The fight to reunite the scattered survivors of Pamela Milton’s purge of “the enemy within”, and preparations for a final confrontation with The Commonwealth, both gather pace in the tense events of Outpost 22.
With all of the action taking place outside the confines of the Milton enclave, this is an episode that brings back into focus key relationships between the disparate members of Maggie’s and Daryl’s group. There are some high-stakes action sequences too, built around the ambush of a diesel train that the Milton regime plans to use as the engine for colonial conquest.
Ahead of the final reckoning with The Commonwealth, The Walking Dead‘s showrunners are keen to remind viewers that the fates of the show’s heroes is something that they are invested in. That means resurfacing their fallibilities as well as their formidable fighting talents.
When Maggie comes across a lone walker, a young boy cruelly deprived of life, it is an unexpectedly powerful encounter that pierces her emotional armour, stirring up her anguish at having her son Hershel taken from her. But it also serves as a potent symbolic reminder (as the series’ endgame approaches) of the indiscriminate savagery of the pandemic.
Also lost in the woods, Rosita and Gabriel squabble about the right course of action as only a couple under intense strain can, while Daryl and Carol again share that sense of resolution and commitment that has come to define their relationship.
As those of the group still at liberty try to gather their forces, those in The Commonwealth’s work camp are put through the emotional and physical wringer. As friends and partners are segregated and relocated, Negan is separated from his wife Annie, a torment he finds almost intolerable. Yet he knows he must bide his time before he’s able to honour his promise to her that they will be reunited. Ezekiel also understands the need to hold back any bid for freedom until the odds shift back in the group’s favour, something an emotionally-broken Kelly struggles to accept.
Director Tawnia McKiernan builds the tension surrounding characters lost in the walker-strewn woodlands, and allows space for those moments of introspective reflection to play out. That adds to the impact of the explosive action sequences that follow. The group’s attack on a well-defended Commonwealth train plays out like the takedown in a classic western, and there’s a short but visceral motorcycle chase thrown into the mix. There’s pain and pathos too in the fate of two doomed Milton underlings, as Jim Barnes’ script brings out the conflicted human motivations of those who are “just obeying orders” in the hope of survival.
The subterfuge that the group deploys to discover the location of “Outpost 22” ends in a surprise revelation that sharpens their determination to settle accounts with Milton. The last words are Maggie’s, a stirring call to arms that heralds the coming, decisive battle that now feels imminent.
New episodes of THE WALKING DEAD – SEASON 11 premiere Mondays in the UK on DISNEY+/STAR
Read our previous reviews of THE WALKING DEAD below:
Season 11, Episode 17, LOCKDOWN
Season 11, Episode 18, A NEW DEAL
