The Walking Dead: Dead City doesn’t explain the fate of Oceanside

The Walking Dead: Dead City episode 2, “Who’s There,” brought up a community whose fate was uncertain even after the final episode of The Walking Dead. Oceanside, the fishing village on the coast of Virginia, of which the residents were refugees from another community whose male residents were slaughtered by the Savior, Simon (Steven Ogg).

In the second episode of Dead City, Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) is transplanted to Maggie’s new home, The Bricks, and Nina (Pallavi Sastry) begins showing her around. When the teacher Mr. Aizawa (John Wu), introduces her to the classroom, he tells the students she is from Oceanside.

Ginny is between the age of 10-12, and Dead City’s timeline has been said to begin anywhere from two to five years after The Walking Dead’s final episode. So, was she around during the Commonwealth’s attempts to overrun the community?

If Ginny is from Oceanside, does that mean the community did survive?

The Walking Dead – Oceanside

Oceanside became an afterthought after season 10 of the series. It was empty when Virgil (Kevin Carroll) returned to the location. After Hilltop falls, the communities retreat to The Tower to finish out the Whisperer’s war, and then some Hilltop residents follow the Oceanside residents to their community.

In season 11, Governor Milton (Laila Robins) visits Oceanside to make a trade agreement with Oceanside but Rachel (Avianna Mynhier) sides with Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and declines. Soon after, Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) is seen taking over Oceanside and flipping his precious coin to decide the community’s fate.

Nothing is mentioned of Oceanside until season 11, episode 22, “Faith.”

This is when Aaron (Ross Marquand), Lydia (Cassady McClincy), Jerry (Cooper Andrews), and Elijah (Oke Eme-Akwari) embark on a journey to Oceanside and run into the long-missing Luke (Dan Fogler) and Jules (Alex Sgambati). Luke and Jules were on the run after encountering Rachel and learning of an attempted Oceanside takeover by the Commonwealth.

Showrunner Angela Kang’s response to a Tweet confirmed that “they’re not all confirmed dead,” referring to the Oceanside residents. She stated that an Oceanside scene was supposed to be filmed but had to be cut. She believes Cyndie (Sydney Park), as community leader, was on a fishing expedition when the attack happened, so she survived, and Rachel was at Oceanside leading the attack. Many have taken this to mean that not only did the community overtake the Commonwealth, but after the one-year time jump began to thrive.

(This writer doesn’t have the same positive outlook for Oceanside that everyone else does based on Kang’s comment.)

Regardless, stating that Ginny is from Oceanside seems odd. She was living on a farm with her father when he came up missing, and she found him reanimated. When Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) tells Maggie about her, he states, “The tale the people on the farm told,” meaning they lived in a farming community. Negan is fully aware of Oceanside and would have referred to the location as such.

Oceanside is known to the people at The Bricks, but it is unclear if it is from history lessons of the community that was or if they did overcome and began to thrive again.

Perhaps more will be revealed as Dead City’s story progresses. Or, as with The Walking Dead, Oceanside will be mentioned and never heard of again.

The Walking Dead: Dead City will air new episodes weekly on AMC on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET. AMC+ subscribers can watch new episodes three days early on Thursdays.

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