The Walking Dead: Outpost 22 (11x21)

We are so close to the end! This was a pretty good outing.

Cons:

It's difficult for me to feel invested in Negan, even now. He's separated from his pregnant wife, and I think I'm meant to care and be concerned, but she's such a non-character, we've had no time to get to know her, and I can't bring myself to care just on Negan's behalf, you know?

The twist about Outpost 22 being... Alexandria?? Really confused and annoyed me. It emphasized the extent to which this show has lost all control of its timeline and geographical awareness. I knew that Alexandria had been taken over by the Commonwealth, but that was through Hornsby, who was on Pamela's bad side, to say the least, and is now dead... so who is running the former Alexandria (and Hilltop? Question mark? Now?) How long has it been? I thought there were still some of our heroes/good guys in those old communities, or did they really clear them entirely out? Man, I don't know, and I don't really care.

It just feels like another retread, instead of a propulsion into something new, the way I was hoping for. I wanted the Outpost or the work camps or whatever, to be giving us new insights into the larger world. I thought we'd be connecting the Commonwealth to how other parts of the world have been surviving. I thought this would be more of a direct line back to Rick, is what I'm saying. There's so little time left!

Pros:

I liked our smaller groupings this week, getting to see Rosita and Gabriel have some quality time trying to get back to their kid, watching Daryl and Carol meet up with Maggie... it's fun to see so many of the longest-lasting most beloved characters grouped together for a final stand. And they're all such bad-asses. You really get the sense from them all that they've worked together for a long time, and that they really know what they're doing. It's enormously satisfying and sometimes chilling to see them kicking ass, threatening their enemies, getting the answers they need.

I like Connie and Daryl, I'm not going to lie. From a shipping perspective I'm definitely on board the Carol/Daryl train, but it was sweet to see Daryl so worried about Connie, and I'm glad he was able to rescue her! Or rather that Daryl was able to help her in rescuing herself.

Rosita and Gabriel have never done much for me as a couple but I like the way they bolstered each other in this episode. Rosita is the more obviously hardened bad-ass, but Gabriel offers important assistance, and talks Rosita around when she's too busy punishing herself to be practical about their next logical move. And that goes for the other various combinations of characters, too. Daryl and Carol steady each other. Carol is able to offer Maggie solace as she grieves for her missing son.

As much as Negan doesn't interest me, I did like the stuff with him and Ezekiel and the others, working to clear the train tracks. They're basically in a labor camp, and while Kelly wants to make a run for it, Ezekiel knows that's a suicidal idea. But Negan wants to work together with Ezekiel to get them free. I like that Negan acknowledges that he deserves a lot worse than his current lot in life, but that Ezekiel and the others do not. Ezekiel is the one who stands for hope. He did it with the Kingdom, and he can do it again, with Negan's help. Honestly, this is the most I've been interested in Ezekiel in a long time, so hopefully they can stick the landing there and do something cool with him and Negan in the final few episodes.

I had a fun time with the journey of this episode, but as I mentioned above, I'm a little more skeptical about the destination. Maggie has this whole grand speech about how they're going to take back their home, and Pamela will never see it coming, and I'm just not convinced that they'd actually be able to pull that off. I mean, it's a TV show, so they probably will, but it seems pretty contrived to me. Oh well. Here's to a solid final three episodes and a goodbye to this eleven-season television program that will allow me to look back on my time with it fondly...

8/10