The Walking Dead: Dead City (2023) s01e02 Episode Script

Who's There?

1
[MAGGIE] Previously on Dead City
Have you seen this man?
Goes by the name of Negan.
- They took your kid.
- They call him the Croat.
[THE CROAT] I think you're
gonna like it here.
[NEGAN] Hey, when this is over,
will you look after Ginny for me?
I'll put up that girl.
[ARMSTRONG] Manhattan
was one of the epicenters.
Military destroyed all
the bridges and tunnels
hoping to contain it.
[MAGGIE] The smoke shows up like that
every morning at the same time.
You're thinking breakfast and dinner.
[GRUNTS]
[WALKERS GROWLING]
[WALKERS GROWLING]
She's got my bag, all our stuff.
[WALKERS GROWLING]
Oh, come on, lady.
Don't make us chase you.
Just give us the bag.
[WALKERS GROWLING]
Just a ball of fun hangin'
out with you, ain't it?
All right. Let's go.
[WALKERS GROWLING]
[MUSIC]
Eyes up, Maggie, before
you toss your cookies.
[HEAVY BREATHING]
[MUSIC]
[HEAVY BREATHING]
[MUSIC]
Damn.
Well, that's cool.
What the hell's she doin'?
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
Ladies first.
After you.
[CHUCKLES]
[WALKERS GROWLING]
Holy shit. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
[WALKERS GROWLING]
[HEAVY BREATHING]
[MUSIC]
Come on, Maggie.
I got it.
[WALKERS GROWLING]
[THEME MUSIC]
[BIRDS SINGING]
[MUSIC]
[WALKER GROWLING]
- Thank you.
- There you go.
Good morning, Nina.
[MUSIC]
Everyone, this is Ginny uh
Just Ginny.
She's, uh, come to us from Oceanside
and she's gonna be joining
our class from now on.
Now, we're very privileged to have her,
and I expect y'all
to give her a big welcome.
[CLAPPING]
Thank you, Nina.
Oh, you can take a seat now, Ginny.
[SIGHING] Okay.
Now, uh, yesterday we were
talking about foraging,
and today we're gonna put that
learning to the test.
Tell me, who can identify which
of these plants are edible?
- [NEGAN CHUCKLING]
- [MAGGIE] No!
[NEGAN CHUCKLING]
It's all right. You take that.
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
[NEGAN] Cool.
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
I think she wants to trade.
Thank you.
Oh. Pigeon?
Mm, that's good.
You've made your friend. We need to go.
Hey, excuse me.
Can you take us there? That building?
Right there. Where the smoke is.
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
All right. I may be a little
bit rusty, but I'm pretty sure
that translates into hell freakin' no.
Look, the way I see it,
we can either double back
or we can see how
pigeon lady here plays out,
but we go back,
all that's waitin' for us
is a swarm of walkers
and a marshal's bullet.
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
Come on.
[WALKERS GROWLING]
[WALKERS GROWLING]
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
- [AMAIA] Esther, Zar.
- [TOMMASO] Stop freaking out.
- [ESTHER] [SPEAKING HEBREW]
- Seriously?
- [AMAIA] Esther.
- [ESTHER] [SPEAKING HEBREW]
- [TOMMASO] Come on.
- Zar, Esther!
[TOMMASO] Esther, Zar!
Esther. Yo, every time with her.
It's like, she brings back
fresh meat and we're
suddenly supposed to
just take in these tourists?
No offense, but you're the one
that's kinda freaking out now.
- [TOMMASO] I'm freaking out?
- [ESTHER] [SPEAKING HEBREW]
[TOMMASO] Zar.
Did you not hear her say zar?
It's like she don't even
understand her own language.
I'm guessing they
are not with the Croat.
Ya think?
[TOMMASO] Amaia, she's the one
Excuse me. You don't know us.
We don't know you.
I'm not saying that we're friendly,
that depends on you,
but I don't think this crazy
pigeon lady, no offense,
is gonna bring us all this way
to get our asses smoked.
Friendly?
Does it look like we need friends?
We own this city.
There are thousands of us.
I think it's more like,
what are you after?
'Cause it's pretty obvious you dickheads
ain't from around here.
