cohan’s Maggie Rhee is just trying to swoop up her son from his kidnapping so that they can get the hell out of New York City, The Walking Dead: Dead City doesn’t seem to be as quick or willing to leave things behind. (Well, except for Negan’s wife Annie, that is, whose absence was harshly explained in Episode 3.) The first three episodes spent quite a bit of time with Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan front and center, once again trying to (unsuccessfully) prove himself not a bad guy, once again while also being guilty of some heinous bad-guy acts. The fourth installment, “Everybody Wins a Prize,” hearkened back to the past in a more direct way, by bringing in The Walking Dead vet Stephen Ogg for a return as the fan-favorite Savior Simon, complete with his unmistakable mustache.
It admittedly gave me quite the joyous jolt to see a less-graying Negan sitting astride his former second banana, the barb-wire bat Lucille, within his former Sanctuary digs. The spark that pops up in Morgan’s eyes whenever Negan is feeling his worth is missed, so I appreciate its return for this flashback opening. And before I could even put much thought into the idea of someone else from that era returning, they went and made the magic happen by getting Ogg back into action, albeit for a rather dark piece of exposition for Željko Ivanek’s antagonist.
While I fully understand the value in bringing Simon back for this sequence, as a way to strengthen the flashback and to reflect the Saviors’ line of command, the episode didn’t really do much to respect Simon’s memory. Not that this spinoff needs to vilify any of the franchise’s villains for the sake of it, but I kinda hate The Croat, and I really don’t like him being the one to shit on Simon, either in the past or after the latter’s passing.
Because really, that scene could/should have made Simon come off like a hero for being so hardcore about the off-limits nature of torturing and killing children, even within a group as twisted as the Saviors. That’s the rule that Croat-man once again broke by taking Hershel, proving how bad he is at following any kind of moral-based suggestions. (Do we know why The Croat seems to only be harming Asian kids?) And then to think he had the gall to call Simon out for not being the best henchman…ugh.
What makes the Dead City villain's insults sting all the more is the fact that he was so self-assured and proud to think he knew why Negan had showed up there, wrongly assuming he was after the New Babylon marshal, instead of putting two and two together. He talked about those Savior days as if they were super-recent, so he probably should have realized that "the Widow" was connected to Negan's return. Am I just being a whiny baby about all this? Yeahhh, maybe.
Generally, I would be formally against the idea of The Walking Dead universe somehow retconning Simon's death in Season 8 so that he could illogically show up in the nick of time to take Croat out. But boy, wouldn't that be a sweet way to round out this spinoff's first season? Simon shows up, saves Negan, saves Hershel, brings justice to the island, and then flies away on the back of a mustachioed unicorn or some shit. Resurrection justice for Simon!
Actually, if there’s anything great to be found here, it’s that the episode kinda proved how unfit for NYC life Simon would have been had he survived to also follow The Croat’s footsteps. If anyone isn’t built for metropolitan life, either before or after the apocalypse, it’s that dude.
Fans can rewatch all of Steven Ogg's performances on The Walking Dead with a Netflix subscription. And be sure to catch the final two episodes of Dead City on AMC on Sunday nights at 9:00 p.m. ET.
