The Walking Dead: Dead City’s biggest problem is that Season 1 is simply much too short. It’s the best Walking Dead we’ve had in years, but it’s over in just six episodes. Of those six episodes, five were good and the season finale was very good, which isn’t something you hear me say often when it comes to AMC’s zombie franchise.

In last week’s episode we learned the truth about Maggie’s plan for Negan, though it seemed pretty obvious when Ginny went to Maggie’s community and discovered that the Croat hadn’t taken all their food. He only took Hershel and he did that to force Maggie to find Negan for him, though we also learn that he’s just working for the Dama, and isn’t actually the leader.

I admit, there’s some stuff about this setup that bothers me. For instance, at one point the Croat refers to Maggie as “the Widow” which is just ridiculous. In a world of widows and orphans, why does Maggie get this legendary reputation? It’s a zombie apocalypse. Your chances of being a widow are pretty high! I don’t like it when these shows mythologize their own characters in ways that just aren’t realistic.

In any case, the idea that the Croat would be able to find Maggie and then convince her to find Negan is all a little much. That he and the Dama want Negan to help them unite the various communities in New York City in order to fend off New Babylon is a bit silly also. But I’ll let it slide because the show ended up being a lot of fun, and both Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan are at their best throughout. They bond throughout the show so much that you can tell Maggie isn’t happy about betraying him. She even feels sorry for him when he tells Ginny that he killed her dad. He’s trying to hurt her for her own good, like throwing rocks at a puppy you don’t want following you into danger.

But Maggie still needs Hershel and so she turns Negan over to the Burazi, where they both assume he’s in for some terrible fate. When Maggie talks with Hershel later she sounds like she’s going to go back to save Negan so she can put the whole thing to bed once and for all. But Negan doesn’t really need saving, or at least not from a fate worse than death. It’s not a great situation, of course. The Dama makes it clear that she’ll hurt Hershel if Negan doesn’t play ball, so he really has no choice but to work for her.

We learn other things:

All told, a very enjoyable season with some stumbling early on and the occasional stupid Walking Dead stuff that just doesn’t make sense, but still a great deal stronger than anything in the main show or Fear The Walking Dead in a long time. The smaller cast was a nice change of pace also as the other shows had become rather bloated by the end. You certainly do lose something not having more characters to care about—especially because you basically know that neither Maggie or Negan is going to die—but overall I enjoyed the show, and this finale definitely had me on the edge of my seat.

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