The Walking Dead – Outpost 22

By starrymag | November 5, 2022

By: Kelly Kearney

 

 

After Daryl and Carol kill Lance they follow the train tracks to a very shocking surprise that leaves them with a difficult choice to make.  Elsewhere, the battle -wary Maggie, Gabriel and Rosita are captured by Pamela’s troopers while Ezekiel, Princess, Kelly and Negan were sent to a Commonwealth work camp. “Outpost 22” also hints around where these trains are heading and why Pamela Milton is sending the undesirable community members there. Like a lot of Season 11, the episode asks more questions than it answers, but if you are familiar with The Walking Dead universe, then you can’t help but wonder if this all leads us to the Civic Republic Military and the discovery of a very alive Rick Grimes. With only a few episodes left, and more character loose ends to tie up than we have minutes left of airtime, it seems our protagonists are racing towards the finish line while ticking off the story boxes as they go. It’s an action-packed hour but is keeping the core group separated what the fans want? Probably not but there is still hope for an ultimate reunion and a few character resolutions before the final credits roll and we launch into spin-off land. So, let’s take a look at where our favorites are after last week…

 

TUCK AND ROLL!

 

We open on Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Rosita (Christian Serratos) trying to save themselves from the Commonwealth’s troopers. They have hoods over their heads and woke up bound in a truck heading to parts unknown. Incompetence abounds when one of the troopers assigned to guard the three dazed prisoners dozes off and gives Maggie the perfect opportunity to break her binds and free her friends. After a few touch and go moments that include her wrestling with the sleepy trooper and accidentally shooting the driver of the truck, the three friends manage to jump from the speeding vehicle before it crashes and kills their captors. Having exited the runaway truck at different times means the three escapees tucked and rolled in different directions – with Maggie on her own and the two former flames – turned friends trying to avoid getting eaten by the turned troopers. They easily kill the walkers and for their efforts, pick up his radio so they can listen in on their  communications and possibly hear the details about Coco and their friends. Both Maggie and Rosita have been tormented by the fact their children are missing and, while Gabe tries to talk some sense into his injured ex who wants to run straight into an army with nothing but her maternal rage, Maggie is dealing with her turmoil in other ways

We cut away to Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and Kelly (Angel Theory) who were drugged and loaded onto a bus to what seems like a Commonwealth work camp. Ezekiel is the first to come to but when the rest of his friends wake up it starts to sink in that not everyone who was taken is with them. Where is Maggie and the others? Negan and Annie (Medina Senghore) think they heard a crash during the trip and hope that means Maggie and the others escaped. They don’t get much time to ponder the possibilities when the dictator-like Warden (Michael Weaver) boards the bus to inform them of their fate, which includes stripping them of their identities and working to clear the train tracks of debris. It’s a sentence of hard labor but he sells it as building the future of the Commonwealth. And that’s not all, after he goes over the rules of the camp he picks out a few random people to be transported elsewhere, and one of them is Annie. Taking Negan’s pregnant wife from him after what he endured with Lucille means this Warden probably signed his death warrant but the angry husband manages to put a lid on his anger and tells his wife he will find a way to save them.

 

FOLLOW THAT TRAIN!

 

Back to Rosita who is so desperate to find her daughter she’s ready to run into a losing battle without a solid plan. She’s thinking with her heart, not her head, and Gabriel calls her out on it. That’s when two walkers attack out of nowhere and one dislocates Rosita’s arm. Thankfully, Gabe is with her and pops her shoulder back into place, but she needs to calm down before she winds up dead and leaves Coco motherless. Her raging roll is only slowed for a second before she hears chatter on the radio and the sounds of a train. Knowing that must be where they took Coco, Rosita and Gabe head in that direction.

Thanks to the information they got from a very dead Lance Hornsby, it just so happens to be a train station which Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) are staking out for clues on their kids, R.J. and Judith. When a new train arrives with an army of vehicles, they see Connie (Lauren Ridloff)! Carol clicks on the radio to listen in and they hear that Pamela’s least favorite reporter is heading to Designation 2. “What’s Designation 2?” Carol asks? Well, it’s not the same place they’re taking the kids, and that means Daryl cannot be a hero in two places at once. If they rescue the kids, they might never find out where the other train is taking Connie, and there is no way Daryl is risking the Grimes kids’ lives. He is torn and they’re at an impasse on what to do next but Carol thinks they should stick to the original plan and follow the trains to their final stop. Having spent this entire season cranky over what we can only assume are a combination of parenting woes, crazy exes and the two other women in Daryl’s life he seems to be juggling at the moment, he is not a fan of waiting and is ready to dive into rescue mode without a plan. That vibe is contagious in this episode, so Carol, like Gabe did with Rosita, takes his hand and reminds him of the cave-in. Kelly said they couldn’t save Connie if they were all dead, and If he flies off the handle without a plan, then how is that different than what she did with Alpha? He listens to her because he always listens to Carol, but some part of him must know this lone wolf behavior he criticized her for never ends well. He agrees to their original plan but poor Connie will have to wait for now. Wiith that settled, the two hop into a stolen Commonwealth Jeep and race away from the train to try and get ahead of it further down the tracks. If they can do that, Carol thinks they can lie in wait and plan an ambush.

