The Walking Dead's Worst Plot Hole Keeps Getting Bigger

Published Aug 27, 2026, 11:00 AM EDT Kyle is a senior writer at ScreenRant and has been part of the team for over two years. Having led coverage on The Walking Dead projects alongside Rick & Morty, Kyle is well versed in numerous genres. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Kyle is a passionate journalist who has a keen interest in TV and film. He has six years of experience studying journalism including a HND in Practical Journalism and a BA Honours in Journalism, Media and Communication and History. Alongside his love for TV and film, Kyle enjoys video games, football and Formula 1. Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3, episode 5, "Imperialis." With sixteen years of televised history and hundreds of episodes to its name, The Walking Dead has achieved more than most franchises, cementing itself as a truly iconic series. However, among all its accolades, there have been a few errors and inconsistencies, with The Walking Dead: Dead City's plot hole standing out as one of the most frustrating in recent memory. Understanding Dead City season 3's timeline was already confusing enough given it takes place after the other modern spinoffs, but one key problem has only become more apparent since then. With the show taking place around four or five years after The Walking Dead season 11's finale, clearly a lot has happened off-screen that we don't know about. By this point in the timeline, Rick should have returned from the Civic Republic, while Daryl and Carol's European journey has likely concluded too, despite the spinoff's final season still to be released. Annoyingly though, most of these events are ignored in Dead City, with Maggie and Negan only really talking about their own personal history. Recently, Hershel and Glenn have been brought up, while Negan briefly mentioned Rick, yet it's unclear whether the two ever crossed paths after Rick's initial disappearance. Now, Maggie and Renata's community faces trouble with food after losing much of it to a sinkhole, but Maggie refuses to acknowledge her old allies, who are clearly still out there willing to help. Even if Maggie doesn't want to be part of Alexandria, Oceanside, or the Commonwealth, she could surely still reach out to these groups for help, which she hasn't done throughout Dead City. She did bring up Eugene briefly during her road trip with Luis, but failed to acknowledge his radios that could link communities. Knowing that everything she is building relies on keeping the peace, it's hard to understand why she wouldn't at least try to make contact with the Commonwealth, especially since they could solve most of her problems, which is a major oversight that needs to be addressed. Maggie & Renata's Food Shortage Could Easily Be Solved By The Commonwealth As one of the biggest communities The Walking Dead has ever seen, it's hard to imagine the Commonwealth being unable to help with the food crisis going on in Maggie and Renata's settlement. For a while, their group thrived until a sinkhole ruined a large amount of their food supply, forcing them to ration until they found a solution. In the meantime, many residents risked their lives to increase their energy output in a mission that could've gone badly wrong. Rather than going through all this turbulence, Maggie simply could've reached out to someone at the Commonwealth and asked for extra food, either as a favor or in exchange for their newfound source of energy. With how well the Commonwealth was doing the last time we saw it, they would've surely had some food to spare, especially if they are now allies with the Civic Republic after Rick and Michonne liberated the community. The Civic Republic is even bigger than the Commonwealth and is easily the most technologically advanced faction in The Walking Dead. Therefore, with these two groups banding together, it would only take a few days at most for some helicopters to make their way to New York and deliver essential resources. In fact, this would solve a lot of the conflict and tension Maggie and Negan have faced throughout the past few seasons, making the lack of contact baffling. Dead City has instead pretended like the Commonwealth doesn't exist and that Maggie has no relationships outside the Bricks, which simply isn't true as far as we know. Even if she lost contact with her former allies, surely someone would've made their way to the Bricks years ago to ensure everything was alright, where they could've restored communications. The only explanation behind Maggie's lack of external help is that something serious happened with the other groups, but Dead City hasn't addressed this, which it needs to do sooner rather than later. The Walking Dead: Dead City Needs To Address What Happened With Maggie & The Other Survivors Image via AMC For as long as she's been part of The Walking Dead, Maggie has been presented as a smart, crafty survivor, meaning she wouldn't just forget about all the connections she has. Sure, she's