Everyone is Free to Leave

This Walking Dead: Dead City episode delivers high tension, emotionally charged conflicts, and eerie encounters—most notably, the chilling jump scare when one of Bruegel’s guards is suddenly dragged into the woods. But does Bridge Partners Are Hard to Come by These Days hold together as a coherent narrative, or is this where the cracks begin to show?

The Maggie (Lauren Cohen)–Hershel (Logan Kim) dynamic should have been the emotional core of the episode. Hershel’s apparent lifelong resentment against his emotionally absent mother drives the plot, yet his motivations feel inconsistent. The character has been played numb, demonstrating little passion for anything, making his abrupt shifts in behavior feel contrived rather than earned.

“Bridge Partners Are
Hard to Come to by These Days” —THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY, Pictured (L-R): Gaius Charles as
Armstrong, Logan Kim as Hershel. Photo: Robert Clark/AMC© 2025 AMC Networks Inc. All Rights Reserved.Hershel’s yearning to abandon Maggie for life in the Dead City is compelling, yet his sudden reversal on poisoning Bruegel’s (Kim Coates) crew with walker blood lacks dramatic weight. His violent outburst against Maggie, meant to be shocking, instead feels overwrought, an escalation not fully developed in the story.

We want to understand his anger, but the show never truly explores Hershel’s psyche. Instead of a layered portrayal, his behavior sometimes teeters into erratic melodrama, undermining the stakes that put Maggie in unnecessary jeopardy.

The real star of Dead City isn’t Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Maggie, and certainly not Hershel. It’s the enigmatic schemer, Bruegel, who’s trying to orchestrate a power play against Negan and the Croat. With sharp dialogue and an air of menace, Bruegel embodies a gleeful enthusiasm for the decaying world in a way Negan lost long ago.

Bruegel commands every scene. One of his best lines comes when he jokes that colonization is New Babylon’s niche— “exploitation of natural resources, annihilation of the indigenous people’s way of life.” He continues, saying he wants nothing more than to be colonized by New Babylon, then offers to “exploit” the methane. He promises Colonel Armstrong (Gaius Charles) that he’ll get the methane from the Burazi and throw in “the bloody extermination of every single one of them as a bonus.”

“Bridge Partners Are
Hard to Come by These Days” – THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY, Pictured: Kim Coates as The
Bruegel. Photo: Robert Clark/AMC© 2025 AMC Networks Inc. All Rights Reserved.Later, Bruegel meets Armstrong and delivers a chilling ultimatum: “You can fold or go all in. Either way, you are playing the game. You always are.” His revelation that Narvaez (Dascha Polanco) lived long enough to share all of Armstrong’s secrets—especially the truth about Negan—not only backs Armstrong into a corner but perfectly encapsulates Bruegel’s unsettling philosophy. The show thrives when it lets him take center stage, proving that charisma and unpredictability trump brute force.

And that’s the problem—Bruegel, in just a few episodes, is more clearly defined than Hershel in two entire seasons.

While the episode contains engaging moments—particularly the tense moment when the Croat realizes Negan manipulated him not fighting with the Darma—the pacing is uneven. The Croat’s grief over Darma’s death is powerful; his confession that he could have saved her but didn’t gave him rare emotional depth.

“Bridge Partners Are
Hard to Come by These Days” – THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY, Pictured (L-R): Jeffrey Dean Morgan as
Negan, Zeljko Ivanek as The Croat. Photo: Robert Clark/AMC© 2025 AMC Networks Inc. All
Rights Reserved.Yet elsewhere, quiet moments are awkwardly punctuated by sudden action. Ginny and Maggie’s conversation is followed by a bear attack—a high-stakes sequence that underwhelms due to questionable special effects and a predictable resolution. Hershel’s ninja star stunt was flashy, but the moment lost tension the second Maggie scurried behind the spired fence. The bear impaling itself on the spire was a foregone conclusion.

Maggie’s frantic search for Hershel afterward also feels forced. She clearly is out of sorts, taking unnecessary risks battling walkers alone in a city swarming with the dead. This leads into a quiet conversation with Negan, where he tells her to look for Hershel at the King Francis Theater. In return, Maggie warns Negan about Bruegel’s planned ambush.

“Bridge Partners Are
Hard to Come by These Days” – THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY, Pictured: Lauren Cohen as Maggie
Rhee. Photo: Robert Clark/AMC©
2025 AMC Networks Inc. All Rights Reserved.Then things get existential. The Darma is dead. The Croat is exiled. Negan, the last man standing, wrestles with his purpose. He asks Maggie what he should do about his family:

“I screwed up their lives so many times. How can I be sure I won’t do it again? What do I do? Should I stay? Should I go with them?”

Maggie just looks at him. Negan tells her, rightfully—thankfully—that she doesn’t need to answer. She doesn’t. She turns and walks away.

To his credit, Negan comes to profound realizations throughout the episode. When he discovers historian Bengamin Pierce (Keir Gilchrist) locked in a cell, he tells him he’s free to go—though Pierce has no idea how to return to New Babylon. Is Pierce’s only function in the series to get Negan talking about his personal history until he came to some specific conclusions? If so, what a waste.

Negan admits he once thought he had everything figured out—that winning meant executing at least one of those he vanquished, making them an example. His people lived, but they lived twisted and broken. He finally understands that what his people needed saving from was him.

“Bridge Partners Are Hard to Come by These Days” – THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY,
Pictured: Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan. Photo: Robert Clark/AMC © 2025 AMC Networks Inc. All
Rights Reserved.Yet the Maggie-Hershel arc falls short of its potential, leaving us wondering what could have been if Hershel hadn’t been shaped more by Maggie’s resentment toward Negan than by Glenn’s quiet strength and kindness.

Bridge Partners Are Hard to Come by These Days is a competently directed mess by Lauren Cohen—but a mess, nonetheless.

Who do you think survives Season 2, Negan? The Croat? Ginny? Let me know in the comments.

Overall Rating:

7/10

Lynette Jones