“Imperialis” is an average episode of Dead City. It has minimal suspense and leans heavily on character dynamics rather than plot momentum. The hour feels like it is circling the same question from every angle: who is actually in control, and who only thinks they are?
The show pushes these tensions forward, sometimes gracefully and sometimes with a heavy hand, especially in its attempt to manufacture a showdown between Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Renata (Aimee Garcia). It is within these shifting relationships that the episode finds its shape, which unfolds across four acts of control.
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| “Imperialis” – THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY, Pictured: Lauren Cohan as Maggie, Aimee Garcia as Renata, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan, Jimmi Simpson as Dillard. Photo Credit: Robert Clark/AMC © 2026 AMC Global Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
Control — I Like to Have a Lot
In the aftermath of the earthquake that reduced the community’s food stores, Renata enters the episode radiating the energy of someone who believes leadership is about looking in control rather than being in control. Under her direction, rationing is enforced. Dillard (Jimmi Simpson) donates turkeys and helps residents start their vertical food chains. Unfortunately, the need for food rapidly outweighs everyone’s patience.
Renata responds by tightening her grip, not with competence but with moral theater. She promises the community, “Nobody is going to starve… I promise.” It is a promise she should not make, and one that immediately begins to unravel.
She relies on Maggie (Lauren Cohen) to manage the crisis. Maggie devises a master plan to distract the people from their food shortage by giving them unlimited power. Maggie then relies on Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) to execute the plan to wrangle walkers.
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| “Imperialis” – THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY, Pictured: Jeffrey Jimmi Simpson as Dillard. Photo Credit: Robert Clark/AMC © 2026 AMC Global Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
Renata wanted to include Fabian, but he refused. Instead, he offered to perform double shifts guarding the food. Renata agreed, setting a trap for him.
As she suspected, Fabian stole food. She forced him to confess. Fabian’s public shaming is Renata’s attempt to assert control through ritualized accountability. “What should I have done? A public hanging?” she asks Maggie. Maggie, no doubt remembering hanging Gregory at the Hilltop, says she preferred neither approach.
It is too late. Fabian’s bitterness and resentment fuel his hatred for Maggie. All of it exposes the truth. Renata does not have control. She has rules she cannot enforce. Negan knows that rules without enforcement are wishful thinking.
Control — Now I’m All Grown Up
Luis (Raul Castillo) and Hershel (Logan Kim) spend quiet time reminiscing about Marisol and Glenn. Hershel admits he still thinks about Glenn every day. He presents Luis with a touching portrait of Luis’s wife, Marisol. These two men who loved deeply and lost deeply show what real leadership looks like. Empathy, memory, and continuity are the emotional anchors the community needs.
Their bond is quiet, mature, and stabilizing. It is the kind of relationship that grows in the cracks of catastrophe and becomes a foundation for something better. In contrast, Maggie and Negan’s relationship is maturing in a far more volatile way.
Control — To Get What I Want
Maggie and Negan share their most relaxed moments. They drink, laugh, and bury Lucille, symbolically burying the bat instead of the hatchet. Negan even admits, “We could’ve been friends in another life.” Maggie ignores him.
The Negan-Maggie reproachment is disarming. It is dangerous. And it sets up a future conflict where Maggie is stuck between Renata’s brittle idealism and Negan’s brutal pragmatism. Maggie’s denial is the most dangerous kind of denial. It leaves a power vacuum. Power vacuums get filled by people like Negan or people like Renata or, saints preserve us, people like Fabian.
Dillard is also trying to choose living over the dead. Negan has been dragging him toward humanity, and it is working. Dillard expresses interest in Renata while cautiously hoping to build something real.
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“Imperialis” – THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD |
Then the Dead Squad arrives. They are misfit walker wranglers who slither in to drag Dillard back into cavorting with corpses. Their energy is feral, uncontrollable, and deeply unhealthy. They have the potential to become anti-community and anti-control.
Is the showrunner setting up Maggie and Negan versus Renata and Dillard with the Dead Squad as the unpredictable third rail? If so, it is absolutely toxic, potentially unsatisfying. and exactly the kind of thing this franchise loves to do.
Control — Never Gonna Stop
Negan spends the episode doing what he does best. He tells uncomfortable truths with a smirk and a hooch chaser. He tells Maggie again that she should be running Manhattan. Maggie ignores him.
After his public shaming, Fabian complains to Negan and crosses one of Negan’s lines by threatening Maggie’s life. Negan responds the only way Negan knows how. He holds a gun to Fabian’s head. Renata appears at this exact moment.
Negan tells her that Fabian is a threat to Maggie. Renata does not believe him and asks the man with the gun to his head if it is true. Fabian lies.
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| “Imperialis” – THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY, Pictured: Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan. Photo Credit: Robert Clark/AMC © 2026 AMC Global Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
Renata demands that Negan drop the gun. Her ethos is that they do not kill people. Her reality is that she keeps surrounding herself with people who do. Negan pulls the trigger because he does not pretend. He does not perform. He knows exactly who he is and what line he will cross.
Renata calls him a pathetic broken man and places him under arrest. Negan calmly informs her that he will never be locked up again. Renata threatens to bring people and guns.
Negan replies, “Bring your army.”
She then turns her back on him while he is still holding the gun. What is she thinking?
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“Imperialis” – THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD |
Final Verdict
Imperialis is uneven, clumsy in its moral framing, and heavy handed in its Renata versus Negan setup. The episode is mildly frustrating in how it derails Maggie and Luis’s romantic momentum. Yet it is thematically coherent.
This is an episode about control. Who has it, who wants it, who pretends they have it, and who absolutely should not be anywhere near it. The relationships contract and expand. The alliances shift. The community fractures. And the show quietly reminds us that control is not real. The fight for control is the whole story.
After watching Imperialis, tell me in the comments whether you think Maggie and Renata are headed toward collaboration, collision, or complete collapse?
Rating: 7/10
