The Assault on the Satellite Outpost is a major battle that took place during the sixth season of AMC‘s The Walking Dead.
Battle[]
Rick's group returns from the Hilltop. Rick orders everyone to gather at the church, telling Carol, "We're gonna have to fight." At the church, Rick tells the community about the deal that Maggie struck with the Hilltop. He proposes that they preemptively attack the Saviors, as doing so would prevent them from eventually finding (and attacking) Alexandria. Morgan disagrees, arguing that they should try talking to the Saviors before resorting to more extreme measures. Rick takes a vote, and no one sides with Morgan. As Rick declares that, "We kill them all," Tara seems uncomfortable, remembering that exact phrase from the Governor.
Meanwhile, Maggie tells Glenn that she intends to go with them to the Saviors' compound, because she was the one who enabled the deal with the Hilltop. However, she assures him that she will stay on the perimeter.
At a meeting to coordinate the attack, Andy (from the Hilltop) draws a map of the interior and exterior of the Saviors' compound. He explains to Rick, Maggie, Daryl, Glenn, and Michonne that the main building has one entrance that is guarded by two men. However, he is unsure of the total number of Saviors they will be up against. Rick proposes that they attack at night while everyone is asleep. His plan is to walk right in, through the front entrance. "They want Gregory's head, right?" he says. "We're gonna give it to them."
The next day, the group travels down the road in a caravan. After they sound the horns on their vehicles to attract any nearby walkers, Rick orders everyone to separate on foot, and reconvene in a couple of hours. He tells Father Gabriel that there's no turning back from the mission now. Gabriel agrees, declaring with confidence that he will not retreat. Rick asks why he's still wearing his priest's garb. Gabriel says he's still who he was (he thinks), and jokes that, "It'll be harder for them to see me in the dark." The two men share a laugh. Rosita approaches Carol and tells her that she nearly blurted out Morgan's secret about the W Man at the church meeting. "He doesn't want to kill," Carol says, defending Morgan. Rosita becomes defensive, but eventually agrees not to tell anyone.
In the woods, Glenn and Heath kill several walkers and share their anxiety about killing the Saviors, having never killed living people before. Glenn saws off a walker's head.
The group reconvenes on the road, where Rick proposes that they attack a couple of hours before dawn. Carol pulls Rick aside and chastises him for bringing Maggie on the mission. She insists on staying behind to help Maggie guard the perimeter. Rick, Jesus, and Andy size up three decapitated walker heads to decide which one looks most like Gregory. Jesus picks a head but remarks that the nose is different. Rick grabs the head and pummels the nose, figuring Andy can tell the Saviors that he broke Gregory's nose in the struggle. Andy remarks that "the Saviors: they're scary but those pricks got nothing on you."
That night, Andy drives up to the Saviors' compound alone, and announces that he has Gregory's head. Two guards walk out and inspect it. Satisfied, one of the guards goes inside to get Craig. Daryl approaches silently and kills the other guard, and the group emerges from hiding, removing the body from sight then killing the first guard when he returns with Craig. The group sneaks into the compound. Rick enters a bedroom and quietly plunges his knife into a man's head as he sleeps. In another room, Glenn and Heath discover two men asleep, and grimly prepare to kill them with their knives. Glenn is able to overcome his nerves, and offers to kill the other for Heath as well. They find a trophy wall of Polaroid photos showing the bodies of Savior victims, all of whose heads have been crushed. Tara, Gabriel, Andy, Jesus, and Craig wait outside in a car. Tara confesses to Gabriel that she told Denise that she loved her, but only did so to hide her misgivings about their mission to kill the Saviors. Jesus asks Tara if she really loves Denise anyway. Tara says she does. "So you know what you're fighting for," Jesus says.
