The Walkimg Dead: Dead City | "Stories We Tell Ourselves" | Episode 5 Recap & Review

*SPOILERS AHEAD & MATURE READERS RECOMMENDED*

This episode really didn’t do it for me. Plus, it had one of the bigger letdowns in TWD franchise history, but we’ll get to that in a bit. This episode kicks off with Maggie, Tomasso, Amaia and Ginny making their way through the dead-walker filled underbelly of the city. By the looks on Maggie’s face, either the methane is getting to her or she thinks Tomasso is up to something. The ladder is something to keep an eye on.

After the opening credits, we catch up with Negan and Armstrong as they plan out their next moves. Armstrong plans on taking Negan to New Babylon to complete his arrest. Negan either plans on killing Armstrong and/or trying to escape his custody. Negan is fiddling with a Statue of Liberty toy, and it appears when Armstrong got close he quickly put the figurine back on the shelf like he wasn’t at least thinking about using it. I do like this scene because Negan explains why he had to kill the four people that he did, and exclaimed, “…if you had seen what she

looked like when I found her, well, I guarantee you’d done the same.” Armstrong gives Negan a look of maybe he’s telling the truth, but I’m still going to prosecute this dude.

We then head back to the sewers. Maggie and co. come up to a huge fat-looking blob. And when I say fat, I mean literal disposed fat that’s been forming together when people throw food down the garbage disposal. As Ginny tries to see if she can go up and over it, Maggie stops her and has a break-down moment. She yells at Ginny, or taking their current situation out on her, that Ginny ruined their plans and that they were so close. Which, looking back at it, is very true. As Maggie is scolding Ginny, Ginny gives a look back like a typical teenager, but we later come to find out she knows a lot about what Maggie is saying/has said to her hasn’t been completely truthful.

We head back to Negan and Armstrong roaming the streets. Armstrong wants to head to Chelsie Piers, but Negan points out that none of these boats are going to be available for use and that they’re either destroyed or sunk. This back-and-forth is what became a little annoying for me. I get that Armstrong needs to do his job, and I get that Negan has to be the rebel and fight/smooth talk his way out of it. What I did like was that they did start opening up to each other and their situation together got a little less annoying because they started to see why they are who they are, and why they do/did the things they did.

We then get back and see why Tomasso has been acting eerie and Maggie figures it out. Tomasso magically finds some oxygen tanks for breathing in the methane-filled sewers. Maggie doesn’t buy that the Burazi just left them there- but if they did, Tomasso knew that they were going to be there. Maggie then calls him out and forces him to tell the group his plan. This obviously upsets Amaia and she gives him the cold shoulder- which they are both about to get soon. We skip Negan throwing a walker at Armstrong to back in the sewers. Tomasso and Amaia take a seat on some presumed dead walkers. Of course- not dead. Tomasso [actually] meets his fate as well as Amaia. Down to two in Maggie’s group- for now. Of course two adults get bit fighting off walkers and a teenager doesn’t get a scratch, a little cheesy, but understandable for the storyline.

Now at the beginning of this recap I said this episode really didn’t do it for me, well this next scene really did. We see the Croat enter a theater with an interesting “rock-opera” vibes happening. As the Croat makes his way through some back hallways, he runs into a woman who says “Out of my way, bitch.” This threw up some flags to me that the Croat either isn’t who he says he is/he think he is, or he answers to someone else. The answer is right through the door as we see an older woman in what appears to be an old theater changing room. The Croat lays out to her that the planned worked and that Negan is on the island, but she thinks otherwise and because she doesn’t physically see Negan, the plan is not a success. The end of this scene really reminded me of back in the Commonwealth when Pamela put out her hand and Hornsby was like a lost dog craving her touch. Either a nice call-back or great coincidence.

We now find Negan and Armstrong in an abandoned school bus where Neegs knows there's a first-aid kit. A nice call-back to him being a gym teacher, and if you went to a school like I did, the gym teacher always drove the bus to field trips. This was also a nice scene to where we finally got to know a little bit about Armstrong's background. This is also the scene that has the name of the episode! Armstrong is telling a story about always feeling abandoned by his brother, and thus doing the same to him leading to his death. In that story, Armstrong says, "Is that what he deserved? Is it really so black and white? You ask me back then, I would've said yes. But now? I don't know. Is it gray? Is it something else? What if it's just stories we tell ourselves to sleep easier?"

Now we get to the giant, or ultra letdown. This might be the first time we've seen a walker like this, I'm calling it an "ultra walker" Now, I will give the show credit for always thinking of something new and different after the OS, Fear and now Dead City. This ultra walker has what looks like 4-5 other walkers inside of it. With arms like a spider just towering over Maggie. She tells Ginny to go and fights this walker off, pretty handily. I get that Maggie is a walker-slaying vet, but she got passed this end-of-the-level boss super easy. Not to mention the last walker that popped up looked like one of those Halloween decorations at a hardware store with those sensors that gets triggered as you walk by. Pretty cheesy. After Maggie kills the ultra walker, she tries to catch up to Ginny. We see at the top of a ladder the word "Liar" spelled in blood. We then go through a couple of flashbacks with Ginny finding clues that doesn't line up with some of Maggie's stories. Not cheesy.

Overall I would have to give this episode a solid C, or even a 6 or 7/10. It was filled with tons of cheesy moments. But it also had plenty of scenes that really progressed the story and gave some more in-depth looks at the backgrounds to some characters. I.E. the Croat and the woman, Armstrong's story of his brother and Ginny's plot to leave Maggie. What could have brought this story up to a better grade was the ultra walker. They could have did so much with this new idea and instead it was a huge letdown.

Catch The Walking Dead: Dead City Sunday evenings at 7pm MST or early on AMC+

Catch "The Stalking Dead" every Monday night at 7pm MST