The Walking Dead: Dead City is about to introduce the series’ deadliest team-up yet.
AMC’s The Walking Dead: Dead City is a spinoff of the flagship series, The Walking Dead. The show follows Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) as they form an uneasy alliance. Their journey begins when Maggie’s son, Hershel, is abducted, forcing them to search for him in New York City and confront Croat (Ċ½eljko Ivanek), a former member of Negan’s old organization, The Saviors.
A new exclusive preview for The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 has been unveiled at IGN Live 2026. The clip has offered fans their first glimpse at an unexpected partnership between Negan and Dillard (Jimmi Simpson) that could have extremely dangerous consequences for the characters in the upcoming chapter, including the twisted duo themselves.
The sneak peek opens with Negan arriving at Dillard’s bar, where he appears to be hiding, or at least avoiding the walkers inside. However, after Dillard finds him, he reveals that he has somehow made the zombies “safe” to be around and is treating them like patrons at the establishment. The character is even playing drinking games with his undead customers while having very personal conversations with them.
The image of Dillard being so calm around the walkers and casually explaining how he fixed them while serving Negan a drink shows audiences how unstable he is. Additionally, while Negan appears nervous at first, he still ends up taking a beer from the disturbing bartender with a smile in an environment that most people would find unsettling, to say the least. The moment alone depicts how different they are from the rest of the characters in The Walking Dead: Dead City.
Although AMC confirmed that Simpson was cast as Dillard in a recurring role for The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3, very little is actually known about his character. However, judging by IGN’s exclusive preview, he seems to be leaning more into villain territory than a protagonist. Combined with Negan’s reputation in the franchise and his deadly instincts, if the two team up throughout the course of the upcoming chapter, things could take a turn for the worse.
The Walking Dead franchise is based on a comic book series of the same name that was created by Robert Kirkman and published by Image Comics. The series ran from 2003 to 2019, spanning 193 issues and followed the stories of the characters from AMC’s first Walking Dead show. While the show centers on Kirkman’s original characters, several of them suffer different fates than their comic book counterparts.
The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 will premiere on July 26, 2026, on AMC and AMC+.
Release Date
June 18, 2023
Directors
Kevin Dowling, Loren Yaconelli