Novi Dan, Novi Početak

Novi Dan, Novi Početak
Season 2, Episode 7
Air Date	June 15, 2025
Written By	Eli Jorné
Directed By	Michael Satrazemis
U.S. Viewers	0.35 million
Episode Guide
← previous	"Bridge Partners Are Hard to Come by These Days"
next →	"If History Were a Conflagration"
Cast Guide
Starring Lauren Cohan as Maggie Rhee Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan Smith Željko Ivanek as The Croat Lisa Emery as The Dama* Mahina Napoleon as Ginny* Logan Kim as Hershel Rhee Keir Gilchrist as Benjamin Pierce
Also Starring Hilarie Burton Morgan as Lucille Smith** Medina Senghore as Annie Smith** * no lines ** hallucination

"Novi Dan, Novi Početak" is the seventh episode of the second season of AMC's The Walking Dead: Dead City. It is the thirteenth episode of the series overall. It premiered on June 15, 2025. It was written by Eli Jorné and directed by Michael Satrazemis.

Plot

Negan and Maggie go on harrowing journeys and face unexpected challenges.

Synopsis

Maggie searches King Francis Theater for her missing son, following the sounds of opera to the Dama's room. Inside, the Dama's burned corpse still lies under the fallen clothing rack and the Croat greets her after Maggie shuts off the music. Maggie demands to know where Hershel is from the Croat who is depressed after being kicked out of the Burazi. The Croat claims not to know where else Hershel might've gone looking for the Dama, but Maggie accuses him of lying and threatens to cut off tiny pieces of the man one by one, starting with his toe. The Croat concedes that he may be able to help her.

In his old cell at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Negan worriedly tends to Ginny who is unconscious from her infected wound. Negan briefly sees Lucille in Ginny's place before waking up, having fallen asleep while looking after the girl. Benjamin Pierce brings Negan a crate containing what supplies he could find, including a bucket of water and a rag to cool Ginny down. As the girl is still breathing okay, Benjamin figures her body is still fighting the infection and he gives Negan a toy dog that he found for Ginny in an old donation box. Negan, who intends to send Ginny home once she's better, thanks the young man for his help.

Negan tells Benjamin how his first wife Lucille had cancer, and he was basically Lucille's stay-at-home nurse, waking her up every morning, getting Lucille cleaned up and dressed. Towards the end of Lucille's life, Negan was having to run machines and monitors, including a ventilator which Negan had to figure out how to operate. While Benjamin thinks that Lucille was lucky to have him, Negan admits "no, see, I was a selfish piece of shit. I failed her. But God, man, he, um... gave me a second chance, you know? With a smart, sexy, take-no-shit, grab-you-by-the-balls kind of gal. You know what I mean? Annie. You know, we had a little boy. Biggest, brightest, mischievous grin you've ever seen. And when he laughs, oh my God, he could wake the... I failed her. I failed them both. But God, he, uh... he keeps giving me second chances. And I got no fucking idea why." Negan's interest is suddenly drawn by some burn ointment amongst the medical supplies that Benjamin had brought him, a rare commodity so many years into the Trials.

Upstairs, Negan questions the Buraz who Benjamin got the cream from. The man shows Negan a bag of medical supplies that he has, but Negan is only interested in any medicine that he might've found. The Buraz explains that he got all of it at a hospital while he was looking for pills. There's a story that has been going around for awhile that, when everything was getting bombed out and things were kind of crazy, a hospital nurse was going around gathering up all of the meds that she could find and stashed them in the third floor operating room. This includes antibiotics which, although it would be old, "old shit's better than no shit." It's supposedly at Bellevue Hospital, but while a lot of people have gone looking, no one has ever come back out again.

The Croat takes Maggie to the room that the Dama had set up for Hershel, explaining that while the elevator still works, it now functions more as lookout rather than transporting freight. The Croat figured that Hershel might return to it because the Dama had asked him to restore it for Hershel and provide the boy with his own personal space. "Novi dan, novi početak. New day, new beginning." Maggie demands to know if that was before or after the Croat cut off Hershel's toe which he admits that he did for the Dama. However, the Croat wasn't the only one who just did what the Dama asked him to. "When she explained the reasons for needing the toe, your son... he gave it to her. Willingly. He let me cut it off," reveals the Croat, stunning Maggie who refuses to rest. The Croat notices one of Hershel's drawings of the Fallen Skybridge and is hit by an idea, telling Maggie that there's a safe house that only he and the Dama knew about, but the Croat showed it to Hershel once. The Dama told Hershel to go there if shit ever hit the fan. However, getting to it won't be easy.

