\n\t\u201cI had so much fun,\u201d Morgan tells The Hollywood Reporter about filming season three, which ended on Sunday night. \u201cLauren and I got to do scenes together we\u2019ve never done before. It was very new, so it was very fun.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s what we wanted to have people experience,\u201d adds Cohan. \u201cSo much of what we did this year has never been done in any of the spinoffs, or even the mothership. That\u2019s not even getting into the character part of it. It was just so much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t easy, though, getting to a place where fun was possible within the world of Dead City \u2014 and it began with a big task of clearing out the past. The effort to exorcise the demons surrounding Negan and Maggie required clearing out two different characters: the Dama and the Croat, the show\u2019s two main villains through the first two seasons. By the end of the first two episodes this season, however, both were dead, sent off with juicy final showcases for actors Lisa Emery and Zeljko Ivanek. For Ivanek, it was particularly personal, given how much of his own life he lent to the work.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad passed away about a year before we started Dead City,\u201d says Ivanek, who THR previously named the best new character in the Walking Dead spinoffs<\/a>. \u201cThe Croat\u2019s accent is basically my dad\u2019s accent. Literally scene after scene, I was hearing my father\u2019s voice in my head. So to keep him going kind of meant a lot to me.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWith old threats gone, even older threats found new room to evolve. The season then followed Maggie\u2019s attempt to not only turn New York into a thriving safe haven, but to turn herself into a thriving person as well. Her son Hershel (Logan Kim) stepped further into the spotlight. Maggie even started catching feelings for Luis (Ra\u00fal Castillo), a doctor with a broken heart of his own. As Cohan tells it, the entire Walking Dead team was very aware of how folks might feel about Maggie moving on from Glenn (Steven Yeun) <\/a>\u2014 which isn\u2019t even the right way to look at it, according to Cohan.<\/p>\n \u201cThis season is the first time we\u2019ve even acknowledge that these things have not existed for her for so long,\u201d says Cohan. \u201cThere\u2019s a self-awareness that this whole neighborhood, in the heart and the mind, have not even seen the sun. For me, it was really interesting to see Maggie begin to imagine [a love life], or even in that moment, to be having enough fun to dance, the freedom to be embarrassed, and to be girlish and silly.\u201d<\/p>\n If Maggie\u2019s arc was about reclaiming joy for herself, Negan\u2019s was about faking it until you either make it, or make a huge mess. As usual, it was the latter. The final episodes of the season were defined by Negan making a bad choice to kill the wrong person, and worse, the wrong zombie. In doing so, he launched his new best friend Dillard (Jimmi Simpson) into a psychotic break that ended with several deaths, Dillard\u2019s included.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI knew the arc from the beginning,\u201d says Simpson, who enjoyed his turn as Dillard as much as the fandom loved him, scars and all. \u201cI love a character arc, and Dillard\u2019s is so complete. And not only is the arc complete, the resolution at the end was kind of poetic.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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