Zombies, do not grieve: the new "Walking Dead" has officially been released in Russia

The second season of the series "The Walking Dead: Dead City" will be released online in Russia on May 5th. Izvestia studied the first two episodes of the eight planned episodes and made sure that the main star of the series, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, still holds the audience's attention and is ready to fight the main seasonal competitor, Ellie from the second season of "Some of Us" by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. The series about the survivors who have gone off the rails has not lost its main highlight — the ability to surprise and shock with unexpected twists and deaths of plot characters.

What's the good of a series about the living dead

"The Walking Dead: Dead City" (in Russia it is sometimes affectionately called "Valky's Grandfather", beating the original name of The Walking Dead) is an American TV series that tells about some of the everyday features of existence in the era of the zombie invasion in the United States and the subsequent post-apocalyptic prosperity. The first season, a spin-off of the main "Walkers", was released in June 2023, and the second started on May 4 in the world and appeared a day later in the catalog of the Russian streaming service Amediateka. Unlike the first season, which consisted of six episodes, in the second, the authors created a more detailed and meaningful narrative, and the running time increased to eight episodes.

A shot from the TV series "The Walking Dead: Dead City"

Photo: AMC Studios

The popularity of "The Walking Dead" is estimated by a multi-million fan base, the franchise has become a global phenomenon, including in our country. Since 2003, the brand has acquired seven full-fledged TV series, including The Walking Dead: Dead City, eight web series, dozens of short stories, video games, and comics. The main distributor of the series is the American TV channel AMC. The official release of the second season in Russia at the same time as the global one is an important event for everyone who follows modern pop culture.

"Dead City" is an offshoot of the main series, which ended after 11 seasons in 2021. The plot focuses on two titular protagonists, the first of whom is Negan, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan ("Guardians", "Rampage", "The Walking Dead"). This veteran of the main series went through the arc of redemption and turned from an outspoken antagonist and scumbag into a sympathetic antihero with his own moral code, unusual for a post-apocalyptic setting.

Negan instantly captures the viewer's attention. In the very first scene, the protagonist appears in front of us in prison clothes, and then eats cockroaches for a long time and talks about human nature. 20 minutes later, he is already delivering a fiery speech in the church in front of the warring gangs of scumbags. The actor literally steals the audience's attention in every scene where he is present, and in the new season he was significantly "pumped up": the character used to have a baseball bat wrapped with barbed wire, with which he went through several significant battles. Now his baton, Lucille, named after his late wife, has a stun gun built into it.

A shot from the TV series "The Walking Dead: Dead City"

Photo: AMC Studios

The second main character is Maggie Green, formerly an ordinary female handyman, and now the leader of the colony of survivors. She has to take care of two minors — her own son Hershel and her adopted daughter Ginny. Previously, Maggie and Negan were allies, but in the second season they find themselves on opposite sides of the fence. At the same time, the series' slogan has been relevant since the first season — "Keep your enemies close." In the series, the role of Maggie was again played by American actress Lauren Kogan ("Doll", "Casanova").

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What happens in the second season

In the second season, director Michael Satrazemis took over the camera, and with it, the initiative. He shot four of the eight episodes. Satrazemis previously worked on such hits as the original "The Walking Dead," "Stories of the Walking Dead," "Fear the Walking Dead," and the 1994 cult film "The Raven," starring Brandon Lee. The first two episodes of the new season are his handiwork.

In the season-opening episode titled "Strength equals Power," Negan is released from prison and used to unite the gangs of New York. In this mission, he helps crime bosses — an Eastern European bandit nicknamed the Croat and a villainess known as the Mistress. The bandits are forming a coalition in the hope of not only holding Manhattan, but also defeating the last stronghold of legality in the destroyed United States — the federation of New Babylon.

A shot from the TV series "The Walking Dead: Dead City"

Photo: AMC Studios

Maggie and her two children are joining the ranks of the New Babylon. The Federation wants to smoke the bandits out of the fortified headquarters. The entire first episode is a disposition of the upcoming battle, a prelude to a bloody massacre, so it makes sense that for the most part, dialogues between the characters who talk about their feelings unfold in 50 minutes of screen time. It's not the best way to keep an audience's attention, but Michael Satrazemis is consciously taking this step.

The second episode is called "Another lousy lesson" and shows everything that the original series is loved for — for the bloody massacres of the dead and the living, spectacular battles with shells in the form of zombies bloated with corpse poison, as well as the main characters on the verge of despair due to the need to survive against all odds. The most precious thing for the main characters is at stake in this series — their few friends and relatives. At the same time, a terrifying criminal Lady comes to the fore, who prefaces violent crimes with stories about the work of Bach or Goya, and the latter's painting, Saturn Devouring his Son, serves as a warning to one of the protagonists.

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The image of the destroyed Manhattan remains in front of my eyes for a long time after watching the available episodes. Only one sad thing is that this time there were no Russian actors. Viewers will probably remember Lukerya Ilyashenko, who starred in the spin-off "The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon." You can only console yourself with the acting of the inimitable Zeljko Ivanek, an actor from the Slavic city of Ljubljana. His roguish, one—eared Croat is one of the most successful finds of the "Dead City".

A shot from the TV series "The Walking Dead: Dead City"

Photo: AMC Studios

Other newcomers, such as the leader of the new gang, Christos, who wears the spine of one of the victims on his jacket, or the journalist-historian Benjamin Pierce, feel like heroes-functions that, with all their desire, will not be able to steal from Negan and Maggie neither screen time nor the sympathy of the audience. But the fates of the main characters are fascinating and keep you in suspense. And it's great that you can watch this with professional Russian dubbing, just like in the best of times.