The Walking Dead is very much in its endgame. With only three episodes to go, the battle against the oppressive Commonwealth is in high gear and our group has a lot of fighting to do, especially after the shock reveal in the latest episode: Outpost 22 is, in fact, Alexandria.
The reveal of Outpost 22 being Alexandria means that, in order to get the kidnapped children back, our group needs to invade their former home. Upon learning this, in the final moments of the episode, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) made her purpose plain: “We are gonna get our kids, take back our home, and make it right.” It was very much reminiscent of Rick’s iconic “they’re screwing with the wrong people” line.
“They’re going to go with weapons and guns blazing, and all their smarts, and all of their power and intent, and they’re going to try to solve this problem,” showrunner Angela Kang told Entertainment Weekly. “But of course, it’s The Walking Dead, so things are not going to be so easy. There is going to be some stuff that they have to overcome in the next episode, and things get pretty intense.”
The Walking Dead: Outpost 22 is Alexandria
So what actually is Outpost 22 and what goes on in there? “It’s a military outpost, but I think they’ve also sent some of our folks who were causing trouble in the Commonwealth there,” Kang added. “They’re like, ‘Well, we don’t want that to be in our walls,’ so it’s kind of a prison colony right now.”
As it happens, Outpost 22 wasn’t always going to be Alexandria. “It went through a few iterations,” Kang said. Ultimately, making it a community we know so well was too tempting an option:
"I think we had liked the idea of what would happen if one of our communities, the next time you saw it, had been transformed into something totally different?” she said. “And if the community sort of represented freedom to our heroes, then what if you just flipped that upside down?"
At one point, the writers considering making Hilltop Outpost 22. “It morphed probably a half a dozen times, if not more, throughout the season.” Making it a place that already exists in the show also helped bring the budget down.
The Walking Dead continues Sundays on AMC. Catch the series finale on November 20.
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