With The Walking Dead: Dead City making its bloody premiere, fans might be wondering: who is Zeljko Ivanek’s character, The Croat?
The Walking Dead universe has come a long way since its comic book days, having spawned an 11-season zombie series of the same name, as well as numerous spin-off shows including Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, and Tales of the Walking Dead.
And now AMC has introduced its latest spin-off in the form of The Walking Dead: Dead City, which follows “the popular Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) characters traveling into a post-apocalyptic Manhattan, long ago cut off from the mainland. The crumbling city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world.”
There’s anarchy, danger, and terror around every corner, with The Croat fitting nicely into all of these descriptions. So, who is Zeljko Ivanek’s character and how does he tie into Episode 1 of Dead city? Warning: Spoilers ahead!
Who is Zeljko Ivanek’s The Croat in The Walking Dead: Dead City?
The Croat, played to perfection by Zeljko Ivanek, emerged as the show’s main antagonist in Episode 1 of The Walking Dead: Dead City. He’s the leader of a currently unnamed group of survivors of the outbreak, and he used to be a part of The Saviors when Negan was running the show.
Ivanek has appeared in numerous major movies over the years, including Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Seven Psychopaths, Argo, and Hannibal.
The Croat’s name first crops up when Maggie hunts down Negan, who’s a wanted man by the New Babylon marshals. When Maggie finds him, he’s residing with a girl named Ginny, who he’s become somewhat of a father figure to. We soon discover that Ginny hasn’t spoken since the death of her father.
Maggie explains that she’s on the hunt for a man called The Croat after he and his followers raided her community before kidnapping her son Hershel (Logan Kim) as collateral and taking him to a post-apocalyptic Manhattan.
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Negan describes him as an “an exceptionally insane son of a b**ch.” Although he’s initially apprehensive about helping Maggie to find The Croat and his crew, he eventually agrees after she promises to take Ginny into the new Hilltop – and potentially Negan too if he plays his cards right.
Later on in the episode, we see The Croat in front of a terrified Hershel tied up in a chair, threatening to torture him if he doesn’t give information on his father’s killer, aka Negan. “What do you know about him?” asks The Croat, but Hershel defiantly tells him: “You can keep sitting in the dark trying to freak me out but I’m not saying sh*t.”
We learn that Hershel isn’t the only person The Croat and his cronies are torturing for information – in short, he’s a nasty villain, one whose group appears to be using the same tactics as The Saviors when they were under Negan’s rule. They even use the same chilling whistle as he did.
Not much else is known about The Croat’s collective, although the credits give us a clue, as one member is described as a “Buraz underling”. This is the Croatian term for brother, while The Croat is likely a nickname for The Croatian, meaning their group could very well be called “Buraz”.
We’ll have to wait and see where the story takes us, but for now it’s clear that The Croat is set to have a huge impact on Negan and Maggie’s journey moving forward as they fight to save Hershel.
The Walking Dead: Dead City Episode 1 is available to stream on AMC+ now, with Episode 2 airing on AMC on June 25. You can check out our other TV and Movie hubs below:
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