The Walking Dead: Dead City season three’s sixth episode is one that’s unlike anything we’ve seen in the show so far. The entire episode takes us out of the gritty post-apocalyptic version of NYC and imagines an alternate timeline where the world wasn’t overrun by walkers. Maggie heads to NYC for an unforgettable day and gets something that she longs for in her heart: more time with her sister. Beth returns in The Walking Dead: Dead City for this alternate universe cameo, and here’s what happens.
The beginning of the episode has Negan at the bar after he executed Fabian. He’s thinking about his conversation with Maggie where he said they could have been friends in another life. Dillard is whistling outside of the door and about to come in, but things suddenly transition to a regular world. In walks Beth, who comes in to do a mic check for a show she’s doing later that evening. As fans of the OG series remember, Beth loved music and even sung a song with Maggie called “The Parting Glass” way back in season three. Sadly, she lost her life in season five at Grady Memorial when Dawn shot her in the head.
But, in this alternate reality, Beth goes to meet Maggie at the park in NYC right around Christmastime. Their father has passed away and Maggie is trying to figure out how to save the family farm, where The Walking Dead famously spent season two. Maggie is even married to Danny, whom she mentioned IRL and said she got caught kissing him pre-Glenn, but they are on the brink of a divorce.
Beth is happy living her life in the city and doing music, and even encourages Maggie to find her own life and sell the farm. She wants Maggie to stay for her show, but Maggie is heading back to attend to business at home. It is much like her real sentiments about building community in NYC alongside Renata.
Beth leaves to work one of her two jobs, and the pair part ways. We don’t see Beth any more until the end of the episode after Maggie’s wild day with her new acquaintance Negan. A lot transpires, from Negan opening up about his wife’s death and a violent incident that landed him in legal trouble to Maggie talking about her relationship and life woes. Maggie ends up staying to see Beth’s show, where she sings a song from their childhood.
Unfortunately, Negan ruins the moment when he sees the man that he seeks vengeance against, and Maggie follows to stop him from killing the man. She goes back into the show, and they end up walking down the street as two happy sisters smiling and caroling. It’s pretty sad to think about all that Maggie has lost and what could have been if Beth survived, even in the apocalypse. The only blood family member she has left is her son Herschel, and he kinda sucks. Maggie doesn’t have kids in this alternate reality, which is probably for the best.
Anyway, Maggie tells Beth that she’s going to sell the farm and attempt a different kind of life. They go to Beth’s apartment, where they meet her neighbor Luis, a hint that this duo might get together IRL. Maggie gets a phone call from a loan officer who will approve her co-op, and she says what she wants can probably wait a little longer. That ends the cameo of Beth in The Walking Dead: Dead City, which honestly didn’t give her much to do.
The episode goes back to our regularly scheduled program with Herschel informing Maggie that Negan shot Fabian AND slashed Dillard in the face. Yikkkeessss. Just when Maggie and Negan were getting to a place where they could legitimately not hate each other, we are probably heading back to square one again.