I Broke Up With The Walking Dead, But The Walking Dead: Dead City Might Bring Me Back

Streaming Wars is simply a play sentiment column by IGN’s Streaming Editor, Amelia Emberwing. Check retired the past introduction Daredevil: Born Again — An Unexpected Connection to the Netflix Series Could Right a Decade-Old Wrong.

This file contains spoilers for The Walking Dead franchise.

When radical bring up The Walking Dead, I ever cheerfully alteration the taxable with a elemental “I broke up with that show.” It’s dramatic, it’s definitive, and the cheery mode I present the sentiment is, I suppose, somewhat unnerving. If radical pry further, I explicate that I loved it, it broke my bosom excessively galore times — I volition ne'er halt being huffy astir the pointless decease of Beth Greene (Emily Kinney) — and past I left.

See? Breakup. A blissful 1 that I person ne'er had 2nd thoughts implicit until The Walking Dead: Dead City. But let’s not get up of ourselves.

There was a time, aboriginal on, erstwhile astir each dang infinitesimal successful The Walking Dead was engaging. We were engrossed! The full satellite (the full satellite that had AMC oregon applicable streaming services, that is) would tune successful each Sunday to find retired what was going to hap to the crew. We adjacent tolerated the amusement treating “we [humans] are the walking dead” arsenic immoderate benignant of revelation! It was addictive, close up until it wasn’t. I tin spell connected and connected astir however shows similar The Walking Dead necessitate anticipation to beryllium interesting, and sidesplitting disconnected your lone 2 hopeful characters (Beth and Chad L. Coleman’s Tyrese) backmost to backmost with Negan connected the skyline (and past someway making that situation adjacent much bleak) and expecting radical to stay engaged is simply a cardinal penning failure, but that’s not the constituent here. The constituent is that I person been blissfully separated from this franchise for a decade, but determination is thing astir the Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohen) spinoff The Walking Dead: Dead City that I find perfectly fascinating.

The trailer for Season 2 of the spinoff dropped this week, pulling the bid from the “out of sight, retired of mind” conception of my encephalon and reminding me, yet again, to look astatine this crazy-ass series. Something astir the show’s absurd premise of putting a widow connected a quest with the antheral who brutally murdered her hubby successful acold humor close successful beforehand of her is intriguing successful a mode that grabs my attraction each clip it comes up. What bash you mean Negan and Maggie are moving together?

It’s a premise truthful insane that it manages to outweigh the question of “how the hellhole does Daryl (Norman Reedus) get to France successful the mediate of the apocalypse?!” I don’t really attraction capable astir however Daryl made it to France, oregon however Carol (Melissa McBride) someway followed separately, to find out. But I do, for immoderate unfathomable reason, find myself engaged by the thought of Maggie and Negan being forced into what is, perhaps, the strangest team-up successful tv history. A thought that I person aft watching 15 seasons of Morgan’s erstwhile series, Supernatural, and witnessing those idiot boys squad up with astir each villain they brushwood astatine 1 constituent oregon another. You’d deliberation that would hole maine for immoderate “working with your mortal force situation,” and yet…

Beyond each of that, there’s a country successful The Walking Dead: Dead City’s Season 2 trailer that shows Maggie wielding Lucille, Negan’s treasured bat that was utilized to encephalon her beloved hubby Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun). That framework unsocial is capable to tickle my brain successful a mode that I commencement to wonderment “what if I gave this spinoff a chance?” earlier I drawback backmost to world and retrieve that mode lays endless frustration.

Even still, I person to praise the writers without seeing a azygous occurrence of the spinoff. Ideas whitethorn beryllium cheap, but engaging an assemblage up beforehand is not easy, and sparking the curiosity of idiosyncratic who broke up with your franchise and ne'er looked backmost is adjacent harder. They person created a premise that intrigues successful a mode that The Walking Dead has been incapable to execute successful years. So overmuch truthful that determination whitethorn travel a time where, successful a infinitesimal of weakness, I deed play connected that archetypal occurrence and springiness Maggie and Negan’s absurd (platonic) pairing a accidental to wow maine beyond my archetypal “damn, that’s interesting.”

Over the years The Walking Dead has remained live acknowledgment to planetary views, which has maine curious: if you’re successful the U.S., person you been watching The Walking Dead: Dead City oregon immoderate of the show’s different spinoffs? And for the planetary folks that person remained loyal to the franchise, what keeps you engaged aft each these years?