Negan prepares to go to the hospital to search for the meds, instructing Benjamin to check Ginny's lungs and vitals while he's gone. Negan warns the young man that if Ginny wakes up, she won't know where she is or who Benjamin and she may kick his ass a little. Negan wonders why the young man is helping them and Benjamin explains that he doesn't have a lot of experience of the world and other people. Benjamin was only 10 when the world ended and he has no memory of anything or anyone from his previous life. While he doesn't remember anything, it's still nice to remember the world as it once was through his work as a historian. Leaving the toy dog with Ginny, Negan promises her that he will be right back. Negan hears that Ginny's breathing has become labored, a bad sign for how her infection is doing and quickly departs to find the medicine that Ginny needs.

In the streets, the Croat explains that the top floor of a nearby building has been furnished with food, water and weapons, but the bottom levels are insurmountable due to the sheer damage they have suffered. As a result, the only way to the safe house is across the skybridge.

Negan reaches Bellevue Hospital, the grounds of which are overrun with zombified patients. Negan is able to make his way through the herd and into the hospital through a boarded up entrance which he covers back up. The lobby is in ruins and Negan is briefly startled by a walker banging on the glass doors that it's trapped behind. Checking a sign for directions to the Pediatric Ward, Negan heads upstairs.

Maggie and the Croat climb a set of stairs, avoiding a number of traps that have been set on them. When Maggie asks about how the Croat can't remember the location of all of the traps that he set, he simply dismisses it as being a lot to remember. The Croat stops to dismantle one particular trap above the 20th floor and notices Maggie's fear of heights as she looks down the stairwell, commenting that it's not really about the height, but about the compulsion to jump. The Croat has always wondered if the fear was genetic or shaped by the events of life. "If you've lost someone... everyone... it's only natural to want to follow them down into the darkness, end the pain. Or maybe to see them again," comments the Croat with visible sadness, hinting at the losses that he himself has suffered. Shaken, Maggie accidentally steps on a trip wire as she backs away from the edge, narrowly missing getting hit by a massive swinging spiked ball. The Croat, finishing his work, reminds Maggie that he had warned her to keep still. Maggie wonders if Hershel had really gotten past all of this, but the Croat tells her that Maggie underestimates her son. The two proceed through office cubicles set up as a labyrinth filled with walkers.

On the third floor, Negan hides in a patient room to avoid walkers roaming the halls. A child walker emerges from behind the patient curtain and attacks Negan who is disturbed by the sight. Drawing his knife, Negan shoves the boy away and retreats, using a cart to block the walker from getting to him. Reaching a doorway, Negan loses his grip and falls backwards, hitting his head while the cart blocks the walker inside of the room.

Maggie and the Croat continue to make their way through the labyrinth, having to turn around at a dead end. However, Maggie is exhausted and begins to fall behind. A walker grabs Maggie who quickly stabs it in the head, struggling with her exhaustion. Suddenly, Maggie's flashlight goes out and she loses sight of the Croat, becoming lost in the maze. Maggie is attacked by three more walkers, but manages to dispatch them, albeit with some difficulty in her state. The Croat returns in time to witness the end of Maggie's fight and compliments her just before Maggie passes out.

Negan awakens with blood dripping on his face and the child walker on top of him, the cart having fallen on Negan. Negan manages to shove the cart and the walker off of him and runs to the exit to the room, but hits his head again on the door in Negan's haste. Seeing that the coast is clear, Negan leaves the room and notices the shadow of somebody running down the hallway nearby. Negan continues moving, following the signs to the operating room.

