Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2, Episode 3Poor Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) has gone through a lot of hell in her life in the Walking Dead franchise. She’s lost nearly everyone she loves, including her own father, Hershel (Scott Wilson), who was killed by the Governor (David Morrissey), her husband, Glenn (Steven Yeun), who was smashed to death by Negan’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) barbed-wire baseball bat, and her sister, Beth (Emily Kinney) in Season 5. When Glenn died, Maggie was carrying their unborn son, who she later gave birth to and named Hershel, in memory of her dad.

Hershel wasn’t a major part of the original The Walking Dead, but he’s integral to the spin-off The Walking Dead: Dead City. In the first season, a now-teenage Hershel (Logan Kim) is abducted by a former Savior known only as the Croat (Željko Ivanek). Maggie gets her former enemy, Negan, to travel with her in Season 1 to the ruins of New York City to find and rescue him, which they do. Now, however, instead of a happy reunion, Hershel has been changed by the experience. While held captive, he was corrupted and manipulated by the Dama (Lisa Emery). With how Hershel’s acting now, Negan is the least of Maggie’s concerns. In The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2, it’s Maggie’s very own child that could hurt her most.

Hershel Is Sick of Maggie’s Obsession With Negan on ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’

You can draw a line between two distinct halves of The Walking Dead. There’s the first, in which it was one of the biggest shows on TV every week, and then there’s the second, when Negan kills Glenn in a horrific way. Each season of The Walking Dead that followed was less impressive than the next, as the show struggled to have an identity. If it was difficult for us to watch Glenn die, imagine how it was for Maggie. In addition to her husband dying, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) made the decision to spare Negan when he had the easy chance to kill him. At the end of The Walking Dead, Maggie even has to work with Negan and find a way to not be consumed by rage and grief.

In Dead City, Hershel Rhee can’t escape a past that he wasn’t even around for, and, now that he’s a teenager, he’s also trying to come into his own and be able to protect himself. When Maggie looks at Hershel, she only sees Glenn and what Negan did to him, rather than simply her son who has so much potential. Instead of clinging to his mother, Hershel is ready to flee from Maggie’s heartbreaking looks at him. She’s obsessed with Negan and never stops talking about him. He is sick of his mother and the baggage she puts on him. Enter the Dama.

The Dama Makes Hershel Feel Seen and Wanted in ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’

We only see the Dama in a few episodes of Dead City‘s first season. She becomes more of a focal point in Season 2, as she attempts to bring back the old Negan to frighten other New York groups into joining her to fight New Babylon. She’ll do anything to make that happen, including threatening Negan’s family or killing people he cares about right in front of him. However, unlike another character Lisa Emery played — the equally terrifying Darlene from Ozark — the Dama is a calm and cool woman who rarely raises her voice. She uses that to get what she wants in more ways than one.

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We see the Dama in the present with her ruthless control of Negan, but we also see her in Hershel’s flashbacks, most importantly in Season 2, Episode 3. Hershel thinks about her often, and it’s not hard to see why. He’s a lonely kid coming into his own as a young man with a mother who sees right through him to the past. The Dama, however, actually sees Hershel as an individual who could play a part in rebuilding Manhattan. She actually notices his drawing of the Manhattan skyline and compliments it. She gets Hershel to talk about what Negan did and speaks about her own loss. By doing so, she has drawn Hershel in to depend on and trust her. The Dama gives Hershel everything he needs at this moment in his life, and, while others are afraid of New York City, he wants to go back to what she’s inspired him to rebuild.

‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Season 2, Episode 3 Hints at a Darker Turn for Hershel

Episode 3 of this season’s The Walking Dead: Dead City not only has flashbacks to the Dama telling Hershel that his feelings matter, but her showing him his worth (at least to her cause) through action. She gives him his very own room in the old theater she lives in. Priceless art lines the walls, but when she pushes a button we realize his room is an elevator. They take it to the top floor, allowing Hershel to see the ruined skyline of the Big Apple in all its glory. The Dama looks out at the destroyed world and sees what it could be. She wants to rebuild it, and it’s Hershel who she wants to draw it for her. The Dama has now given him a sense of purpose. Rather than life being all about survival, she offers him hope and an outlet for his talents.

As the episode ends, a concerned Maggie confronts her son. She has asked him before if the city has a hold on him, but now he admits that it does, going into detail about his feelings about the city (which may as well be the feelings he has about himself). He looks at New York and doesn’t see anything to fear, but rather a place that has been ignored and left behind to rot. No one is going to save it, but he believes that could change. Without saying it, we know that he wants to save New York as a way of saving himself. The Dama knows that too, which is why she has manipulated him and planted the idea in his head. He is emotionally weak and in need of guidance, so she will build him up and mold him into who she wants him to be.

In the final scene, the Dama tells Hershel that he’ll have to make sacrifices and do some things when he gets home. What’s that supposed to mean? We’ve already discovered that he was the one who started the tire fire when New Babylon arrived, letting the Dama’s forces know they were there. What else is he capable of?he go as far as physically huting Maggie if she got in the way of his plan? Let’s hope that Maggie — or perhaps Negan — can save him before it’s too late. For now, it’s not the past, Negan, or any walker that Maggie should fear most. The biggest threat in The Walking Dead: Dead City is her son.