We were heading up north
to a settlement in Canada.
The boat washed us ashore in a storm.
We're just here until
we can get supplies
and get on our way again.
[SIGHS]
Bullshit.
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
[AMAIA] Stop, Esther.
Esther, you know what
happened last time.
[AMAIA] Enough, Esther.
[ESTHER] [SPEAKING HEBREW]
- [AMAIA] [SPEAKING SPANISH]
- [ESTHER] [SPEAKING HEBREW]
[MUSIC]
[TOMMASO] Luther.
Mind searching this?
Let's go.
[MUSIC]
[NEGAN SIGHS] You're kiddin', right?
Yeah. Ha. Ha.
Don't get too comfortable.
I know how you feel.
It's hard to be in new places
with people you don't know.
But these people,
just might be like
family to you someday.
You should eat something.
You need anything, don't
hesitate to come find me.
Okay?
[MUSIC]
[SIGHS] You missed
weapons training again.
Lane brought out the bow staffs.
It's the third time this
month that you skipped it.
I can't keep telling you how
important it is to be ready
- for anything.
- Ready at all times.
Yeah, I got it.
Hershel, it's not a joke.
They could come at you with anything.
Then I guess I'd be dead.
[SCRATCHING]
It's really good.
It sucks.
I'm going over to Xander's.
[MUSIC]
[NEGAN] We didn't have much of a choice.
They had guns, if you don't recall.
Guns or whatever the hell
those things were.
Either way, we fight back and we
end up with holes in our skulls.
Or theirs.
Maybe.
But then what do we got?
Us not being here.
I am pretty sure that we are
here because you spun some yarn
about Canada and a shipwreck
that reeked of bullshit, Maggie.
Should I have told them the truth?
Yeah. We give a little.
They give a little.
That's how it works.
I mean, sure, they stuck us
in some dank ass bathroom.
Right or wrong, they had their reasons,
which, by the way, makes them useful.
For what?
Manpower,
information.
Information? That's what I
thought you were here for.
Been pretty tight-lipped
about the Croat.
Right around the time that the
world turned into shit soup,
the Croat showed up at my door,
so to speak.
He had been through
Well, let's just say he had been
through some really bad shit.
Worst shit imaginable.
So I took him in.
Kept him from brain-painting the walls.
Pretty soon he was
calling me his brother,
Buraz.
He said that I made him feel safe.
Well, I guess at that point
everybody was looking for
a little sanctuary from the hellfire
we'd all been damned to.
I mean, we'd lost everything.
[SIGHS] The thing is I um
I really thought I was helping him.
It takes a monster to make one, I guess.
No.
No.
You see, I was only a monster
when I absolutely had to be.
When I had to put on a show
to protect my people.
Anyway, the
The Croat, he had a way of, um
Reading people.
And then toying with them.
And pulling them apart.
When a threat needed to be handled,
it was a skill set that
I found very useful.
He was your torturer.
He took it too far.
It was, um
One of our first skirmishes with
the Kingdom before your time.
A person had been holed up in a car
a couple of miles from the sanctuary.
It seemed to me she was a drifter.
Nothing to do with us
or anything we were up to.
So I gave a direct order.
Let her walk.
But the Croat, he, uh,
he saw it differently.
Thought that the, uh
Thought that she had beans to spill.
And he was right.
She was a a scout.
At least that's what she copped
to before, uh
[SIGHS]
Before he [SIGHS]
She was just a kid.
So after that, I knew
that he was a rabid dog
that needed to be put down.
I had one shot.
One.
I missed.
Blew off his ear.
The rest of him got away.
I haven't seen or heard from him since.
Until now, of course.
So he's gonna want to kill you?
He sure is.
You didn't think to tell me this before?
I do know how he operates, Maggie.
Of course you do.
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
[DOOR CLICKS]
