Before you know it, The Walking Dead will once again expand its horizons with the franchise’s latest spinoff, TWD: Dead City, which will arrive on AMC in June. While we’ve known for quite a while now that the New York-set series will team Negan and Maggie together on a hunt for her kidnapped son Hershel, the newly released trailer seen above thankfully connects a lot of the disparate details that have trickled through during filming and the early months of promotions. Now we know exactly why Maggie needed Negan to accompany her, despite their rocky past, and the new visuals also reveal a recasting for the ‘napped kid, a parkour-friendly walker, and arguably the most monstrous zombie the franchise has delivered yet.
Meet The New Hershel Rhee
As it turns out, Lauren Cohan’s Maggie felt it necessary to bring Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan with her to New York City because of the man who nabbed Hershel. As portrayed by Madam Secretary and Three Billboards vet Željko Ivanek, the character known as the Croat apparently has a past relationship with Negan that almost definitely isn’t a good thing for anyone involved.
This storyline is a good thing, however, for Ghostbusters; Afterlife star Logan Kim, who took over the role of Hershel Rhee from Kien Michael Spiller, who first appeared in the role in Season 10, at the time replacing the younger Peyton Lockridge. (TWD showrunner Angela Kang’s son Ethan Charles temporarily took the Hershel mantle for the flash-forward dream sequence in Season 7’s tragic premiere.) Given the fact that Kim is around 4 years older than Spiller, that should allow for quite a bit of evolution for Hershel and his relationship with Maggie and others. Post-apocalyptic teen angst is no joke.
Meet The Walking Dead Universe's Most WTF Creature Yet
Of all the upcoming Walking Dead shows, I’m looking forward to Dead City the most specifically to see how this franchise will handle its metropolis setting, as compared to so many years in rural and woodsy areas. And I guess I have one of my answers with the ugly mofo seen above, which doesn’t look like anything that could possibly have come out of Alexandria, Virginia. Or even Atlanta. Honestly, it looks like it could have only come out of the New York in which Jason Takes Manhattan is set.
Because seriously, what is happening there? Is it a case where some people died in some toxic sludge that melded their bodies together in such a gross-tastic fashion? Or is this like a Human Centipede kind of thing where Croat-man or some crafty lunatic out is surgically connecting walkers? Or maybe they were put together before they were resurrected? There are surprisingly more scenarios than one might expect, and all of them are fucking ewww. But I for sure want to blow up this gnarly bastard in a video game at some point.
Meet The Parkouring Dead
The Walking Dead’s final season and the World Beyond spinoff finally brought back the concept of active walkers that do more than just walk, which was largely abandoned after Season 1. The franchise has largely held to the status quo of shambling zombies at mostly slow speeds, but with the idea that there are some sections of the undead population that have a bit more dexterity and physicality. And unless this trailer is pulling a fast one on viewers, it appears as if at least one walker in New York City (seen above) is seasoned in parkour.
That’s already a lot for the brain to handle, but then this trailer takes the parkour-walker notion a step further by introducing him doing this shit on top of a tall building’s roof. Say what now? How’d he get up there? Are there sidewalks around that look like Jackson Pollock paintings because of all the splattered walkers who were also trying to land wall jumps atop skyscrapers? I can’t wait to see if there are also zombie buskers and street magicians in this world.
With other co-stars such as The Walking Dead: Dead City will bring its ghastly walker-zords to viewers on Sunday, June 18, at 10:00 p.m. ET, presumably near the time when Fear the Walking Dead’s final midseason finale will air. Stay tuned for future footage from other spinoffs The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon and The Walking Dead: Rick & Michonne.