 

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE

 

We catch up with Maggie walking along the train tracks when she hears a motorcycle approaching. She hides in a ditch and listens to a Commonwealth soldier (Greg Perrow) radio back to base that the coast is clear; they must have lost the truck escapees. That’s when a walker-boy staggers out of the woods and catches the soldier’s attention. Maggie gets the jump on the trooper when his back is turned, stabbing him and then grabbinh his gun and knocking him out.  The commotion doesn’t deter the dead boy walking towards her, and the sight of this child unleashes the memories of Herschel being ripped away from her by Pamela’s men. The walker boy represents the fear she’s feelng over what might’ve happened to her son and because of that she doesn’t want to put this boy down. In fact, she goes out of her way to avoid the inevitable until she has no other choice but to deal with the pint-sized zombie following her like a little lost lamb. Knowing this thing was once someone’s son means she does want any parent would do – she holds him tight for the final moments of his undead life. She wails in the sounds of grief that only a mother would know and as she puts the boy down and rocks him goodbye Daryl and Carol pull up to a very familiar and still heartbreaking scene. Their friend is devastated, and Carol knows better than anyone what it feels like to lose a child and then be forced to kill someone else’s. Maggie admits she feels guilty for bringing Herschel into a world that could take him so young like that little boy. She feels lost and alone and Carol gets it, she is also filled with regrets. She lets her in on a little observation about how the Commonwealth pretends it’s like the old world-the one before the Fall, and a place where she and Daryl would’ve never known each other. The Fall broke that world, and together, the family they created in Atlanta built a new and better one together. Carol shares the guilt she feels over that place allowing her to slip into old patterns and live her life separately from Daryl, knowing how easily it is to lose the people you love. The Commonwealth is a mirage of before but it isn’t real; what’s real is family and she and Daryl and Maggie built after it. “We’re not alone anymore,” she says, as she holds back tears, and they are going to make things right. This is when Gabriel and Rosita show up and everyone is relieved to see them. They have a mini reunion while Daryl drags the stabbed soldier into a barn and orders him to tell him where his kids are. When he refuses, Daryl threatens to torture the truth out of him until Gabriel recognizes the guy from church. He puts on his collar and plays priest, hoping to give the dying man his last rights and maybe convince him to do one good deed before he dies. If we are remembered for the last things we do, then the last thing he should do is tell them where their children are. Eventually, he says their friends have been sent to a labor camp and to find them all they need to do is follow the trains. As for Connie, he has no idea what Designation 2 means and that’s s all they get out of him before he dies.

 

THERE ARE NO GOOD CHOICES

 

The group gathers to discuss their next move. They need to save their kids and friends but in doing so, they risk losing Connie. If they save Connie first, then the kids and their friends could be gone forever-not to mention the fact that any soldiers left alive will surely radio back to the Commonwealth. There is no good option here, or is there? Carol says she thinks there could be a way to do both without losing any of them.

Further down at the labor camp we find that Kelly is keeping track of the prison guards. She only counts three on duty and signals to Ezekiel that they should try to take them on. Luckily he stops her before the guards can shoot her, as they watch a few other prisoners with the same idea get gunned down before they even run 50 feet from the tracks. They are stuck and escaping seems impossible.

Back to our group at the junction, they watch as the train pulls up and is forced to stop so the troops can manually change the track’s directions. Too bad for them that Carol’s plan was to jam the lever – forcing the men to disembark and help get it unstuck. The train conductor (Bryan McClure) tries to radio the problem back to Outpost 22 but he can’t get the message through. As the soldiers are distracted, Maggie goes to the front of the train and ties up the conductor while Daryl and Carol sneak around the cars looking for Connie. Walkers start meandering down the tracks which adds to the distraction, giving everyone ample time to get locked and loaded for a fight. One breaks out after Daryl is forced to open fire, and Carol, like a female Rambo, covers him with gunfire like a dream-team battle right up until Daryl walks into a trap. A trooper with a gun to Connie’s head tells him to drop his weapon, but he barely gets the chance to before Connie disarms him with an elbow to the stomach. Daryl makes sure she is ok but leaves her to Carol as the soldier who held her captive gets away on a motorcycle. Bad choice because we all know Dixon on a bike can’t be beat! Stealing one of the other bikes from the train he zips after him through the woods shooting his gun the entire way. He manages to knock the soldier down after he slides his own bike into him and then takes out his knife and kills the man without a second thought.

Meanwhile, Maggie and Carol take the tied up conductor to the same barn Gabe’s parishioner died in. The frightened man says his family lives nearby and if The Commonwealth finds out he gave them any information, he is as good as dead. Rosita pleads with him over the lives of their children and he eventually buckles to the pressure. He tells them there is a map they can follow in the engine room.

When Daryl returns from his thrill-kill adventure he is all smiles for his reunion with Connie. Their moment is short-lived when the conductor manages to get a knife and winds up killing himself (to avoid being tortured by The Commonwealth for information about his captors) before his fellow troopers can get to him. Now all they have is a map and possibly a coup taking place at the work camp that could help them out later on. When we do see the new laborers, Negan approaches Ezekiel about teaming up for a revolt but the King has not forgotten how Negan hurt his family and ambushed his people. He isn’t interested in teaming up with him and turns him down. Later,when Negan says he is the hope these prisoners need to find the strength to overcome, he isn’t not interested. Sure, he is salty about working with the former Savior who burned down his KIngdom but what do they have to lose…other than their lives?

Back at the barn is where Connie admits she is worried about Kelly so Rosita turns on the radio to see if she can dupe Outpost 22 into giving up their location. It works, but where they are heading they don’t need directions. The other person on the radio laughs about Outpost 22 being the former home of the newly exiled prisoners. What? It can’t be!

When the bus full of tired laborers pulls up to the gates of their new home, Ezekiel, Kelly and Negan can’t hardly believe their eyes. Welcome to Outpost 22 – a/k/a the former Alexandria Safe Zone! They finally made it home, but home isn’t home anymore!