[DOOR HANDLE RATTLES]
[FURNITURE SCRAPING]
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
[FAINT WALKERS GROWLING]
[WALKERS GROWLING]
[MUSIC]
[TRAP CLICKS]
[INDISTINCT ARGUING]
It was them!
[WOMAN] Grab everything! Come on!
[MAN] How'd they find us?
They led the burazi straight to us.
I say we cold their asses right now.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Everybody just take one second
and unbunch their undies, all right?
'Cause whoever these burazi are,
we aren't with them.
Yeah, bullshit. He's lying.
Look, it sounds like you're
in a tough spot, all right?
And if this is a numbers situation
Like, we're gonna trust this asshole?
No!
You know what? You are
gonna trust this asshole
because I have been sharpening
this pigeon bone all afternoon.
And I wanna gouge your jugular
out right this second.
But you see, I'm not gonna do that.
'Cause we are here to help you.
[BREATHING HEAVY]
[VEHICLES PULL UP]
[VEHICLE DOORS OPENING AND CLOSING]
Let's go. Come on! Let's go,
let's go, let's go!
Hey. If it's the Croat's people,
we should wait.
Not like this. Not if they
have the jump on us.
[MUSIC]
Shit.
Here.
[GRUNTING]
Luther!
Duck!
Aah! [GASPING]
[MUSIC]
[EFFORTS]
Yo! There's more coming.
Let's go. Vámanos. Vámanos.
[GAGGING]
Hey. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
What are you doing?
All right, there's nowhere to go.
[BURAZ] Doma smo Doma smo
Let's talk about it, all right?
We're not your enemy.
- Hold on now.
- [AMAIA] Yo!
- [BURAZ] Doma smo.
- [NEGAN] Hey.
Hey.
[BURAZ] Doma smo! Doma smo!
Hey.
Hey!
- [ESTHER SCREAMS]
- No!
- [TOMMASO] Esther!
- Esther!
- [MAN] Somebody help her.
- [WOMAN] Do something.
[NEGAN GROWLS]
[MUSIC]
[SOBS]
[AMAIA] Tommaso, we gotta go.
[NEGAN EFFORTS]
Go. I got this.
Go.
[WOMAN] We gotta go.
Come on. Everyone go to
[MUSIC]
[ENGINES REVVING]
Come on.
[GLASS SHATTERING]
Knock, knock!
[GLASS SHATTERING]
[GLASS SHATTERING]
I said
Knock, knock!
Hey, easy there, neckbeard.
Holy shit, are you kidding me?
Seriously?
You have a neckbeard and a rattail?
I mean, I get it. The world went to hell
and you stopped giving a shit,
but my dude, there is a line.
So how about you
put your helmet back on,
tuck all that shit back away
and stop being such a
distraction to the rest of us.
Now, where the hell was I?
Oh. Right. Knock, knock! Who's there?
Butter. Butter who?
Well, you butter get out your umbrellas
'cause it is about to goddamn rain.
[PEOPLE GAGGING]
[BLOOD SPLATTERING]
Now, I don't know if any of you
have checked tonight's forecast,
but if I see even one mole hair
on one of your ugly ass faces,
it won't be just a rainstorm.
Hell, it won't be a thunderstorm.
It'll be a goddamn hurricane!
- Oh!
- Ugh!
We gotta go.
[CRICKETS CHIRPING]
[METAL CLINKS]
[MUSIC]
[SOFT GROANING]
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
[AMAIA] Thanks for your help.
[TOMMASO] Yeah.
I was lying about
the thousands of us out there.
Those people we lost
That's it.
That's our family.
Been going that way a long time.
[AMAIA] We'd return the favor, but
There's no supplies here for your trip.
Whatever's left,
someone's already got it.
Not that it matters.
Your boat's sunk by now.
You get on the island,
but you don't get off.
Those burazi back there,
the psycho they work for
He makes sure of that.
You mean the Croat.
[SCOFFS]
You talking about Van Gogh?
He's the real reason we're here.
He has my son.
So you wanna get to the psycho.
That we can help you with.
You know, if you're looking to die.
[MUSIC]
[WALKERS GROWLING]
[ENGINE RUNNING]
[WALKERS GROWLING]
[ENGINE RUMBLING]
[SPEAKING CROATIAN]
[GRUNT]
[HEAVY BREATHING]
[LAUGHING]
Don't worry.
You're safe now.
[MUSIC]
[GRUNT]
TOMASSO: You want to get to The Croat
you've just got to get through that.
AMAIA: Only one of us
ever got out alive.

