"Dee" is the third episode of the first season of AMC's Tales of the Walking Dead. It is the third episode of the series overall. It premiered on August 28, 2022. It was written by Channing Powell and directed by Michael Satrazemis.

Plot[]

A mother evolves after she and her daughter escape violence and take refuge on a vintage steamboat; the peaceful ambiance deteriorates when a coup attempt forces the mother to revisit her violent past in order to protect her child.

Synopsis[]

In a flashforward, Alpha addresses an unseen audience, stating "let me tell you how I died."

In the present, Dee walks onto the back deck of Brooke's Steamboat where Brooke and Lydia are talking about Lydia's dress. Noticing Dee's plainer clothes compared to herself and Lydia, Brooke asks if she would be more comfortable in a suit, but Dee wonders why she'd ever wear one. Brooke claims that it's just a joke and assures Dee that she looks great. When Brooke asks Lydia if her mom looks great, Lydia just shrugs and Dee tells her that looking good doesn't mean anything. Brooke tells Lydia that it feels nice though and fixes a flickering light bulb while Lydia looks nervously at her mother. Dee questions if having the lights on are a good idea, but Brooke tells her that the guards are on duty and they have been trawling this area for weeks, it's clear. Taking Lydia's hand, Brooke leads her away, leaving Dee alone on deck.

Entering the bar, Dee takes off her jacket and sits next to Mr. Langston and watches Brooke and Lydia through the bar's mirror. The bartender, Billy, asks Dee why she isn't sitting with her daughter and suggests that Dee should make more of an effort, offending Dee. Billy tells Dee that she looks like shit and someone has to say it. Dee states that Billy hasn't earned the right and he mentions that he's only been there for a couple of weeks, but he's seen how it works. "Brooke bends over backwards making everything nice. People like you show up looking like drowned opossums, taking advantage of what's provided," Billy accuses asking if she knows how many people would kill to be there. Billy suggests that if Dee doesn't want to be there, she should just go back to her room. Dee firmly tells Billy that she came for Lydia and Billy asks why she's sitting across the room then. Billy then leaves to get more wine and Dee notices the outside lights flickering in the reflection in the glass of the door that Billy exited through.

Emerging out on deck, Dee turns off the outside lights. Hearing a noise, Dee looks on shore and sees figures moving through the fog. Following Dee on deck, an annoyed Brooke turns the lights back on and tells her that the figures on shore are just the dead. Dee tells Brooke that she doesn't trust Billy, but Brooke is skeptical as Dee doesn't trust anybody. Changing the subject, Brooke states that Lydia has not so subtly reminded her that her birthday is coming up and suggests that Lydia is on to them. Brooke asks for Dee's help with Lydia's party as Lydia deserves a nice surprise. Dee knows, but she's worried about resources, especially since Lydia is the only kid. Brooke insists that it's been over a year, and they've given Dee more than enough time to adjust. Children need structure and normalcy, schedules, rules and celebrations are important. Dee worries that Brooke is setting Lydia's expectations too high while Brooke feels sorry for Dee who is so caught up in what could go wrong that she can't enjoy the good stuff which is having a negative effect on Lydia. Brooke insists that there's a time for both caution and joy and she has scheduled it all out so that they can carry each other's burdens. "Otherwise, what's the point? Lydia is a sweet girl. She deserves more than this." Dee slowly advances towards Brooke with a knife, apparently intending to attack her. However, one of the steamboat's fishing nets swings between them with a walker inside and Dee uses her knife to put it down. Covered in walker blood, Brooke silently holds out her hand and Dee hands over her knife without another word to her.

In a flashforward, Alpha tells her audience that she was nine when Dee killed her father. However, Alpha claims that he deserved it. After her father's death, things were fine she guesses, and Dee did what she was supposed to - what women like her are told to. Then the world fell apart and she got stuck in a basement with her husband Frank. Alpha doesn't know if she meant to kill Frank, but she's glad that she did.

In the present, Dee lies on her bunk and gets up after hearing a splash outside. Dee looks out her cabin window at the shore, but she can't see the source of the splash.

That next morning, Dee enters the bar to mop when Brooke asks if she saw the missing Mr. Langston after room checks. However, Dee only saw him getting drinks at the bar. Brooke asks if anyone heard anything, and Dee remembers the splash that she had heard and defends not bringing it up because the swamp is always making all kinds of noises. Nolan agrees with Dee that it could've been anything and Dee suggests that they ask Billy who was serving Mr. Langston. Walking out on deck after Brooke talks to Billy, Dee gives him a suspicious look.

