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The Walking Dead: Dead City S01E05 Review: Negan's Suddenly "Popular"

The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1 Ep. 5 "Stories We Tell Ourselves" finds Negan suddenly very popular - for all of the wrong reasons.

With only two episodes remaining in the first season of AMC's The Walking Dead: Dead City, our expectations are pretty high – both for how the season is going to end and for news that a second season has been given an official green light. But let's not get ahead of ourselves because – as we've seen a number of times this season already – a lot can happen in mere minutes, so you can only imagine what's ahead with two whole chapters left to go. Heading into S01E05: "Stories We Tell Ourselves" (directed by Gandja Monteiro and written by Brenna Kouf), Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) learned that no good deed goes unpunished now that he's "under arrest" by a badly wounded Armstrong (Gaius Charles) – but a team-up is more in order if either of them is going to survive.

Meanwhile, The Croat (Željko Ivanek) is on the move – still reeling from the thought that Negan may have actually changed. And then we have Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Ginny (Mahina Napoleon), and the others making their way underground to track the big bad, rescue Herschel (Logan Kim), and end The Croat's threat for good. But The Croat isn't close to being the biggest threat that our survivors will have to face – not when Jasmin Walker's The Dama enters the scene. Here's why the season's penultimate episode lived up to its promise of some interesting twists while also dialing up the disturbing & the tragically touching in some very unique ways. So with that in mind, we're throwing on the "MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!" sign and throwing down an image spoiler buffer before we do a deep dive into "Stories We Tell Ourselves"…

The Walking Dead: Dead City S01E05: "Stories We Tell Ourselves"

I appreciate how they handled showing that Maggie chose the higher ground and didn't burn Ginny's dinosaur.

Jonathan Higginbotham's Tommaso has really grown on me as a character in a short period of time – here's hoping I didn't just curse him to an untimely death.

Negan confirms what we've been assuming: he killed those five for what they did to Annie. Charles does nice work at this moment, displaying being hit with an unexpected "reality punch" without uttering a word.

As metaphors go, they don't get much heavier than the journeys into the heart of darkness that Negan and Maggie are on – yet I can't shake this feeling that two episodes aren't going to wrap up some of the bigger, overarching plotlines in play.

Okay, nothing personal? Maggie was seriously out of line with what she hit Ginny with about Negan – a flag on the play for that.

So we got some interesting background on Armstrong, his connection to Chelsea Piers, and his originally being from the Bronx and working for the state to keep the rivers clean. A nice moment of bonding between the two, with Negan even offering up that he was a gym teacher in his past life.

Yeah – just a hunch? Any room you walk into with "avant-garde" art hanging on the wall that include baby doll parts is probably a room you don't want to spend a lot of time in. Also, serious props to Morgan for dropping a great line after the focus on the artwork.

Some truly impressive sets & effects work during these scenes with Maggie and the others – some truly horrific settings that vibe dramatically different from what we've seen.

Wow! I was not expecting Maggie to go "Badass Hercule Poirot" on Tommaso (which now kills my liking his character) so quickly, and kudos to Cohan for flipping the switch that impressively fast. And just like that, Tommaso makes it clear that he has bought into Amaia's (Karina Ortiz) plan for some time – with Ortiz showing Amaia's shock & sense of betrayal wonderfully.

Interesting seeing how both Negan and Maggie can't stop themselves from trying to do the right thing – and those are some brutal Methane-fueled flashbacks that Maggie's having. Wow – forgot just how rough Glenn's (Steven Yeun) death scene was.

Oh… wow. We lost Amaia and Tommaso in a very disturbing walker attack (again, amazing effects & set work), not long after Tommaso – in a way – confessed his sins to Maggie. Cohan coming close to wanting to absolve Tommaso before he passed and she had to keep him down is worth a repeat viewing.

And speaking of a journey into the heart of darkness, I appreciated the way they conveyed The Croat having his own perilous journey to undertake – and wow, did they give Walker's The Dama one helluva twisted lead-in. I can't remember "Anything Goes" sounding quite as angry as it does in this scene – audibly amping up the danger that's heading our way. So it looks like The Dama needs Negan for whatever their "ending" is going to be – but The Croat offering a heads-up up marshals on the island might just change up the "acts" of the "play."

I'm so glad that Maggie is opening up to Ginny and being honest about her intentions with everything – even Negan. And yet… anyone else gets the feeling that maybe Ginny isn't vibing Maggie as much as Maggie thinks she is?

Charles' performance as Armstrong shares his backstory about his brother with Negan was the spotlight moment that the actor deserved – and he nails every note as if it's coming from the heart and in the moment. The letter from earlier takes on so many more layers of tragedy, knowing what we know now. And in that moment, Armstrong reveals how it's the "grays" that hurt us the most – that it's the "stories we tell ourselves" that help us make sense of things that maybe aren't meant to make sense.

At this point, I can't shake the feeling that all of that twisted artwork from earlier was foreshadowing what was to come… and then we have it! Wow! We will have nightmares about the walker heads coming out of the body of what we're guessing was someone's "patchwork project."

And there it is… the real big revelation. The Croat took Herschel in exchange for Maggie delivering Negan to him – and that was her plan. I was wondering what that "LIAR" scrawl in tunnels was all about – wow. And with that? Ginny fires the flare gun that Negan gave her in that flashback earlier in the season – a perfect set-up for what looks to be a very ugly smackdown next week.

The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1 Episode 5 "Stories We Tell Ourselves"

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Review by Ray Flook

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9/10

With only two episodes remaining in the first season of AMC's The Walking Dead: Dead City, our expectations are pretty high - both for how the season is going to end and for news that a second season has been given an official green light. But let's not get ahead of ourselves because - as we've seen a number of times this season already - a lot can happen in mere minutes, so you can only imagine what's ahead with two whole chapters left to go. Heading into S01E05: "Stories We Tell Ourselves" (directed by Gandja Monteiro and written by Brenna Kouf), Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) learned that no good deed goes unpunished now that he's "under arrest" by a badly wounded Armstrong (Gaius Charles) - but a team-up is more in order if either of them is going to survive. Meanwhile, The Croat (Željko Ivanek) is on the move - still reeling from the thought that Negan may have actually changed. And then we have Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Ginny (Mahina Napoleon), and the others making their way underground to track the big bad, rescue Herschel (Logan Kim), and end The Croat's threat for good. But The Croat isn't close to being the biggest threat that our survivors will have to face - not when Jasmin Walker's The Dama enters the scene. Here's why the season's penultimate episode lived up to its promise of some interesting twists while also dialing up the disturbing & the tragically touching in some very unique ways.

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