‘The Walking Dead’ Recap: ‘One More’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode 1019 of ‘The Walking Dead’.
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If there is one important notion that each and everyone us believe in, it would have to be that ‘keeping the faith’ is paramount to surviving hard times. For we sadly come to learn through our travels, that the world can be a cruel and chaotic and stressful place, one that will bring us to our knees and leave us wondering if giving up is a better option than going forward. But hanging tight to the belief that tomorrow is another chance a fresh start and that things will get better in time, helps us to steer clear of the quitter’s mentality, just long enough for us to get through our rough patch so we can enjoy the better days we dreamed of, during those long and worrisome nights.
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But while it is clear that this is one of those rare notions that is as good as advertised, keeping that faith when the world keeps hammering us, is no easy task. Because when tough times seemingly have no end in sight, and leave us emotionally rattled, holding our heads high and reminding ourselves that this is only temporary, seems ridiculous in its own right and this is a critical moment in our attempts to forge a path ahead. Because if we do indeed lose the faith, we could slip into quite the dark place. If anything, all of this is important to talk about today, simply because the power of faith, and how we maintain it during dark times, and what we become when we lose hold of it, served as the focal themes of this week’s episode of The Walking Dead. 

For ‘One More’ saw Aaron and Father Gabriel, have their faith tested like never before. Because when we catch up with them here, they’re on quite the special mission, one that involves finding food for everyone back home since the damage from the war left their food supply and crops in tatters and well… they’re not having a whole lot of luck in finding supplies on this run. In fact, they’re failing miserably and cannot find a single morsel, even after being provided with a map of potential resupply sites by Maggie. And to complicate matters further, all they find in the wild is walking death and devastation, which only further fuels their frustration and stings them emotionally… since such sights helped to remind of everything they recently lost. 

But they do their best to keep their heads held high, despite the odds being against them in the moment and thankfully, they’re rewarded with quite the lucky break after a storm. For they manage to find shelter and food and even a little booze to take the edge off of their stressful situation, and that is precisely when the story opted to begin its exploration on the nature of faith and what causes us to potentially want to surrender it. For we came to learn in this segment of the story that Father Gabriel has slid into quite the dark place mentally. Because the events of All Out War, combined with the heavy losses they suffered after facing Alpha, left Gabriel wondering if there was any good left in this world.

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For not only was it populated by living death, but Gabriel’s and everyone else’s interactions with other survivors (outside of the network of communities that Alexandria managed to cobble together) were quite horrifying in nature. And hearing Father Gabriel speak to his disdain for the world and his worries for the future, made it clear to Aaron, and the viewer, that this man of the cloth was losing faith in just about everything. Which motivated Aaron to not only remind Father Gabriel that he was likely wrong in his assessment of the world and that he absolutely needed to believe in more, but also that perhaps the time had come to resurrect Alexandra’s as a beacon of hope for lost souls, so that good could find a foothold in this world. 
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A notion that Gabriel only briefly considered, thanks to a surprise the morning after their little chat. For both men came face to face with an angry and abusive stranger named Mays, who was hiding in the building all along and heard their conversation from the night before. Which motivated him to show these men that they were wrong for believing in anything greater and that the world was nothing more than a rotten and dead and hopeless place. To the point where we even tried to get them to take part in a variation of Russian Roulette to hammer his point home. But that didn’t stop this dynamic duo from doing their best to try and talk Mays down off his emotional ledge. In order to see that there was still hope and good in this world. 

But despite reaching him and getting him to stand down with an offer to start fresh in Alexandria, Gabriel was still quick to kill the man. Simply because he believed there was no hope for his future, a decision that Gabriel would subtly come to regret when the duo discovered that Mays kept his twin brother alive over a food dispute, and the horrors that poor man had to witness… motivated him to take his own life when given the chance and well, seeing this whole mess come to an end in such a brutal and dismal manner, seemingly taught Gabriel quite the important lesson in regard to faith. In that, letting go of it can bring about nothing but trouble and strife and trying to supply even of a sliver of it to others, can produce wonders and hopefully this incident was everything that Gabriel needed, in order to begin to believe in a better tomorrow once again.

In the end however, this really was quite the brilliant episode. Simply because it offered no easy answers on faith. No instead, it opted to point out how hard it is to maintain it and how the world will indeed do its best to try and rob us from it and it really does deserve some serious credit for presenting such matters in the raw and for once again providing the audience with authentic fallout to a harrowing moment. Something that was helped along by way of some quality performances. For Seth Gilliam did a fine job of selling Gabriel’s struggles and Ross Marquand knew exactly how to play off of that and of course, we would be remiss to not point out that Robert Patrick utterly steals the show here as Mays, since he sold the fury and the pain of a broken man and now that this particular journey has come to a close, all we can hope for now, is that Gabriel will indeed do his best to help others again. Since clearly faith is exactly what this broken world needs, and who better to supply it than a priest who almost let it slip through his fingertips. Until next time.

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