Warning: This post contains MAJOR spoilers for The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3.
The Walking Dead and its many spin-offs are as relentless as television series can get, killing fan favorites such as Glenn, Hershel, and Carl Grimes in a heartbeat without ever looking back. Anyone can become a walker when least expected, and we've seen this scenario play out over and over again for 16 years now. However, things were taken to a new extreme this year.
From the get-go, The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 has forged a fresh narrative that has little to no connection to what came before it. As a result, the bad guys from previous seasons were killed without remorse during the first two episodes of the show. In their absence, new characters took center stage, and most of them were very helpful at first and seemed to have a bright future ahead. Unfortunately, not even the new additions were safe from meeting a dark end, as Dillard unexpectedly shot Renata in episode 7. The killing spree didn't end there, however, as the season finale of The Walking Dead: Dead City featured even more ruthless deaths.
The finale of The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 claims the life of another major character
Mason Dillard was a sole survivor living in a bar in Manhattan. To prevent himself from going crazy from multiple years of isolation, he decided to replace human connection with talking to the undead. Before the apocalypse, Dillard was an undercover cop who sometimes had to play a character for prolonged periods. Over time, it became very easy for him to change his psyche as if he flipped a switch. Unfortunately, this eventually resulted in Dillard losing himself and truly believing that the walkers trapped in his bar were his real friends.
With no one else to talk to, the former police officer developed a connection with his two dead companions named Titicaca and Cockenspiel. Eventually, Negan and Maggie crossed paths with Dillard, and the three actually got along for some time. They conducted exploratory missions in the city, gathered supplies, and all of them helped in the building of a new community led by Maggie and Renata. Furthermore, Dillard and Negan became genuine friends who played Xbox, drank beer, and threw parties in the bar from time to time. Things were better than ever, but there's no such thing as a happy ending in a post-apocalyptic world.
Fabian, a member of the newfound community, wasn't happy with how things were being run. Consumed by rage, he went to Dillard's bar and started to drink before executing his big master plan: shooting and killing Maggie. Unfortunately for him, Negan was also at the bar, and things took a dark turn the moment he realized Fabian's true intentions.
Without thinking twice, Negan shot the enraged survivor, but the bullet also killed the walker, Cockenspiel. When Dillard arrived at the scene, he wasn't happy to discover that his undead friend had met his end (for real this time). The two best friends argued for a short while before Negan shot Titicaca as a warning and asked Dillard to leave the scene.
In a matter of minutes, friendship was replaced by a heated rivalry. Dillard left the bar and slashed his own face in two, claiming that Negan had done it. This was all a ruse to convince Renata to assemble a small army, gather weapons, and start a manhunt against the same man who once killed Glenn. Initially, Dillard's plan worked, and Negan found himself surrounded inside the very same place he once met his best friend. Fortunately, Maggie arrived just in time and convinced Renata that killing wasn't the right answer.
Just as things were about to de-escalate, Dillard shot Renata and claimed her spot as the new leader. This put him on a collision course with Maggie, Negan, and Hershel alike. An all-out war began, but the action didn't last too long.
The finale of The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 saw Negan and Dillard come face-to-face in a battle to the death. Things weren't going well for Negan, but then Maggie entered the picture and cut Dillard's arm off. In that moment, she was going to end the villain's life for good, but Negan didn't allow it. Instead, he decided to let his former friend turn into a walker in the hopes that he could find whatever connection he longed for with the undead.
As simple as that, yet another main character from The Walking Dead: Dead City met his untimely end. On the bright side, the finale hinted that there will be more to Maggie and Negan's story, so chances are that we'll see them... kill even more evil survivors in the future.
All episodes of The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 are now streaming on AMC+.
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