‘The Walking Dead’ Spoilers: Father Gabriel Wasn’t Escaping And A ‘Pretty Gnarly’ Midseason Finale On The Way

The latest episode of The Walking Dead saw Father Gabriel continue to have problems fitting in with the group that has taken over his church, and after most of them left to head into the city to rescue Beth and Carol, Carl tried to give him a weapons lesson – emphasis on tried. Instead, Gabriel tried to clean the blood off the floor, something Seth Gilliam — the actor portraying Father Gabriel — told Entertainment Weekly “was a little bit of [his] Lady Macbeth moment,” and then crawled out from under the church and left, stepping on a nail in the process.

According to Gilliam, Gabriel is one of the Walking Dead characters who is having a hard time accepting the world as it is now and saw the others tearing down his church – Sasha axing the pew and Daryl using the organ pipes to set up a defense out front – as “a sign that you can’t stay where you are.” As for why he’s having so much trouble killing, it all comes back to the fact that he’s “a man of God,” as the actor explained.

“He’s extremely conflicted by what he’s done, and he’s still a man of God, so foremost that means doing no harm to people. …I think for Father Gabriel, the moment that he takes up a weapon is a very difficult one for him because it is kind of admitting that perhaps the ways that he has [been] living his life and going on and believing in the world has really come to an end.”

Along with that, Gabriel still sees the walkers as people – and the walker he comes across in the woods is wearing a cross, which Gilliam pointed to as a sign that the walker was someone who believed in God like him. However, Gilliam also maintained that Gabriel was not trying to escape in the last episode. Instead, he was aiming to go on a fact-finding mission.

“I have not actually seen the episode yet so I am not sure what is in and what is not, but he did have some lines where he was going out really to see if what was happening at the school really went down. Have people really reverted to cannibalism? Are they trapping other human beings and eating them? So I think it’s more of an exploratory mission than an escape. And also, for someone who is not going to fight, the other alternative is fleeing, so having a little escape route, whether he is intending to leave for good or not, is just somewhat comforting for him.”

The sneak peek that AMC has released from the midseason finale, which you can watch below, supports just that. Gabriel finds proof that Gareth and his people were cannibals, and since he’s apparently not trying to escape, he probably should get back to the church before those walkers find a way to escape.

Speaking of the Walking Dead midseason finale, Norman Reedus told The Hollywood Reporter that it’s going to be a crazy episode.

“The midseason finale is pretty gnarly. It’s pretty balls-out. It’s like the difference between a really hard rock Led Zeppelin song and a really soft one. There are those two opposites that get blended in before the midseason ends.”

The “Coda” promo, which you can watch below, certainly seems to confirm just that, as it focuses on the trade that Rick’s group is hoping to be able to pull off to get Beth and Carol back alive.

“I’m Rick Grimes,” he says. “You have two of my people, Beth and Carol. I’m here to make a proposal.”

As the Inquisitr previously reported, the Walking Dead midseason finale may or may not include Beth’s death. Whatever does happen, it sounds like fans are not going to want to miss “Coda.”

The Walking Dead season 5 airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.

[Image via AMC]