This review contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 episode 2, “Haven.”This solid and entertaining second episode of Dead City’s third season really offers up some plum visuals. It begins with a shot of the Statue of Liberty’s dilapidated head turning on its side and transitioning into that of a walker flat on the pavement as Maggie unceremoniously sticks a knife in it, and “Haven” makes the neoclassical sculpture a pretty great motif for Maggie’s decision to open up the hospital shelter to anyone and everyone—as long as they’re good people or could potentially become good people.A happier Maggie is now embracing the notion that those outside her wholesome refuge should have the right to pursue a better life, even if that puts Renata, Luis, and the rest of the hospital’s denizens in danger. The greater their numbers, Negan reasons, the greater the chance they have of enduring. And Negan? Well, no matter what he tells Maggie, he’ll always be there to take out the trash.cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});My fears after last week’s installment that the show would spend a frustrating string of episodes toying with the concept of killing The Dama were completely unfounded. And I could not be happier to be wrong about that. Indeed, The Dama is almost immediately captured here in a hilarious, Scooby-Doo-esque scene of ineptitude, as she yells at Maggie and Negan from the shadows of a theater before dropping a chandelier on them and almost falling prey to a hungry walker as she scurries away. Maggie inevitably wrings her hands over what to do with their new captive, while Negan looks Maggie dead in the eyes and tries in vain to convince her that The Dama is a lost cause and her death is inevitable.Negan, having thrown himself into a holding pattern of booze and video games at Dillard’s bar instead of helping the hospital effort, doesn’t know where he fits into this new world. Is he the kind of good person or potentially good person who could fit into Maggie and Renata’s community? Or is he still a one-man justice system who will do the violent things no one else has the balls to do before a real justice system manifests itself? By the end of “Haven,” we have our answer: he’s still very much the latter.Negan’s own little haven is a good contrast to the sprawling hospital, with its burgeoning teaching program and its many plans of action. Dillard’s bar has been treated to some excellent production design, and its lights and festive decor make it seem like a relatively cool place to hang out in the apocalypse, especially for someone like Negan, who has no plans of action. He doesn’t seem at all distracted by the filth on the floor or the smell everyone keeps yapping about; it’s Dillard’s preoccupation with making the walkers part of the bar’s charm that irritates Negan. He doesn’t want to be reminded of what’s happening out there. When he steps outside for a smoke, he levels his eyes dispassionately on a bunch of rats gnawing at a barely-moving walker on the ground and figures out how he’s going to play things for the time being. That blinking red light and Maggie’s guilt trips mean he can’t fully disassociate from the world, so he falls back on the only way he knows how to maintain.A future where Negan feels morally torn over offing his enemies is still a possibility …just not today. As he squints at a random painting of “the two hilltops of kinship” and one of The Dama’s minions tries in vain to explain how they “form the foundation of civilized” yadayadayada, Negan can’t help but see some “sweet-ass boobies” instead. And once we see it his way, it’s almost impossible to view the painting as anything other than of two huge, entirely unsubtle tits. It’s not a subtle character study of the man, but I love how ludicrous his fixation on the “boobs” painting is. It’s no wonder he became The Saviors’ leader. Maggie may implore Negan to “help build something,” but Negan is always going to see her peaceful haven as something other than what it should be, whether that’s a vulnerable target or just a futile effort in pretending the world isn’t deeply fucked. He can contribute to (and even bolster) Maggie’s vision by suggesting she grows her community, yet Negan is living out the timeless philosophical adage of “wherever you go, there you are,” and just doesn’t know who else he can become yet.When Maggie lights up the Statue of Liberty like the Bat-Signal and attracts the attention of a group of armed people across the water, Negan slips into The Dama’s prison and uses Maggie’s knife to kill her, giving everyone the illusion that she took her own life so they don’t have to deal with whatever consequences she’s got coming. No need to worry about The Dama anymore; Negan’s justice has been served. And would we really have it any other way?Things are moving pretty quickly this season. Maggie is even talking about “ploughing Central Park,” and the hospital will have more than enough resources to support a lot more people. Whether its population will reach a level where it will be hard to take down remains to be seen, but season 3 of the show seems to be dead set on giving Maggie a greater mission beyond vengeance, and that’s a joy to behold. New episodes of The Walking Dead: Dead City season 3 premiere Sundays on AMC.The post The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 Episode 2 Review – Booby Trapped appeared first on Den of Geek.