Agree...I would like to point out that there was no evidence that there was a herd at the church. My opinion based upon this fact, People knew there was food stored there (they put it there), but for some reason they did not break down the door? There was also time for some one to scratch "you will burn for this". NO herd...just a few that tried several times to get Gab to let them in....but he would not.

 

Rick, Carl, Michonne, Carol, Daryl, Sasha, Glenn, and Maggie all left the prison in small groups, abandoning each other. They all ran away knowing there were still others, including children that weren't accounted for and would likely be killed by walkers. Before you judge what is "scum"...

 

Daryl stayed, blew up the tank and killed its occupants then he rescued beth.

Carol wasn't even there...But she did respond when she saw the smoke....it was too late. She did follow/track ty and baby along with two children whom she tried to protect.

Michonne killed the Gov and then came back later to check on any survivors...

Rick and Carl stayed until it was obviously over run.

Maggie insisted on finding Glenn.

Sasha and Bob helped her.

No one abandoned each other, they simply were scattered, they did manage to keep it together and find each other.....

NO "SCUM" FOUND.

 

AFTER they left the prison area. They STILL knew there were kids (luke, molly, and others) around there somewhere. Carol was close enough to the prison "to see the end of it" and track Tyreese and the girls (which is odd itself.) They even had weapons there to go down fighting inside the prison till they found each other. Instead of searching for the kids, they got as far away from the prison as possible, never to return. No one even checked the other guard towers. COWARDS!

If the Gabriel situation was that desperate, with that many walkers. The walkers would have broken into the church and killed the parishioners anyway.

 

Actually, most of the non-combatants had escaped in a school bus. Maggie and her small group came across it on the road, everyone inside had died. But, they thought the bulk of the people had already gone.

 

I was thinking Maggie should probably just take Deanna aside and tell her Gabriel suffered a schizophrenic break when he was under extreme stress at the outbreak of the ZA, locked his church members out because voices were telling him to & got everyone killed. She can say he seems to be doing okay now, but to let them know if he starts acting paranoid or delusional. It's not nice to gaslight someone and make them out to be "crazy", but maybe it would serve him right to discredit him after he threw them under the bus.

But then I thought about what @purriwinkle said about him possibly really losing his grip on reality. What if that's true? If someone was suffering from mental illness, that would change the game and shed some new light on their behavior. They don't seem to have a psychologist at the ASZ, but if he's not a danger to himself or others and just talking, let him talk. Deanna's a smart woman, she can see for herself whether Rick & Co are really dangerous or not as time passes. If what Gabriel is saying isn't true & just misinformation that's been twisted and taken out of context because he's lost touch with reality, then they have nothing to worry about.

 

''Gabriel confessed that he locked the doors every evening and heard the people screaming for help, but refused to open the door because there were too many of them. He heard the walkers attack and kill them...''



The ''too many of them'' should refer to the large number of parishioners and not to the walkers outside the church.

And, the parishioners having the time to crave a cursing (''You will be burned for this'') on the church wall means that they did not die in a very short period of time after their arrival at the church. They must have spent some time outside the church asking Gabriel to open up but Gabe refused. It is only then some walkers came and killed the parishoners who had stayed around the church and refused to go elsewhere. This might mean that Gabe's primary reason of not letting his parishioners coming in is he does not want to share his food resources, not because there were walkers outside (there might not even be any walker outside yet at the time when the parishioners arrived at the church).

One more fact: these people were known by Gabriel personally. They were not simply strangers asking for help. He knew them well as they were his parishioners.

 

Which makes their scattering even stranger (and cowardly) Of the current survivors Rick, Carl, Michonne, Carol, and Daryl also knew the bus went down that road, but didn't circle around the prison to go after it. Instead of this "family" helping EVERYONE else in it, it was "Every man for himself!"
Uh oh. I'm starting to become Dale, I think.

 

Even if the guy has mental health issues that doesn't mean he might not be dangerous. What he's doing may qualify as being a danger to others. What happens if Deanna disregards his advice? Will he keep at it? Will it drive him deeper off the edge? Could he become violent? And even worse, in the ZA there's probably no way to help him. He would need a proper diagnosis and meds/with or without therapy which wouldn't be available. It could become a real problem.

At the very least Rick should be informed of what Gabriel is saying, which fortunately Maggie will be able to do. Forewarned is forearmed.

 

I get what you are saying...But that is not what the scene portrays.

Rick's ass was beat...he barely got out with what he had. Ty had his hands full. Ty had the family infant and two children. The scene insinuates that Michonne did go back and scope out the area. And what about Glenn gathering supplies and rescuing Tara even though she was among the enemy.