Maggie wakes up in an office and approaches the Croat with her knife drawn as he works on repairing Maggie's flashlight at a desk. The Croat, showing his engineering expertise, elaborates about the problem and how to fix it to Maggie, guessing she must be wondering how he knows what to do which she denies. "When I was a child, no one believed in this path for me. Engineering, science... I myself had trouble believing. I'm still this way. Too dependent on others. But my mother... she believed. She said to me, "Mile... I know you." She was my protector. Like you and your son. You must have had a good model," admits the Croat. Maggie reveals in turn that her mother had died when Maggie was young which caused her father to relapse into alcoholism. The Croat notes that his own mother had never left Croatia and suggests that when he and Maggie are done, the Croat will make the long trip home and maybe meet his mother again. The Croat hands Maggie's repaired flashlight to her and she covers it in the signal that Maggie and Hershel had developed years before.

Negan carefully passes through a ward full of "sleeping" walkers who don't react to his presence. Negan finally reaches the third floor operating room which is in shambles, torn apart in the search for the meds rumored to have been hidden by the nurse. On the floor is the skeleton of one such scavenger who had died in the attempt.

The Croat and Maggie reach the skybridge which rests on its side, meaning that they will have to cross over the glass windows. Due to her fear of heights, Maggie hesitantly begins to follow the Croat across, but her fear gets the best of her once he's out of sight and Maggie collapses against the wall partway through. As Maggie pulls herself together, she is attacked by three walkers who had followed her into the skybridge. Maggie quickly dispatches them, but falls onto a glass pane in the struggle. As Maggie stares at the street far below her, the glass begins to crack and a fourth walker falls into the skybridge. From the other end, the Croat shouts instructions to Maggie to spread her weight out like on thin ice, slowing the cracking. However, the fourth walker closes in and one of the original three whom Maggie had failed to properly kill grabs her ankle and drags Maggie backwards. Just before the glass breaks, sending the four walkers to the ground below, the Croat extends a ladder to Maggie who grabs it, saving her life. Maggie pulls herself to safety and the two share a sigh of relief.

Negan searches through the operating room for the meds in vain, even breaking through the walls. In a broken piece of glass, Negan spots someone hiding in the celling. The person makes a run for it, chased by Negan, causing the formerly dormant walkers to become active and attack him. Negan manages to push through the walkers and tackle the person in the lobby, only to discover that their bag is empty. The person unmasks, turning out to be his dead wife Lucille: Negan's head injury is causing him to hallucinate. Negan tearfully apologizes for failing her, but Lucille reassures her husband that he didn't, reminding Negan of all that she had done for him. However, Negan feels that it wasn't enough.

Negan clutches his head in pain, his vision briefly distorting and when he looks up again, Negan's hallucination of Lucille has changed into Annie who greets her husband. Joshua steps out from behind Annie, smiling at his father, who greets Joshua. Negan tells Annie that he failed her, and he doesn't know what to do, begging for her advice. Taking Negan's face in her hands, Annie directs his gaze to the walker trapped nearby behind glass doors before vanishing. Negan opens the doors and stabs the walker in the head, discovering what Annie had been directing him to in the room with it: a ventilator. A hallucination of Ginny appears nearby, whistling at Negan in their signal and smiling at him.

Maggie and the Croat reach a lounge area that has none of the promised food, water and weapons. The Croat retrieves a picture of a woman and a baby and a box labeled "Kata Jurkovic 1936-1983", admitting that he had lied to Maggie about this being a safehouse. Maggie accuses the Croat of seeing this as a game and demands answers, dangling him out of the window. Looking at the box, the Croat tells her that he came to say goodbye and Maggie guesses that he wants her to kill him because the Croat is too much of a coward to commit suicide, insisting that Hershel has to be here. After a moment, Maggie chooses to pull the Croat back to safety rather than killing him. Maggie stares down at the long fall before the Croat pulls her back and places his hand on her shoulder comfortingly, showing a softer side under all of his usual insanity.

At night, Maggie and the Croat watch the Manhattan skyline. The Croat explains to Maggie that "my mother left when I was 12 years old. I woke up one morning... and she was gone. I looked for her for years, and as fate would have it, I found her. Two days after she had passed. She had been living in Vrapče, alone. 10 kilometers from our house. So, after I ended up on the island, all I wanted was to join her. It's why I climbed up here in the first place. The traps, the maze, that was all done by others. How many times did I tell myself... jump? But instead, I kept wandering the streets, until a candle in the window of a theater drew me in. I don't blame the Dama. She read my mind, spoke it back to me. This was her gift. She saw pain. And she knew exactly what to do." Across the city, Maggie spots the signal that she had created with Hershel coming from the New York Times Building.