also the type that may be too proud to ask for help, but given she reached out to Negan despite their complicated past, she's clearly matured in that sense. With this in mind, there's simply no way Maggie wouldn't have found a way to get a hold of someone at the Commonwealth unless she didn't want to, meaning we need to know what happened between her and the other key survivors. During The Walking Dead season 11's ending, Maggie was running Hilltop. In addition to being one of the leaders of the allied communities, she was still on good terms with Carol and Daryl, even sending the latter on a mission that kickstarted his spinoff show. Between then and now, something big must have happened if she has since severed ties with all these people she spent around a decade of her life with. It's unlikely that this potential fallout was simply with one person, as she would've been able to reach out to someone else or even a different community entirely. Therefore, if something did split them apart, Dead City needs to tell us what and preferably in season 3; otherwise, this lingering plot hole will only get worse. Even if the highly desired Walking Dead crossover show feels late, it can't happen without Maggie, or at least without knowing why she's not a part of it. That means now is the ideal time to explain why she no longer has a relationship with her old friends, be it a major conflict or some other reason. What Could've Happened With Maggie & The Walking Dead's Main Survivors? Image via AMC Finding a suitable explanation for why Maggie isn't associated with The Walking Dead's other main survivors won't be easy, but there are a few possible reasons that may make sense. The first could be the Civic Republic. After Rick and Michonne defeated the CRM, they landed near Alexandria to reunite with their children via one of their helicopters, suggesting they forged an alliance. As such, the duo may have encouraged the other communities to either move to the Civic Republic or at least work with them, something Maggie may have opposed. Her biggest concern has been keeping her son safe, and in the comics she was guilty of sheltering him, meaning she may have gone to extremes to protect him. As part of the move from Hilltop to the Bricks, Maggie could have refused to share her group's new location with the other groups to avoid being vulnerable to the Civic Republic, opting to cut ties completely. It may be a bit of a stretch, but it's one of the only reasons why she'd leave so many loved ones behind. The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 will consist of eight episodes and premieres every Sunday on AMC/ AMC+. Alternatively, an unseen villain could have caused a major dispute between Maggie and the others, hence why she no longer has contact with anyone. It's hard to imagine the franchise omitting such a significant detail, especially since Maggie spoke positively about Eugene, but it remains an obscure yet possible factor behind her becoming so isolated. Whatever the truth is, something big enough must have happened for this OG character to leave her friends behind, unless she really is so stubborn that she simply refused to ask for help. Either way, Maggie's hospital group in The Walking Dead looks like her home for the time being, at least until things fall apart. Hopefully, there is a good reason as to why Maggie isn't seeking help from her long-term allies, and ideally it's not a fallout, but until The Walking Dead: Dead City addresses it, we're left in the dark about what really happened between her and the other central survivors. The Walking Dead: Dead City 8/10 Release Date June 15, 2023 Network AMC Maggie Rhee and Negan travel into post-apocalyptic Manhattan, a city isolated from the mainland and overrun by walkers and competing factions. Forced into an uneasy partnership, they pursue a dangerous mission tied to Maggie’s past. Created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard First TV Show The Walking Dead Latest TV Show The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Upcoming TV Shows More Tales from the Walking Dead Universe First Episode Air Date October 31, 2010 Cast Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Danai Gurira, Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chandler Riggs, Steven Yeun, Lennie James The Walking Dead is a massive multimedia franchise that began with a comic book series created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. The franchise gained widespread popularity with the launch of the television series The Walking Dead in 2010 on AMC, which chronicles the lives of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies, referred to as "walkers." The success of the original show has led to numerous spin-offs, web series, video games, novels, and other media. The franchise explores themes of survival, human nature, and the breakdown of society in the face of an existential threat, making it one of the most successful and influential horror series of the 21st century.