Your position of this scene showing that the group are/is cowardly has no base. But if you insist...that is fine with me.

“A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide.” Mickey Mantle

 

Maybe, but that's why it would be good to know some history on him. If he doesn't have a history of violence it's unlikely he would start now. People with mental illnesses in reality actually are more likely to be the victims of violence, not the perpetrators of it. And there are plenty of cultures that are accepting of mental illness and don't even use meds and have a higher recovery success rate of than say, the United States, which actually has some of the worst recovery rates. I agree they should all be made aware of what he's saying and keep an eye on him, but we haven't seen him hit or hurt anyone, and if he's just talking at this point, it's hard to say what else he might do. Maybe he'll escalate, maybe he'll just keep talking. How they handle him is important. Deanna did a nice job with him, I thought. She reality tested him and when he didn't give her the response she expected she stayed calm and validated him by saying she would look into it.

I don't know, we're talking about a fictional character on a tv show that's there to stir up drama, but in RL, human services & working with people with chronic long term mental illnesses is actually my profession, including a few who do have histories of violence, and I've been in this field for a long time. . I would give him something to do to give him a sense of purpose, help him keep his stress levels low & separate him from certain members of Rick & Co since they apparently are "triggering" him. ASZ is big enough & seems to be mellow enough at this point that they could isolate him away if they needed to. At any rate, maybe that would be something Rick could approach from place of understanding since he's had his own breaks with reality.

 

Cowards? Really? They obviously had a plan in place, that bus didn't just happen to be ready to roll. Scatter and regroup is far from cowardly. Hiding behind locked doors from people you know isn't anything but cowardly, and not Christian. Cheer for the loser all you want, if you don't like Rick & co. watch a different show.

 

I enjoyed that movie, although it's a bit campy, well worth a watch online IMO.

 

They didn't abandon each other. You get a C+ for effort.

 

That's called getting separated from each other, sweetie. You're not becoming Dale, don't flatter yourself, Dale is loved.

 

How would Rick, Michonne, Carl or Carol even know the bus left? Carol saw the fire at the prison. I don't believe she was sitting pretty in a tree with binoculars. Rick was beaten, strangled & shot. All he cared about (and rightfully so, was his son & daughter). There was fire and a herd of walkers. With that much chaos ensuing, you'd have to be a superhero to do anything else, than what they did.

 

Gabriel kept food away from people. Ok. I don't like the guy, but I have more empathy for him than half of Rick's group.

Rick's group has left children to die... broke into a weak hermit's home and murdered him to escape walkers outside... Daryl joined and stayed with a group whose motto was " Why hurt yourself, when you can hurt other people"... it just keeps going. People will excuse anything "Team Rick" does, at the same time calling for the scared senseless Gabriel to be executed.
Still a fun show. I just don't make heroes out of those far from heroic.

 

Im still not buying the "left children to die" part. Rick, looked for his children. Should he abandon Carl in a swarm of walkers to go look for others & leave his remaining child an orphan? All alone to defend himself? They had no clue if there were more of TG's group outside waiting to ambush them.

Gabriel did more than keep food away from people. He let them die, b/c he didn't want to jeopardize his cozy little church thing he has going on.

Also, I'm pretty sure that Rick saw Tyreese's bat signal, that told him that he had some of the prison kids.

Ricks done ok by me.

 

The worst part about Gabriel's actions is his conniving, disloyal and backstabbing of it. Adultery, yeah a bad thing. But what about adultery with the wife of the friend who donated a kidney to save you? See how much worse of a human that makes you?

Breaking loyalty and stabbing your friends backs who have done nothing but save your life is what makes it disgusting of an act.

And that is something none of other group members are guilty of no matter how hard people here are trying to play devil's advocate. I mean, abandoning each other at the prison? LOL, what a stretch. Painfully obvious that nobody agrees with Gabriel but they are just attempting (very poor) attempts at devil's advocate.

 

Zombie wars are not won, human lives are not saved, by empathetic persons ignoring real and dangerous threats (e.g. Gabriel's "scared senseless" ass.)

I also must respond to the Daryl portion of your comment. Do we watch the same show?! I seem to recall Daryl "joining" Joe's group at literal gunpoint. He also intended to leave, when it would be safe for him, while said group handled some vendetta they had against someone unknown to Daryl. Upon realizing that Joe's target was his friends, Daryl offered his own life to spare theirs. That's some heroic shit.

eta- Gabe sucks. He puts people's lives in danger by simply existing as a weak and unproductive member of a survivalist community, and he's ungrateful to boot. So yeah, to the firing squad.