Dee demonstrates setting out silverware to Lydia who tells her mother that Brooke says that she needs another dress for a garden party. Neither Dee nor Lydia knows what that is, but Lydia starts going on about her love of fairies who live in gardens. Dee cuts her daughter off, asking Lydia believes in fairies before resuming her silverware lesson. Making sure that no one else is watching, Dee slips one of the knives into her pocket just in case something goes wrong and she needs a weapon. Dee suggests that a garden party sounds nice, but Lydia tells her mother that she can go while Lydia will stay. Dee warns Lydia that Lydia will die without her, but Lydia believes that Dee thinks that she'll die either way. Dee promises that she can save her daughter and she won't let it get her, but Lydia states that she has Brooke. Hurt and upset, Dee orders her daughter to finish without her and leaves.

As Dee composes herself, she notices a reflective light flashing against the wall next to her. Heading outside, Dee finds Billy who seems to drop something into the water as soon as he notices Dee's approach. Billy asks for Dee's help with the anchor, but she accuses him of dropping something in the water. Dee guesses that it was a mirror and asks what's out there before calling for Brooke. When Brooke arrives, Dee accuses Billy of signaling someone off-shore with a mirror that he dropped in the water when Dee caught him. Billy insists that Dee is lying with Nolan backing him up that there's no one out there as the swamp is filled with the dead. Dee asks where Erika is since she was supposed to be helping Billy. Erika calls out that she was putting the other net away and was with Billy up until two seconds ago and they were working. Dee points out that Billy was also the last person to see Mr. Langston too and suggests that Billy was responsible for the old man's disappearance. Brooke calls it a big accusation, but Dee reminds Brooke that Billy has only been there for three weeks, and they don't know him. Dee wants Brooke to get rid of Billy and, noticing the knife in Dee's pocket, Billy accuses Dee of wanting to kill him. Pulling out the knife in a non-threatening manner, Dee tries to defuse the escalating situation, but Billy jumps overboard.

As Nolan races to look for Billy, Brooke confronts Dee about threatening Billy with a knife. Dee insists that Billy read it wrong, but Brooke realizes that this is why Lydia is afraid of her own mother. Upset, Dee orders Brooke not to talk to her about her daughter. With Dee having just cost them a worker, Brooke orders her to cover Billy's shifts until she finds someone else. If Dee ever treats anyone like that again, she's gone. With the dead, the snakes and the gators, Brooke is sure that Billy will never make it out of this swamp. Having witnessed these events, Lydia runs away, chased by Dee.

In the future, Alpha tells her audience that she went mad in the Baltimore shelter, but that she tried to repent for her actions.

In the present, Dee knocks on the door of her cabin, calling out to her daughter and trying to get Lydia to talk to her. However, Dee finds the room empty, and Brooke tells her that Lydia needs some space. Dee demands to know where Lydia is, but Brooke wants to know "what sort of terrible thing would frighten a little girl so much that she hides from her own mother?" Dee tells Brooke that Lydia is hers and that everything that Dee does is to protect her child. Dee insists that she's the only one that can keep Lydia alive and make sure that she keeps herself alive. Dee again demands to know where her daughter is, but Brooke refuses to answer, instead asking to what kind of a life is Dee keeping Lydia alive. Drawing her knife, Dee threatens to kill Brooke if she doesn't tell her where to find her daughter.

Their argument is interrupted by screams from the deck which the two women rush to check out. Brooke and Dee find one of the guards dead with his gun gone and hear men rounding up the rest of the crew. Brooke realizes that one of the men is Billy and wants to go for the armory to try to save her people, but Dee is only interested in finding and escaping with Lydia. Brooke finally tells Dee that Lydia is in the dinghy and Dee rushes off to find her daughter while Brooke heads out in the other direction to try to save her people from Billy and his gang.

As Billy demands that Dee and Lydia surrender themselves, threatening to start killing hostages, Dee sneaks up and slits the throat of the man holding Brooke captive. Taking his gun, Dee shoots and kills another man that advances towards her, sparking a fight between the steamboat residents and Billy's gang. Taking advantage of the chaos, Dee pulls the rope to release the dinghy and jumps into the water after it. Boarding the boat and pulling up the tarp to reveal Lydia, Dee orders her daughter to listen to her and be quiet and lay down which the terrified Lydia agrees with. Dee tells her daughter that the people on the steamboat turned on them both and she is going to take them away from there to someplace safe. Dee rows them ashore as the gunfight on the boat continues and several people jump ship.

