The Walking Dead Sets Up Someone Else Taking Father Gabriel’s Gruesome Comic Book Death

The Walking Dead might have handed off Father Gabriel’s (Seth Gilliam) gruesome comic book death in Sunday’s Season 10 episode 15, “The Tower.” There evacuees from across the Alexandria, Hilltop, and Oceanside communities hide out in an abandoned hospital tower while Beta (Ryan Hurst), steered by the voices in his head after the death of Whisperer leader Alpha (Samantha Morton), lays siege to Alexandria with his invading walker army while Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and Hilltop leaders Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) and King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) continue their fateful mission to meet Stephanie (Margot Bingham) with newly encountered lone survivor Princess (Paola Lázaro) along for the trip.

Inside the tower, Rachel (Avianna Mynhier) of Oceanside is seen in a hallway keeping watch through a window as Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Lydia (Cassady McClincy), Carol (Melissa McBride), Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming) and other survivors wait out their next move. Kelly (Angel Theory) teaches the half-blind Father Gabriel sign language while Luke (Dan Fogler) tinkers with a device requiring the use of car parts. Hilltop archer Dianne (Kerry Cahill) readies her bolts when Gabriel tells her, “Your turn to watch.”

Issue #158 of creator Robert Kirkman’s comic book opens with Gabriel positioned as lookout on a water tower with orders to sound an alarm upon spotting an advancing walker horde. When a larger than expected ocean of the dead approaches Alexandria, a panicked Gabriel slips, snaps his ankle, and is left helplessly, painfully dangling from the tower’s ladder.

A camouflaged Beta steps forward from the herd and guts Gabriel, telling him: “You should have whispered.” Without another word, Beta leaves Gabriel to be almost completely devoured by walkers.

“The Tower” takes a turn when — spoiler — Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Alden (Callan McAuliffe) are captured by a pack of Whisperers while trailing the walker herd steered by Beta. The herd suddenly changes direction towards the tower, and the episode ends with the herd trapping our heroes inside the hospital.

If Gabriel escapes the fate of his comic book counterpart, the death could go to Dianne: she’s on watch by the time the herd advances on the hospital and could be perched up high, mirroring the position she takes when guarding Hilltop’s gates.

“I think that’s more than a worthy death, man,” Gilliam told ComicBook.com about Gabriel’s comic book fate in 2017. “That’s like three deaths in one. I don’t know how I would play it. I would definitely lose my voice before the throat was cut but I think that would be the coolest way Father Gabriel could go. He’s eaten to the bone! Literally, he’s hanging there.”

The Walking Dead next airs “A Certain Doom” as a special episode later this year. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.