Walking Dead Recap: Outpost 22 Season 11, Episode 21

Well, it’s taken some time, however The Walking Dead appears to be getting on monitor. In tonight’s episode, it choo-choo-chooses to collect its characters (properly, most of them) for a single, coherent plotline that may lead on to the ultimate battle with the Commonwealth. One might even say the present is operating at full steam towards the tip. Did I point out a prepare was on this episode?

All that positivity apart, for those who have a look at the person scenes of “Outpost 22,” it’s sort of a multitude. There’s quite a lot of useless weight (not a zombie pun, imagine it or not), and little or no of the episode has these aforementioned stakes throughout its runtime. After everybody was captured and shipped out of the Commonwealth final week, Maggie, Rosita, and Gabriel—who’re helpfully separated from everybody on the bus and guarded solely by a sleeping Commontrooper—simply handle to flee. They get separated, however that’s high quality, as a result of they shortly run again into one another with none significant incident. And Carol and Daryl present up, too!

Everyone remaining on the convey is taken to both a jail camp, akin to Ezekiel, Carrie, and Negan, or the titular and mysterious Outpost 22. The jail camp scenes are there primarily as filler; the “exiles” are informed they’ll’t use names, some random characters we’ve by no means seen attempt to escape and get shot, gruel is served. But there’s one exception right here, and it’s when Negan sits down subsequent to Ezekiel, and so they have a chat.

It appears completely unimaginable to me that the 2 characters have by no means shared a scene collectively, at the very least since Negan was imprisoned, however that’s the way it’s performed—and for the lifetime of me, I can’t bear in mind any others. At any fee, it seems Ezekiel has purposefully averted Negan in fiction and on the present as a result of he’s nonetheless utterly livid at all the pieces he did to the Kingdom and its individuals. But Negan is so determined to flee and rescue his spouse Annie, he asks Ezekiel to guide a “hope”-inspired mass rebellion of the prisoners, one thing he can’t do. Negan can, nevertheless, be the “spark” that ignites that hope, which is able to seemingly find yourself with him being savagely overwhelmed. It ought to go with out saying that is saved for a later episode.

Meanwhile, Daryl, Carol, Maggie, Rosita, and Gabriel comply with the prepare, uncover Connie’s been placed on it, and comply with it some extra. It takes a while, nevertheless it poses an attention-grabbing dilemma: If they rescue Connie, the Commontroopers on board will radio forward to Outpost 22, whose troopers may harm the kids and anybody else who’s been despatched there. It’s a quandary, one which they clear up by simply… attacking the prepare and rescuing her anyway. It’s stealthy at first after which turns into a significant gunfight, however fortunately, uh, not one of the guards ever assume to radio in. One of the Commontroopers even will get away on a motorcycle which, I shit you not, he crashes right into a tree off-screen, permitting Daryl to do a sick slide beneath a half-fallen tree and into the dude’s legs. 

So, yeah, regardless of The Walking Dead’s insistence on the contrary, the entire prepare/Connie scenario isn’t an precise dilemma, and we all know this as a result of that night, Rosita radios into Outpost 22 to ask for instructions by saying she’s a Commonwealth trooper who was on the prepare when it was attacked. I think about all of the guards there’ll helpfully overlook to do something in retaliation. There, by the best way, is the Commonwealth-conquered Alexandria, that means when the 5 assault, they’re going to have home-field benefit. And as soon as their individuals are free, they’re going to take the combat proper to Pamela.

For a season that has so severely separated its characters, and for a glut of episodes the place everybody gave the impression to be working at cross-purposes, giving 5 core characters a really clear set of stakes—return to Alexandria, save their individuals, then fuck Pam’s shit up—is fairly satisfying, even when we’ll have to attend till the ultimate three episodes for all of it to happen. But “Outpost 22” had different charms! Maggie’s freak-out when being compelled to kill the little boy zombie, Gabriel praying with the dying Commontrooper as an alternative of brutally ending the job himself, the Negan-Ezekiel scene—there have been good moments in there amidst the plethora of busy work. 

Maybe that’s all we’re going to get for the remaining three episodes: a transparent battle, just a few good moments, and a few extra busy work. It’s a disgrace for a collection that was greater than skilled soccer, nevertheless it’s hardly stunning at this. “The end of each story is important,” Carol tells Maggie at one level. She’s proper, after all. But clearly “important” doesn’t essentially imply “exciting.”

Assorted Musings:

• Seriously, I used to be shocked when Gabriel didn’t homicide that man who requested him to wish with him. This form of sums up most of my issues with The Walking Dead through the years, I believe.
• Why did the Commontroopers put baggage over everybody’s heads when 1) they had been already drugged and a pair of) might pull them off themselves the minute they regained consciousness? 
• Whoever was accountable for making it appear like Maggie stabbed that child within the head blew it. It’s so clearly beneath his neck.
• Between the motorbike and the jeep from the opposite week, Commontroopers can drive about in addition to Stormtroopers can shoot.

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