On shore, Dee and Lydia encounter a herd. Dee quickly puts down a few walkers, but her knife gets stuck in the head of the last one. Unable to free her weapon in time, Dee falls to the ground and ends up pinned beneath the walker's corpse as more walkers show up and start devouring the survivors of the steamboat around them. In a desperate move, Dee cuts open the body of the walker on top of her, covering herself in its blood and pulls Lydia under the corpse with her, smearing Lydia's face in walker blood as well. The camouflage works and conceals Dee and Lydia from the herd until they finish devouring the survivors and move on. As they hide, Dee reassures her daughter of her love for her and that they are safe now.

Once the herd passes, Dee cuts them out from under the walker's corpse and another corpse that had fallen on top of it and, having Lydia close her eyes so that she doesn't see the carnage around them, leads her daughter away. As they continue through the swamp, Dee spots a despondent but still alive Brooke nearby. Dee sits her daughter down, gives Lydia her bunny and covers her ears with a pair of earmuffs so that Lydia doesn't hear what happens next. Drawing her gun, Dee approaches the battered Brooke and accuses her of promising her daughter the world and then taking it all away. In turn, Brooke accuses Dee of being sick and being responsible for the fall of the steamboat, but Dee is unrepentant, having done what she had to do in order to save Lydia, what a real mother does. Brooke reveals that everyone else is dead, but Dee doesn't care as they would've killed Lydia too.

As Dee prepares to shoot Brooke, Lydia rushes between them and refuses to allow her mother to kill her friend. When Lydia won't relent, Dee shoves her daughter aside and takes aim again. However, Dee stops when she sees Lydia curled up into a ball nearby and singing "Lydia the Tattooed Lady," the comfort song that Frank would use on their daughter. Relenting, Dee tells her daughter that Lydia's right and she's not going to kill Brooke and gets her daughter to calm down. Dee replaces Lydia's earmuffs and puts the gun in the bag that she leaves with her daughter as proof that she's not going to kill Brooke. Walking up behind Brooke and shushing her, Dee states that Lydia was right: death is too forgiving for Brooke. Taking her knife, Dee slices open Brooke's left cheek from just below her left eye, through her lips and stopping at her chin. Covering Brooke's mouth to muffle her cries, Dee tells Brooke that this is Dee's mark and everywhere Brooke goes, Dee will be there to remind Brooke how she failed Lydia. Returning to her daughter, Dee walks away, leaving Brooke behind.

Continuing their walk through the swamp, Lydia wants to go back to the steamboat, but Dee reminds her that there is no boat anymore, it's just them now. Lydia knows that this is what Dee had wanted, for Brooke to be wrong and Dee tells her that Brooke was wrong, and she was teaching Lydia a lie and it is now time for Lydia to know the truth and Dee loves her daughter enough to show her. However, Lydia doesn't want to be with her mother, she wants to go to her birthday party. Dee begs her daughter to be strong, but Lydia tells her that Frank said that it's safer with people. Dee insists that Lydia has to learn to survive without people as people hurt each other, let each other down and are chaos. Lydia states that people aren't chaos, Dee is. Dee acknowledges that Lydia doesn't like her much right now, but she's all that Lydia's got, and Dee won't fail her daughter again. Lydia demands to know where her father is, and an emotional Dee tells Lydia that her father was weak, and Lydia can't be like him.

The two resume walking and eventually reach the Sunny Creek RV Park. After checking that one of the trailers is empty of the undead, Dee and Lydia enter, and Dee finds an energy bar for them to eat. Finding a tea set in another room, Dee suggests that they can have their own party, but finds Lydia outside. Lydia draws her mother's attention to what she thinks is people from the boat, but is in reality a small herd of three walkers. Dee calls her scared daughter behind her and Lydia tries to run into the RV, but Dee stops her. Taking advantage of the fact that she and Lydia are still camouflaged by the walker blood covering them, Dee slowly leads the herd backwards, announcing that it's time for her to show Lydia how to survive. Dee lures the walkers under the trailer's awning, but Lydia refuses to watch Dee and learn how to deal with them. With their shouting catching the herd's attention, Dee yanks the awning on top of them, but accidentally drops her knife in the process. Dee manages to retrieve her knife, lures the walkers to the other side of the awning and then stabs each of them in the head through the canvas, putting them all down. However, Lydia runs off into the trees, chased by her mother.

In a flashforward, Alpha tells her audience that "we're all we have. We do what we think is right. Even if it hurts the ones we love."

In the present, Dee desperately searches through the trees for Lydia, finally finding Lydia sitting by a creek. Terrified, Dee yells at her daughter to never run away from her again, but Lydia shushes her, telling her mother that the fairies are here, she heard the trees talking and they want to take her away. Lydia begs Dee to let her go and Dee embraces her daughter and tearfully apologizes for everything. Dee admits that she's been so selfish because Dee has been so scared of the thought of this world without her daughter in it that she never thought about Lydia in this world. Dee wonders what kind of a life this is, recognizing that this isn't any place for a child.