Someone broke out.

Then there's a way back in.
[MOTORCYCLE THUDS]
THE CROAT: What we have here
is a sanctuary and all are welcome.
[WALKERS GROWLING]
MAGGIE: We can bait him.
Get him to tell me where my son is
then we kill him.

Hi, I'm Eli Jorné, EP and
showrunner of "Dead City".
And this is episode two. "Who's There?"

[GROWLING]
In episode two,
Maggie and Negan are gonna go deeper
into the belly of the beast
that is New York City.

They're gonna, you know,
start to learn more
about how the city works.
If there are any survivors,
how they survive.

In "Dead City", we're basically tracking
three different groups of people.
There's New Babylon,
they're this federation
of city-states and towns,
and there's a capital city, New Babylon.
And they're a very law
and order society.
Have you seen this man?
And if you break the law,
you'll be hung,
and then left hanging as a walker,
as a cautionary tale, so to speak.
[GROWLING]
And then you've got the Burazi.
Buraz is a Croatian word
that means brother,
so burazi is the plural of that,
and The Croat thinks
of these people as his brothers.
They're vicious and aggressive,
and they have these helmets
with spikes coming out of it,
and they use it to headbutt walkers.
[GROWLING]

They also have fuel, which
The Croat has developed.
He's a former scientist.
If you're gonna look at the city
and the characters
we're meeting in terms of
predator and prey,
I would call them the predators,
which means that the prey
are the tribes people.
They led Burazi straight to us.
I say we cold their asses right now.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Everybody just take one second
and unbunch their undies.
They developed a system
a while back of zip lines
around the city.
Well, that's cool.
So that they could, you know,
go from skyscraper to skyscraper
without having to go on the ground
where all the walkers were.

If it weren't for The Croat
and the Burazi,
they would probably be doing
okay and maybe even thriving.
But there's basically a war going on.
[GROANS]

Emotionally, this is a story
about Maggie and Negan,
you know, start to face
each other that much more
and talk about the things
that they probably
don't want to talk about.
Right around the time that
the world turned into soup,
The Croat showed up at my door,
so I took him in.
It takes a monster to make one, I guess.
No.

No.

You see, I was only a monster
when I absolutely had to be.
When I had to put on a show
to protect my people.

When I knew that I was gonna do
a show about Maggie and Negan,
I knew that I had to have
a knock-knock joke scene.
He already knows that
he's gonna put on a show
because they don't have the numbers
to take on the Burazi,
but what he knows he has
is his personality, his charisma.

Knock-knock!

I said, knock-knock.
Jeffery was, I think, very excited
to bring back the old Negan.
We had a lot more jokes in there.
He riffed a bit.
In the end, of course, you have
to edit it down for time,
but it was really fun
to watch him get back
into the old Negan of it all.
Now, where the hell was I?
Oh, right. Knock-knock.
[MIMICKING RESPONSE] Who's there?
[NORMAL VOICE] Butter.
[MIMICKING RESPONSE] Butter who?
[NORMAL VOICE] Well you
butter get out your umbrellas
because it is about
to [NO AUDIO] damn rain.
[FLESH RIPS, PEOPLE GROAN]

But then, of course,
when Negan turns around
and he sees Maggie,
we see on his face the possibility
that maybe that didn't justify it.
Maybe there is no rationalization
for what he did to Glenn
and that he is
the murderer of her husband.
And that's all there is to say about it.

It's probably very hard
for her to stomach,
but she's seeing what it feels like
to be protected by that show,
and that perhaps that is what
happened back in the day.
So I think for both of them,
that's a really crucial moment
of their journey together.

[MUSIC]
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