Negan sits at Ginny's bedside, having hooked the girl up to the ventilator in the hopes that life support will allow her body to beat the infection on its own. Benjamin covers Ginny in a priest's robe that he found, and Negan warns the young man that people will be coming soon to kill everyone in the church. However, Negan and Ginny can't leave as this is the girl's best chance for recovery. "It's okay. I know how to protect her now. I know where I got it wrong before. Back in the day when... when I built the Sanctuary to protect my people... I showed mercy. But now... Now, I'm just gonna line 'em all up. And I'm gonna kill 'em all. Get the Burazi ready. We got work to do."

At the New York Times, the Croat goes his own way, telling Maggie that this is for Maggie and her son and she's lucky. The two former enemies shake hands, parting on good terms. Maggie finally locates Hershel who is glad to see his mother, having hoped that she would see their signal. The two hug and apologize to each other for how everything went down. "But now that you're here, it... it's all gonna be okay now. Everything's gonna work out," states Hershel, looking to the side. Much to Maggie's shock, the Dama enters, very much alive, although with choppy hair and a burn on the side of her neck from the fire. With a smile, the Dama hits Maggie in the head and knocks her unconscious.

Other Cast

Co-Stars

• Shahjehan Khan as Cathedral Buraz
• Adam Labelle as Child Walker

Uncredited

• Dennis Grajeda as Substation Buraz
• Unknown as Joshua Smith
• Unknown as Kata Jurkovic (Photograph)
• Mae Baptiste as Child Walker

Deaths

• Child Walker (Alive, Confirmed Fate)
• Kata Jurkovic (Confirmed Fate; Pre-Apocalypse)
• Many unnamed Bellevue Hospital scavengers (Confirmed Fate; 1 Alive, Confirmed Fate; Zombified)
• Many unnamed Bellevue Hospital patients (Alive, Confirmed Fate)

Trivia

• Only appearance (in Dead City continuity) of Lucille Smith. (Hallucination)
• Only appearance of Kata Jurkovic. (Photograph)
• Last appearance of the Croat. (Unknown)
• The title of the episode, "Novi Dan, Novi Početak", is Croatian and means "New Day, New Beginning". The Croat says it twice to Maggie, once at the King Francis Theater and once outside of the New York Times Building before they part ways.
• As of this episode, Dascha Polanco (Lucia Narvaez) has been removed from the opening credits.
  • Gaius Charles (Perlie Armstrong) is also not in the opening credits for this episode, despite his character still being alive.
  • Lisa Emery (The Dama) is reinstated in the opening credits after previously being removed following her presumed death in "The Bird Always Knows".
• The Dama being found at the New York Times Building may suggest that that was the newspaper mentioned by Benjamin Pierce in "Feisty Friendly" that she worked at as a theater critic.
• It's confirmed that Manhattan was amongst the cities bombed by the U.S. Military in Operation Cobalt.
• The Croat's full name is revealed to be Mile Jurkovic.
• Bellevue Hospital is shown to have a variant of lurkers similar to those seen at Fort Connors in "Acheron: Part I". These lurkers appear to be "asleep" standing up and don't react when Negan passes through them very carefully. However, they become active when Negan runs through them chasing a hallucination of Lucille.

Episode Highlights

• Maggie and the Croat work together to find Hershel with the Croat opening up to Maggie about his past.
• It's revealed that Hershel had willingly allowed the Croat to cut off his toe for the Dama.
• Maggie finds Hershel at the New York Times Building where he betrays her.
• The Dama is revealed to have somehow survived her apparent death, although she now bears choppy hair and a burn mark on the side of her neck. She captures Maggie with Hershel's help.
• Negan tends to an unconscious Ginny with the help of Benjamin Pierce, searching Bellevue Hospital for medication to treat her infection.
• Negan hallucinates Lucille and Annie after hitting his head at the hospital.
• Unable to find any antibiotics, Negan hooks Ginny up to a ventilator from the hospital in the hopes that she can recover on her own. He is now determined to protect Ginny and the Burazi by any means necessary, intending to show no mercy to his enemies as Negan had previously done as the leader of the Saviors.