Neil Brazier | On 02, Nov 2022

Season 11, Part 3 will premiere with episodes arriving weekly on Mondays. Read our other Season 11 reviews here.

Something has happened in The Walking Dead that maybe was blatantly obvious when you start to dissect the situation, but otherwise feels like a surprise. The Commonwealth, seen as a place of sanctuary and safety, has suddenly become the villain. There were hints that this utopia wasn’t all it seemed to be, but that was put down to Pamela Milton (Laila Robbins) and Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) being nefarious, seedy and underhanded characters. Outpost 22 changes the dynamic completely and the Commonwealth have suddenly become the Saviours (but with more guns and less face-frying).

Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) sums up these closing episodes nicely: “The end of each story is very important. People remember the last thing you do.” This is why it is so important for The Walking Dead to get the ending right. Spin-offs aside, this is the main series that started it all – it must end in the right way, otherwise none of it would have been worth it. Outpost 22 unfortunately is tracing lines that have already been written while sewing the spin-off seeds.

The Commonwealth, bright and shiny on the outside, always had a curious middle with the residents forced to work the same jobs they had before the apocalypse and an obvious class divide. But all have allowed that to pass for the safety they were afforded. Outpost 22 suggests that all of this was a lie, and that the situation is much more authoritarian. Follow the rules, don’t upset the cart, otherwise you might find yourself with a bag over your head, being shipped out to a forced labour camp under guard of the Commonwealth army.

If the army work for Pamela and are at her beck and call, does this suggest that Mercer (Michael James Shaw), the supposed leader of the army, knows that he is not in charge of his troops? It was only in Episode 13 (Warlords) that Hornsby felt unable to borrow too many troops for his little side missions without it attracting attention and yet swathes of troops are being used to try and reintegrate lost souls back into society by forcing them to shift logs and rocks. Speak up, call somebody by name or try to leave and you’re shot.

This issue has plagued The Walking Dead; we’ve seen our survivors against big bad wolves over and over again. Negan’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) redemption arc provided something a little different, having a bad guy on their side for a change. It is fun to watch in this episode the Commonwealth trying to out-Negan the man himself. He’s done all this before and you can tell he thinks their antics are very substandard. But unless what the Commonwealth is doing at these outposts has some surprises to reveal, the finale is going to have a very familiar feel about it.

This labour camp isn’t the only new destination in the episode; there is also the titular Outpost 22. This is where a train is heading and Connie (Lauren Ridloff) has somehow found herself captured and placed on board. Both Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) have been following the train but cannot stage a rescue attempt without the Commonwealth using their radios to alert everyone else – until, of course, they do. The great train robbery does end with an exciting motorbike chase sequence, the finale of which is something we have never seen before – refreshingly needed considering the rest of the episode.

Our survivors believe that the train’s final destination will lead them to their lost family and, in many ways, it might. Outpost 22 turns out to be a place that both we and our survivors are very familiar with, which begs the question – had they never heard a train running before or, as they were following the tracks, did the location not seem a little familiar? The episode again finds itself suffering from more handy coincidence scenarios: Maggie (Lauren Ridloff) needs a weapon and look, there is a knife in the mud; she struggles with a zombie and out pop Carol and Daryl to save the day.

The characters are not to blame for this. Maggie, attacked by a child walker, struggles to kill it having just had her own child ripped from her arms. Ezekiel (Khary Payton) accepts Negan’s proposal for escape despite the pain it causes him to have to deal with the man who threatened his people with a barbed-wire baseball bat. The fact these two haven’t interacted since the Saviours “protected” the Kingdom adds to the emotion scarring Ezekiel’s face at having to work together with someone he despises so much.

One solace we could take from the episode is that both a captured trooper and train driver seem so afraid to reveal evidence or information about what they’re doing, that the power and fear that Pamela Milton invokes is one we have never seen before. But it would need to be something extraordinary to surprise us now. Should things continue down the path far more well-trodden, it is a shame that the Commonwealth could face a familiar ending.

Our survivors are so segmented now across the region it seems impossible, without some very fortuitous circumstances, that they will all be able to convene in one place and save the day; but we’ve been wrong before and showrunner Angela Kang isn’t afraid to make bold moves when required… with only three episodes remaining.

 

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