Is ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Ending? Scott M. Gimple on Negan’s Villainous Turn & Future of TWD Universe

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 Episode 8, “If History Were a Conflagration.”]

The methane-powered lights went out on the sophomore season of The Walking Dead: Dead City in what felt more like a series ender with a powerful montage as survivors Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Maggie (Lauren Cohan), and former New Babylon figurehead Perlie (Gaius Charles) are reunited and decide to move forward in the war for Manhattan’s methane operation — together.

There are fewer obstacles in their path, it seems, with Kim Coates‘ Bruegel meeting a brutal end, thanks to an enraged Negan. However, the Dama (Lisa Emery) still looms large with Maggie’s son Hershel (Logan Kim) at her side, hoping to usher in a new era for Manhattan. And there’s that second wave of the New Babylon army that marched onto the island in the final minutes.

Below, The Walking Dead universe boss Scott M. Gimple stopped to chat about the future of Dead City and the season’s exciting finale.

First, to backtrack a bit to the penultimate which aired on June 15, what was it like having Hilarie Burton reprise her role as Negan’s wife Lucille [Burton and Morgan are real-life spouses] through Negan’s hallucinations?

Scott M. Gimple: Anytime that we can work with Hilarie in any way is wonderful because she is wonderful and talented. [And] the character Lucille unlocks things in Negan that no one else can. A whole other person briefly emerges [when he sees her]. And it’s incredible. It might have to do with the reality behind it because they are an incredible couple in real life, but even if you forget about the show for a minute and just go back to Robert’s [Kirkman, original comic creator] work — the way that Robert did portray Lucille dimensionalized the character unbelievably. It was just another genius move by Mr. Kirkman, what can I say?

Robert Clark/AMC

Negan was really put through his paces in these final episodes. He’s talking about the Saviors needing saving from him, God giving him second chances over and over again, and eventually, he decides that he’s going to line them all up and kill them all. Of course, by the end of the episode he’s back to the Negan we’ve known in Dead City thus far, but would you say that earlier turn was Negan going full villain mode?

[As a fan] I believe that he was briefly going back and even getting worse from what he was before, because of all of the losses he had and the not fun vacation he’s had in New York. But I think after all the things he’s gone through, and the things that we know about him, that the audience knows about him — I don’t think it could stick. But I think that devil on his shoulder made a really good play.

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Those dormant children walkers seen in 207 in the hospital. Can you confirm if they were in fact the type of dormant walkers we’ve seen before in the universe?

I’ve got to leave that one to the audience. I personally would call it dormant, but they could also be hallucinations.

The season-ending montage sure felt like it could’ve been a series ending. Is there going to be a Season 3?

I will say this, there’s so much more story to tell in my mind. But you know me, I can neither confirm nor deny those sorts of things, and it’s a wild world. We’ll see.

Still, it felt like a nice ending regardless.

Something had finally been achieved. Something that was a long time coming, and something incredibly difficult to get to. When I say finally, I’m not like, ‘Oh, this should have happened a long time ago.’ I don’t mean it like that. I mean it like, between these two characters, it was very difficult to ever think of any sort of [closure] and to sort of get there, you know, that’s a remarkable journey.

Can you say anything about the upcoming third season of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, starring Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride, which is returning this fall? You’ll be headed to a new corner of the world, again.

Actually, a couple of new corners. We’re going to see a couple of places. And there’s some really good casting and guest stars — it’s quite a season. I got to go out and visit and it’s an incredible thing to see the show being made in Europe. It’s just an insane thing and, you know, coming from, doing it as long as I have, starting out as a writer/producer in a little town in Georgia, and now it’s spanning the globe. It’s absolutely crazy. It’s kind of overwhelming.

Is there anything else about the future of the TWD Universe that you want to tease or say? Is there a hope that we might get another show or anything like that?

It’s so hard to say. It’s a crazy world, but we’re working on some really cool things and some things are closer than others. There’s like one big thing that I’m really hoping happens, and I’m doing a lot of work on it. Sometimes I’m the only one who gets to see these shows, you know? Because I see ’em in my head as we work on them. And so, I guess I can say the thing that I’m watching now [in my head] that we’re working on, I’m really enjoying it.

The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 2 Available Now, AMC+

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