The Walking Dead’s [SPOILER] Redeems Glenn’s Death Fakeout

A scene in The Walking Dead season 10, episode 16 with Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) redeems Glenn’s death fakeout from season 6, when the show tricked audiences into thinking that Steven Yuen’s character was devoured by zombies.

Father Gabriel, along with numerous other characters, was left in a bad situation in what was previously the season’s penultimate episode. With the Whisperers about to launch an attack on Alexandria, Gabriel and the other survivors were poised to face a direct assault from their enemies. Given the Whisperers’ numbers, the odds were not in their favor. The long-delayed 16^th episode, which was originally intended to be the season 10 finale, finally revealed the fate of Alexandria and resolved the conflict with the Whisperers. Thanks to some outside interference, Beta (Ryan Hurst) and the Whisperers were defeated and all the main characters (on the side of Alexandria) were able to make it out alive.

One character who almost didn’t survive the events of the episode was Gabriel, who heroically decided to stay behind and help stave off the Whisperers. When the Whisperers stormed inside the room he was holed up in, they managed to subdue him. In a gripping scene, a helpless Gabriel was held down so that one of the Whisperers could finish him off. But right before death could come for Gabriel, The Walking Dead’s mysterious masked warrior rushed into the room and saved Gabriel’s life. The last-second rescue was without a doubt one of the episode’s most intense and most memorable moments. Furthermore, it was one of the show’s best fakeouts, and one that was easily better than what the show did with Glenn a few years back.

In a season 6 episode, Glenn and Nicholas (Michael Traynor) were trapped on top of a dumpster surrounded by zombies. After committing suicide, Nicholas tumbled off the dumpster with Glenn. The episode abruptly ended after that. With all the zombies that were around them, it felt like death was assured for Glenn. Instead of explaining what happened to him in the next episode, The Walking Dead kept audiences hanging for a few weeks before revealing that Glenn was shielded by Nicholas’ body long enough for him to hide underneath the dumpster.

Fans were highly critical of The Walking Dead’s Glenn misdirect in season 6, particularly because the show spent three full episodes avoiding the subject and dragging out the mystery. Thankfully, The Walking Dead didn’t repeat this mistake in season 10 with Gabriel. The episode didn’t need a cliffhanger or three episodes of hiding his fate to make viewers believe that Gabriel was about to die, which was the case with Glenn. The emotional intensity of the moment, the feeling that this would be a fitting exit for the character, and his final message for Rosita (Christian Serratos) strengthened the notion that this would be Gabriel’s last stand on The Walking Dead.