Abraham covers for Sasha as she tries to open a locked door. However, a Savior discovers them and attacks Abraham, but is pulled off him by Sasha before he can do anymore harm to Abraham. Sasha then stabs the Savior in the stomach, but he manages to pull the alarm, alerting the compound to the attack. Maggie and Carol hear the alarm from their perimeter posts. Maggie insists on going to help. "You are staying here," Carol says firmly. Tara tells Jesus to drive back to the Hilltop with Craig to uphold the deal. Jesus asks Andy to take Craig back so that he can stay behind and help. Rick's group moves through the rest of the compound with their guns, engaging the Saviors, who are now awake and fighting back. Aaron hastily shuts himself in a bedroom to hide from a group of Saviors, and is forced to stab a Savior who was in the room, in self-defense. Emerging, he is nearly killed by a Savior that surprises him outside but is saved by Rosita. Tara shoots at two Saviors as they flee the compound, killing one and mortally wounding the other.
Multiple teams engage Saviors as a member of each team checks locked doors for the Saviors' armory without success. With Saviors on their heels, Glenn and Heath take cover in a room that turns out to be the armory. They slam the door shut, grab guns and spray through the door with bullets. They open the door and find a pile of dead bodies. One of the Saviors stirs and raises his gun, unnoticed by the two men. Jesus shoots him dead, solemnly declaring that "This is the new world." Outside, Gabriel approaches the Savior whom Tara injured, and tells him to drop his gun. The Savior taunts him, telling him that they are both dead. Gabriel recites a verse from the Gospel of John [14:1-2] before shooting him. "Amen," he says stoically. With the fighting over, Rick's group emerges from the building. They find a small parking lot of vehicles. Glenn asks Heath to postpone his two week supply run with Tara, but Heath refuses. The two of them take an RV and leave immediately.
Back in Alexandria, Morgan welds together the metal gate to a prison cell. He takes a break and becomes lost in thought. Michonne queries Rick about which one of the men they killed was Negan. Just then, a lone surviving Savior tries to escape on a motorcycle, which Daryl recognizes as his own. Rosita shoots the Savior off the bike and Daryl tackles him as he tries to flee and beats him into submission. Daryl demands to know where the Savior got the bike. As Rick holds a gun to the Savior's head, a woman speaks through the man's walkie-talkie, ordering Rick to lower his gun. "We've got a Carol and a Maggie. We're thinking that's something you want to chat about," the woman says.
An armed man ambushes Carol and Maggie, who are guarding the perimeter of the Saviors' compound. Carol shoots him in the arm but spares his life. Three more Saviors move in and take Carol and Maggie hostage. Paula, one of the Saviors and leader of her group, watches through binoculars as Rick's group beats up a fellow Savior, Primo. She radios Rick on Primo's walkie and tells him she has Carol and Maggie. Rick offers to trade Carol and Maggie for Primo. Paula tells Rick she'll get back to him. Paula puts Maggie and Carol in a car and radios for backup. Paula's group brings Maggie and Carol to a slaughterhouse, where they're gagged and bound in a makeshift cell. Left alone momentarily, Maggie tries to cut her bonds on the edge of a wall. Carol finds rosary beads on the floor and pockets them.
Paula's group returns to the cell. Carol hyperventilates. Maggie is concerned, unsure whether it's real or Carol is pretending. Upon Maggie's insistence, the Saviors remove Carol's gag and look pitifully at her as she gasps for breath and prays. Carol begs them not to hurt Maggie and the baby, and asks Molly, one of the Saviors, to refrain from smoking on account of the pregnancy. Michelle, one of the other Saviors, surprisingly backs Carol up. Donnie, the Savior who Carol shot in the woods, shrieks with pain and threatens to kill Carol. Paula orders him to leave Carol alive as insurance until backup arrives in 30 minutes. Donnie smacks Paula. Maggie trips him as he goes for Carol, and they fight. Paula knocks Donnie unconscious with the butt of her gun and instructs Michelle to interrogate Maggie in another room.
