THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY, Season 1, Episode 4, EVERYBODY WINS A PRIZE

Written By:

Rich Cross

The Walking Dead: Dead City, Season 1, Episode 4, Everybody Wins A Prize

by Rich Cross

If the high-stakes showdown of Everybody Wins A Prize, the fourth episode of the first series of The Walking Dead: Dead City, confirms anything it’s that showrunner Eli Jorné is no fan of deferred gratification. Rather than reinforce the tension of the stand-off between The Croat and Maggie’s and Negan’s rag-tag militia, or dramatise the first skirmishes between the two groups, Jorné’s script plunges both parties into a fight to the death (and, of course, a fight with the dead). When Maggie’s carefully planned ambush is thwarted by The Croat, her bravery and commitment to others is tested, while he reveals just how nihilistic a sociopath he has become.

It’s a good ploy that the story splits up Maggie and Negan, each responsible for different missions vital to the extraction of Hershel and the containment of The Croat. Maggie’s dilemma in relation to Ginny (whose presence she’s still hidden from Negan) is given new impetus when she is first compelled to include her in their plans and then makes the decision that she cannot abandon her new charge when the alternative is the young girl’s death.

It’s also a clever conceit by Jorné not to make The Croat’s cage-fighting base (a quiet homage to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome) the location for the decisive clash. This twist wrong-foots Maggie’s forces and exposes the more machiavellian sides of The Croat’s nature, exposing the calculating ruthlessness that underpins his cruelty. Željko Ivanek always excels in these kinds of villainous roles, but his performance as The Croat is particularly astute, as he finds the textures and quirks that make his character more than the archetypal nemesis.

A flashback returns to that time in the history of the Saviours when The Croat was one of Negan’s enforcers, although already clearly vindictive and wholly out of control. Written on Negan’s face is not only the repulsion at what his interrogator has done to a young prisoner but also the realisation that The Croat is now a problem that he will need to deal with. There’s also a fan-pleasing cameo from one of Negan’s old inner circle.

The quality of the CGI and the sound design in Dead City has been impressive from the outset. The explosions that blow open the doors to the stadium, allowing the countless dead to flood inside, are powerfully rendered – as walkers are torn apart and tossed into the air, and devastated city blocks rumble and fill with smoke. The fight sequences that follow, as Maggie’s group try to slash and bludgeon their way out of entrapment, show once again how adept director Kevin Dowling is at wrangling exciting combat choreography. The group of survivors that Maggie and Negan threw their lot in with are given more active agency in this story, even though it’s entirely in keeping that their numbers are depleted because of their new voluntary alliance, as The Croat’s trap snaps shut.

It’s exciting stuff, although it is difficult to overlook one highly visible discrepancy: that between the vast scale of the walker herd swarming the stadium – an endless, writhing tide of the undead – and the far smaller number of walkers who appear on-screen having breached The Croat’s citadel. That said, Jorné and Dowling work hard to deliver the biggest bang possible from their budget.

The Croat’s attempt to settle accounts with Marshall Armstrong also takes an unusual turn that redefines the dynamic between the two of them and Negan. Armstrong is slow to recognise the extent to which the balance has shifted and remains doggedly determined to complete what is by now a hopeless mission to bring Negan in.

If last week’s episode was about the anticipation of the fight to come, Everybody Wins A Prize is a story about a battle that does not play out to the expectation of either side. Full of potent visuals, the episode ends with one of the most memorable images in the season to date, as characters clamber down into the endless darkness of sewers known to be bursting with the shuffling bodies of the dead. The shot lingers on the drain descent even after the last climber has disappeared from sight, as the guttural grunts of the walkers closing in grow louder. Once again, Dead City’s willingness to avoid the predictable and the over-familiar pays dividends.

New episodes of THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY premiere on Sundays on AMC in the US