The Walking Dead has been around for a long time. Throughout its 16-year existence, many elements have come and gone, highlighting the ever-changing landscape of one of TV's biggest franchises. Even the often still world of the apocalypse has changes every now and again, and the biggest of them all is always: Death.
The TWD Universe has killed off many characters and many elements over the years. The landscape of the franchise now, led by two spinoffs, is drastically different to the larger-than-life ensemble piece that The Walking Dead itself was when it all began.
Most of those changes have been high-profile, but there is one that wasn't all that publicized. And, as more and more fans figure out what happened to one beloved feature of the original show, they aren't happy. And rightly so!
Dead City confirms that Hilltop fell a second time
With Lauren Cohan back on our screens as Maggie Rhee in spinoff The Walking Dead: Dead City and venturing into the ambitious cityscape that is New York City, it might be easy to forget that Maggie herself now lives in a different settlement than she did in the final season of The Walking Dead. Right now, she is one of the leaders of The Bricks community, but longtime franchise viewers will know that she has long been a leader of the Hilltop. So, what happened to it?
It turns out that Hilltop fell, seemingly a second time. In Dead City, Maggie tells Negan that the community never recovered from the Whisperer War which he helped facilitate, adding that to the understandable list of things she resented him for. While that seems perfectly acceptable on the surface considering that Hilltop did indeed fall after the attack, with much of the final seasons devoted to driving home that it couldn't get back on its feet, the fact remains that it did get back on its feet.
In the series finale of The Walking Dead, Hilltop has once again become a thriving community, flourishing in the post-villain era due to the group's ability to obtain resources from the Commonwealth - which was now run and overseen by Carol and Ezekiel. It was very much portrayed as the happy ending fans had hoped for, as both Hilltop and Alexandria took a lot of damage in the show's final few seasons. But, with the support of the Commonwealth, they were both able to get back on their feet.
But Dead City tells a different story, as Maggie reveals that the group there had to migrate north, eventually taking up residence in The Bricks - which was nearby the New Babylon Federation. Fans weren't thrilled about this as it undoes the happy ending constructed by The Walking Dead's final episode and sets a moment of growth for the franchise back simply to allow for the spinoff to exist. And considering that the series finale was constructed to set up the spinoffs, this change is particularly baffling to fans.
While all three post-TWD spinoffs have been generally well-received, it's Dead City that has received the most criticism, with fans often pointing towards the fact that the renewal of the Maggie and Negan rivalry had to undo a lot of the character work on the original series, making it feel like something of a retread. What happened to Hilltop would slot into that critique too, as the creative team had to undo a neatly-wrapped bow just to carry on the story.
Why Hilltop had to die for Dead City to exist
While the loss of Hilltop doesn't play a major role in Dead City as it is already set years in the future, it does play into the colder version of Maggie that leads the spinoff. When we previously saw the character at the end of the original series, she was finally ready to move on with her life after facing nothing but struggles throughout the show's run. Now, she's in a similar predicament, but with more years of trauma thrown in on top of that. The loss of Hilltop at least partially created this version of Maggie.
That being said, there is a more straightforward reason as to why Hilltop was replaced with The Bricks: The original Hilltop set in Senoia, Georgia was torn down in 2022 after production on The Walking Dead had wrapped. Moreover, Dead City's first season was filmed in New York and New Jersey while production of the second and third mostly took place in Boston, making it impossible to film any scenes on the Hilltop sets even if they were still standing.
This is also why Judith and RJ appeared outside the Alexandria gates in The Walking Dead: The Ones Live. Not only has the Alexandria set changed radically since the original series ended (the walls, windmill and church have come down), the development itself has been resold so those are all now real houses. And with that, AMC no longer holds control over the location as a film/TV set. Therefore, for the big reunion scene - when Rick and Michonne finally returned to Alexandria - it had to take place outside of the big walls. It was also just impossible to film in Alexandria as that development is also located in Georgia and The Ones Who Live was filmed in New Jersey.
It's ironic that real-life filming limitations have resulted in some fictional continuity issues within the various Walking Dead spinoffs, but that's the ever-changing world of showbiz for you. But, of the two issues mentioned above, it's undoubtedly the Dead City one that fans didn't respond well to simply because it means Hilltop is officially done in the TWD Universe, undoing the happy ending that the whole community got in the original show's series finale.