While interrogating Maggie, Michelle demands to know the location of their settlement. When Maggie refuses, Michelle tells her that Maggie and her group are not the good guys. In the other room, Carol thanks Paula for helping her and Maggie with Donnie. Paula calls Carol pathetic instead. Michelle wraps a bandage around one of her fingers and explains to Maggie that she was punished for stealing gas to look for her boyfriend's body. She reveals that she, too, was once pregnant. Maggie apologizes to Michelle, but she rejects the apology. They both say that each one of them don't plan on dying today, to which Michelle responds by saying that one of us are wrong, then goes back to questioning her. Rick radios Paula to ask if she's considered his proposal to trade hostages. Paula delays her decision and ends the transmission. Carol explains to Paula that her group killed the people at the outpost because the Saviors ambushed Daryl's group on the road, instilling them with a fear of Negan. When Carol says they needed to stop Negan, Molly cryptically tells her that "we are all Negan."
Paula tells Carol that her boss was the first person she killed after the fall. She says she stopped feeling bad about killing people when her body count reached the double digits. Carol accuses Paula of living among killers, but Paula counters that Carol's people are killers, too, making Carol a killer. After Carol tells Paula that she'll die unless she makes the trade, Paula eventually radios Rick again and tells him to meet her in a nearby field. Afterwards, she worries that the absence of static on the walkie means that Rick's group is close, possibly already outside the slaughterhouse. Paula contacts her reinforcements, who are now only minutes away. She and Molly leave Carol alone in the cell. In their absence, Carol sharpens the crucifix on the rosary beads and uses it to cut herself free. Carol finds Maggie and suggests they quietly escape, but Maggie insists on killing the remaining Saviors, and they need to finish what they started. They return to the cell and realize that Donnie died from his gunshot wound and is beginning to turn.
Molly returns to the cell and is attacked and bitten by a turned Donnie, who Maggie tethered to a pipe in range of the door. Maggie bludgeons the injured Molly to death, then Carol takes her gun and they race away. Moments later, Paula discovers the dead bodies and draws her gun. Maggie and Carol find a hallway full of impaled but living walkers, designed to slow them down or trap them. From behind, Paula fires at them until she runs out of bullets. Carol aims her gun at Paula and orders her to run, despite Maggie's insistence that Carol kill Paula. A walker attacks, causing Carol to shoot Paula in the shoulder. Maggie kills the walker, then races over to fight Michelle. During their struggle, Maggie's abdomen is slightly slashed by Michelle's knife, but Carol then manages to shoot Michelle in the head killing her.
Maggie and Carol find Paula injured on the ground. Paula asks what Carol is so afraid of when she's so capable. Carol reveals she was afraid of having to kill Paula. Paula lunges at her, resulting in Carol shoving her into a speared walker, who tears off a portion of Paula's face and begins to devour her. Moments later, a Savior calls Paula's walkie to announce that reinforcements have arrived. Mimicking Paula's voice, Carol tells them to meet her at the kill floor. As Maggie and Carol wait for the Saviors, Carol confesses that she has killed 20 people. Maggie urges her not to think about it, but Carol states she cannot. The Saviors arrive, and Carol and Maggie trap them on the kill floor, which they've doused with gasoline. As the Saviors realise that they have been led into a trap, Carol throws her lit cigarette into the room, setting the room on fire and the Saviors inside.
Maggie kills the impaled walkers, including Paula, as she and Carol make their way to the exit. They find Rick's group just outside the door, about to storm the building. As Maggie and Glenn reunite, Daryl and Carol hug. Rick tells Primo that his friends are dead and demands to know if Negan was among the people they killed at the compound. Primo says that he is Negan, and they have a lot to talk about. Rick unremorsefully apologizes, and shoots Primo point-blank in the head, killing him instantly.
Result[]
- The Saviors are ambushed and executed at the outpost.
- Alexandria officially sides with Hilltop against the Saviors.
Casualties[]
The Saviors[]
- Gabe
- Frank
- Donnie
- Molly
- Michelle
- Paula
- Primo
- Savior Guard #1
- Older Savior
- Large Savior
- At least 26 unnamed Saviors
Trivia[]
- This is the first battle between Rick's group and the Saviors.
- As revealed by Negan, this is the event that led to the later Lineup: Negan had to make the Survivors pay for the men they massacred to give justice to their friends and family.
- As a result of this event, Negan is able to sympathize with Maggie over the Meridian Massacre as shown in "Promises Broken", pointing out that, just like her, he has been on the wrong side of a massacre as well.