The Walking Dead narrowly bypassed a major death from the comic series in its latest episode. Season 10 of The Walking Dead has been steadily building towards a climax in recent weeks, with Beta taking over leadership of the Whisperers and leading an undead charge towards Alexandria to finish the job his predecessor started. Meanwhile, Eugene, Yumiko and Ezekiel are on a diplomatic (or perhaps more roman-tic for some) mission to make first contact with the Commonwealth, a major new community in a faraway location. Unfortunately, the progress of the zombie outbreak has been halted by a very different virus in real life, as the coronavirus pandemic has delayed The Walking Dead's season 10 finale.
Broadly speaking, The Walking Dead season 10 has adhered to the main story of Robert Kirkman's original comics. The mission to the Commonwealth and encountering Princess are both adapted authentically enough, while Beta's invasion of Alexandria is a fairly close approximation of events from the comics. However, The Walking Dead's current run has also made some fairly major deviations. Michonne's side-quest to track down Rick Grimes is entirely original to TV, and Alexandria had no time to evacuate in the comics, leaving residents to weather the onslaught of zombies.
Another huge distinction between the dual mediums of The Walking Dead is the fate of Father Gabriel Stokes, and although Seth Gilliam's character remains alive and well, he has now officially managed to avoid the same fate as his comic counterpart. In the original story, Gabriel is on lookout during the height of the Whisperer War and spots Beta leading a gaggle of Walkers towards Alexandria. In his panic, Gabriel trips and is left dangling by a broken ankle from the ladder of the watchtower. Helpless, Gabriel is slashed open by Beta and left like a pinata for the passing zombie horde.
This specific exit won't happen to Gabriel on TV for a number of reasons. Chiefly, Gabriel's function in the story has already been fulfilled by other characters. In season 10's latest episode ("The Tower"), Aaron and Alden are the duo charged with keeping an eye on Beta and the Whisperers, and are positioned atop a tower of their own in order to feed information back to the rest of the group. Mirroring Gabriel's epic fail in the comics, Aaron and Alden discover the Whisperers encroaching upon the Alexandrians' temporary refuge and move to warn their friends, but while the duo don't exactly trip over their own feet, they are discovered by the Whisperers before they make the call, rendering their scouting efforts just as useful as Gabriel's.
Truthfully, a literal adaptation of Gabriel's comic death has been unlikely for quite a few seasons. During the opening throes of the war between Rick Grimes and Negan, The Walking Dead's resident sheriff found a Savior dangling upside-down from a watchtower, with the image providing an uncanny visual callback to Gabriel's demise in the comics. Having already used the scene, Gabriel himself was never likely to go out in the same manner.
The Walking Dead changing the circumstances and timing of Gabriel's death comes as no great surprise. The printed version of the priest was very much a background figure among the faces of Alexandria, popping up with a periodic sermon before promptly disappearing for several issues. It might even be fair to say that many readers had forgotten about Gabriel entirely when his death scene rolled around. This low profile is more or less been how Gilliam's character began his time in The Walking Dead, but in the absence of main characters such as Rick, Carl and Maggie, TV Gabriel has greatly come into his own and transformed into both a leading figure and a genuine badass. While the comic character might've deserved a hapless and darkly comic death, the TV variation merits something far grander.
The Walking Dead season 10 is currently on hiatus due to the coronavirus outbreak.