The Walking Dead showrunner explains what happens at Outpost 22

Sunday's episode of The Walking Dead was titled "Outpost 22." Which turned out to be appropriate when the episode ended… at Outpost 22! But what exactly goes on at Outpost 22? And how many times can one writer repeat the words "Outpost 22" in a single paragraph?

Well, we got a few answers (to that first question, at least) thanks to the final scene which showed a busload filled with Commonwealth prisoners like Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Ezekiel (Khary Payton), and Kelly (Angel Theory) arriving at the Outpost while a radio dispatcher (in a secret celebrity cameo) explained that Outpost 22 was actually the heroes' old home of Alexandria, now taken over and controlled by the Commonwealth (not to mention a very familiar voice).

But what happens at Outpost 22, and what is the purpose of the now occupied facility? We went to showrunner Angela Kang, who provided intel on that and other burning questions from the latest episode, while also sharing some teases as to what's coming next.

Jace Downs/AMC Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Khary Payton on 'The Walking Dead'

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Where did the idea come from to have Alexandria serve as Outpost 22?

ANGELA KANG: It went through a few iterations, so 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? And if the community sort of represented freedom to our heroes, then what if you just flipped that upside down?

So, that was an idea that we had like all the way back in probably January of 2020. Then it morphed along the way, and it wasn't going to be that, and for a while it was going to be the Hilltop, and for a while it was going to be nothing at all. And then we came back around to it, because it still makes for an interesting reveal.

It also helped us budgetarily to use one of our sets. [Laughs] But it did originally come from a conversation we had really, really, really early on when we were just talking about general ideas for the season. And then it somehow developed into it, but in a very different version from what we had started with. It morphed probably a half a dozen times, if not more, throughout the season.

I know it's a processing center, but what exactly happens at Outpost 22?

I think Outpost 22 is mainly where they keep a bunch of soldiers who are like Hornsby's side soldiers, right? Or Pamela's side soldiers. These aren't the people that Mercer is working with day to day. They are out there because, in some ways, I think Commonwealth practice is a form of manifest destiny, where they're just like, "Let us spread out and take more things."

So they create these outposts that are very secret to give them a foothold to figure out more stuff for themselves. And it's sort of a twist on Hornsby's genuine idea of imagine a future where everything is connected, and you can just travel back and forth like we used to in the old world. That's the most positive version of this vision, but it's a little dystopic, because clearly they took it by force from our people. So it's a military outpost, but I think they've also sent some of our folks who were causing trouble in the Commonwealth there. They're like, "Well, we don't want that to be in our walls," so it's kind of a prison colony right now.

The Commonwealth is clearly a massive operation and now we're seeing all these outposts and labor camps. It seems almost impossible the CRM would not be aware of them at all. Are there any connections to the CRM we are going to see in these last few episodes?

I can't get into the CRM. Information about the CRM is in [Walking Dead chief content officer Scott M. Gimple's] camp. I will say that it did not not come up in conversation, though. We did talk about the fact that once you start getting into certain parts of the country, with the CRM — they have helicopters. The CRM is mysterious in their ways, so we don't know why they choose to involve themselves in certain things and why they choose not to involve themselves in certain things. But they are aware there are groups out there.

Jace Downs/AMC Lauren Cohan on 'The Walking Dead'

I was thinking about this, and there is history on this show of parents not being able to kill their zombified children, which brings us to Maggie [Lauren Cohan] having flashbacks of Hershel being taken from her as she sees this zombie boy coming towards her and she picks up a rock and can't bring herself to kill him, and then later holds him for a while before saying she's sorry and finally finishing him off. What's going on there?

I think one of the things that I have always found really interesting about this show and about the comics is that Robert Kirkman's take on zombies is so unusual, because in most things, the zombies are just the monsters, and you obviously kill monsters. It's interesting that in the world of The Walking Dead, there are these constant reminders that these are people who got sick, and it's a tragedy that they died, and it's horrific.

And so, there are those moments where it's like, "Cool. Let's just blast apart these zombies and have monster movie fun!" But there are those moments where even for our really hardened survivors and villains, there are times where you're reminded of the fact that they went through their own version of a horrific pandemic-like thing. We don't know exactly what it was, but all these people who are innocents, they're just gone.

And when it comes to the child zombies, there's a horrible story behind it. You know that with this child — there are either parents that were left behind that are horrifically grieving, or if the child zombie's still alive, probably the parents perished first. It's just sad, and there's no way around that. And for some of our villains, they turned into something really twisted where they couldn't let go.

But, for Maggie, who has that child that's out there, it becomes this sort of unnerving reminder of what could be happening to her own child. And so even though we've sometimes explored things like it, it felt interesting to do it with Maggie. Her kid has been pretty safe, all things considered. She's done a good job, making sure that he's been taken care of through babyhood, and even on her adventures. But certainly they have gone through a lot of crap.

Jace Downs/AMC Lauren Cohan and Melissa McBride on 'The Walking Dead'

I was really struck by the Carol and Maggie [Melissa McBride] scene because they've obviously been on the show together forever and there have been plenty of scenes of them in a group together, but I feel like we don't get a ton of scenes of just these two like we may get with a Carol and Daryl or Maggie and Negan. Is that why you paired them up here?

Yeah, it's really interesting because a lot of people are like, "Well, all I want to do is see Daryl and Carol together. That's my pairing. I want to see them every episode!" Which is not even possible, because every actor has a different contract, so some people are in more episodes, and some people are not, and that affects what story lines they're in. But we do think it's important from a writing standpoint to show that there are other friendships and other relationships, even if they're ones that we don't focus on as much.

Like, for example, Eugene [Josh McDermitt] and Rosita [Christian Serratos] are always great together, and they have such an important, long-standing relationship, but Rosita has her own life outside of her friendship with Eugene, and Maggie has her own life outside of her nemesis relationship with Negan, and Carol has her own life outside of whatever thing she's got going on with Daryl or Ezekiel.

So we definitely were feeling like, "Man, we're getting to the end, and we haven't gotten to really do something meaty with Carol and Maggie together for a while, so let's give them some scenes, because that's just something we're craving writing." And so we do often think that way. Like, what have we not seen in a long time? What have we never seen, or what have we not seen in a while that we miss? And then we just kind of go from there.

The episode ends with Maggie saying, "We are gonna get our kids, take back our home, and make it right." What does that mean and what can you say about what's coming up?

It means that now that a good portion of our gang is kind of back together, 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. And so, there is this very visceral thing of: We have to get our children back, and we have to get our friends back. As well as just kind of this overarching thing of: What do we do about this problem of Pamela? So they're going to go at it hard, 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.

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