Taking out her knife, Dee has Lydia close her eyes and prepares to end Lydia's life and her own in an act of mercy so as to spare her daughter the horrors of this world. However, Dee hears whispers around her, reassuring her that they see her, and they are there. People wearing walker masks emerge from the trees and surround Dee and Lydia, whispering that they see them and are there to save them and order them to whisper. Dee demands to know who they are and what they want. The leader removes her walker mask and identifies herself as Hera. Telling Dee to whisper and not speak, she kicks Dee in the face, knocking her out.

In a flashforward, Alpha tells her audience that she was keeping herself from her nature but that was the end of Dee and the beginning of Alpha. Alpha's audience is Hera's removed face with Alpha saying that Hera showed her love. After killing Hera, Alpha has turned her face into her walker mask as part of her final transformation from Dee into Alpha, the ruthless leader of the Whisperers.

Other Cast[]

Co-Stars[]

• Marvin LaViolette as Todd
• Juan Carlos Flores as Mitch
• Anne Beyer as Hera
• Natalie Karp as Erika
• George Bryant as Mr. Langston
• Ari Loeb as Seventh Man
• Johnny Alexander as Tough Guy

Uncredited[]

• Unknown as Louise
• Lucy Huynh as Steamboat Resident
• Bethany Kasulas as Whisperer

Deaths[]

• Dee's Father (Confirmed Fate, Pre-Apocalypse)
• Mr. Langston (Off-Screen)
• Seventh Man
• Tough Guy
• Billy (Off-Screen)
• Nolan (Off-Screen)
• Jenna (Off-Screen)
• Todd (Off-Screen)
• Mitch (Off-Screen)
• Erika (Off-Screen)
• Louise (Off-Screen)
• Margot (Off-Screen)
• Hera (Off-Screen)
• At least 30 unnamed steamboat residents
• 5 unnamed members of Billy's gang (Off-Screen)

Trivia[]

• Only appearance of Brooke.
• Only appearance of Nolan.
• Only appearance of Lydia. (Chronologically)
• Only appearance of Dee. (Chronologically)
• Only appearance of Jenna.
• Only appearance of Billy.
• Only appearance of Mr. Langston.
• Only appearance of Todd.
• Only appearance of Mitch.
• Only appearance of Erika.
• Only appearance of Louise. (Voice Only)
• Only appearance of Hera.
• Only appearance of the Whisperers. (Chronologically)
• This episode was made available for streaming to subscribers of AMC Premiere on August 21, 2022.
• This episode was originally the season finale, however it was rearranged for unknown reasons.^[1][2]
• This is the second Tales episode to feature a reference or direct appearance of an entity from another TV universe medium.
  • In this case, it is the direct appearance of Dee, Lydia, and the Whisperers, as well as mention of Frank and the Baltimore shelter from the TV Series.
• One of the extras portraying a steamboat resident also portrayed a Scavenger in the TV Series. This is the result of the main show and Tales of the Walking Dead both being filmed in Georgia.
• The steamboat used in this episode is the same steamboat featured in Ozark as the casino riverboat.
• This episode is framed as a story being told by Dee to Hera after Dee kills her.
• Dee and Lydia use a variant of the walker guts trick, something that they were also seen using in "We Are the End of the World".
  • Dee puts a pair of earmuffs on Lydia before going to confront Brooke. In "We Are the End of the World", Lydia is wearing the earmuffs while walking with the herd.
• The Whisperers are revealed to not have been formed by Dee as was previously believed but actually by a woman named Hera who Dee later murdered and took the place of. It is Hera's face that acted as Dee's walker mask throughout the TV Series.
  • Chronologically, the flashbacks in "We Are the End of the World" occur a year after Dee meets Hera but before she takes control of the Whisperers, as she has not yet met Beta before this episode but she is not yet in control of the Whisperers when she does encounter him. Presumably, Hera's murder occurs after the events of "We Are the End of the World" with Dee possibly being prompted to take over the group by her meeting with Beta.
• Lydia is nine, turning ten in this episode. Given the fact that she is six during the flashbacks in "Omega", it is around the third year of the apocalypse.^[3]
  • This means this episode likely takes place between Season 8 and Season 9 of the TV Series.
• Showrunner Channing Powell revealed that she has plans for Dee and Brooke and would like to revisit these characters in a possible future season of Tales of the Walking Dead.^[4]
• Bethany Kasulas, a recurring Whisperer extra who appeared in Seasons 9, 10, and 11 of The Walking Dead reprised her character's role for this episode.^[5]

Episode Highlights[]

TBA

References[]