The Walking Dead’s Jadis returns in The Ones Who Live Episode 5, but what is her fate after her unexpected meeting with an important friend of hers?
There was always a high chance that another Walking Dead character other than Jadis would be joining Rick Grimes and Michonne on The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. Morgan Jones’ departure from Fear the Walking Dead to find Rick also suggested he’d be a top contender, and Judith and RJ Grimes still have to reunite with their father. While there’s still one more episode to make those predictions come true, Season 1, Episode 5, “Become” has a pretty unexpected character return: Father Gabriel Stokes.
On The Walking Dead, Gabriel had one of the most impressive character developments throughout his life. Dodging his comic book death, Gabriel transformed from a cowardly priest to a leader who perfectly balanced faith and realism. As a man of God, Gabriel helped others find true potential within themselves and grow from their past mistakes, one being his ex-girlfriend Jadis, who also appears in Episode 5. Although the pair departed on sour terms, they reunite several times in flashbacks in The Ones Who Live to add context to Jadis’ unanticipated compassion before her death.
Gabriel Stokes’ Importance to Jadis on The Walking Dead
In The Walking Dead Season 9, Gabriel and Jadis began a romantic relationship after discovering their true feelings for each other. Gabriel was instrumental in helping people accept Jadis in the communities, despite her previous treachery. She also started going by her real name Anne, a habit she later dissolved when she joined the CRM. The two, however, fizzled out when she attempted to traffick Gabriel to the CRM as an “A,” but she couldn’t bring herself to go through with it. The two naturally break up after she picks Rick up from the river and joins the CRM.
The rest of The Walking Dead never makes any suggestion that Jadis made contact with Gabriel or Alexandria after she left, but The Ones Who Live says otherwise. In flashbacks of Episode 5, Gabriel and Jadis meet once a year at the same location in the woods, purely just to catch up as old friends. One could say that Jadis had ulterior motives to use Gabriel as a mole to get intel on Alexandria, but it wasn’t her only intention. Every year, she comes back as a worse version of herself. She’s stricken with guilt over the atrocious acts she’s committed, such as the genocide of Omaha, and confides in Gabriel that it’s taking a toll on her psyche.
Like the priest he is, Gabriel always assures her that she can come back from the horrible things she’s done. But confessing to a priest doesn’t do her much good if she can’t spare the details of why she feels sinful. Like clockwork every year, Jadis refuses to namedrop the CRM, what they are and what their mission is. They’re only referred to as “Jadis’ people.” Things go downhill for the friends when Jadis refuses to help Gabriel rebuild Alexandria after the Whisperer attack. Gabriel accurately points out the CRM for what they are: an organization that hoards food while everyone else starves.
How Gabriel Redeems Jadis Before She Dies
In this flashback, Jadis still shows remorse for doing worse things for the CRM, but isn’t putting in the effort to redeem them. She pulls a gun on Gabriel, apologizing for making him a liability and a loose end that the CRM has to clean up. No words have to be said about Jadis’ predicament. There’s nothing Gabriel can say that will turn back the clock to make Jadis her former self; Anne is long gone. Every time she hears the name, she cringes. Because Anne is a reminder of the person she was when she felt free of duty and responsibility. She didn’t have to put up a front in order to appear as this stone-cold leader. But both Gabriel and Rick are the only two people who still call her Anne because they were the only people that pulled her out of a rut all those years ago.
Facing the barrel of a gun, Gabriel doesn’t break a sweat. He doesn’t think Jadis will pull the trigger, and he’s right: She lowers her weapon and tells him to go, thinking this is the last time they’ll see each other. But Gabriel surprises her by saying she got the answer to all her problems and will meet back up again next year. His quick forgiveness of her inspires Jadis to do the same to Rick and Michonne in the future, and gives them the location of the file on Alexandria. It turns out Jadis doesn’t want to die for some cause that steps over the backs of others; she wants to live to do the right thing. In the end, she’s buried in a grave marked by the letter “A” to memorialize her true identity that she hid for years.
Is Gabriel’s Cameo Wasted in The Ones Who Live?
The final scene with Gabriel is one of the most poignant moments in his story arc, and it’s a shame that The Walking Dead main series missed out on closing his and Jadis’ relationship with a proper ending. Gabriel waits day and night for Jadis to return to their usual spot, only she never arrives. Since he has full faith in her, he knows her absence is because she died, not because she abandoned or forgot about him. It’s a beautiful sentiment to both their characters: Gabriel, the man of faith, never giving up on Anne, the woman who was just trying to find a purpose in life.
