The Walking Dead Season 5 Callbacks You Didn't Notice In 'One More'

Season 10, episode 19 of The Walking Dead continues the season 10 extension's focus on intimate episodes that really dig into one or two characters. "One More" is devoted to Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam), who are each figuring out who they want to be and how they want to proceed in the post-Whisperers world. Gabriel is once again losing faith, while Aaron is the same idealist he's always been, a point the episode subtly underlines through callbacks to season 5 when Aaron was introduced.

In "One More," Aaron and Father Gabriel are out on a supply run. At the end of a long day, they come upon a seemingly abandoned warehouse full of great stuff like extravagantly expensive whiskey, which Gabriel and Aaron get drunk on. Gabriel speaks eloquently about his past life as a priest, and Aaron encourages him to start preaching again because he's inspiring. Aaron wants to start helping people again, just like he used to back when he was the recruiter for Alexandria who brought Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his people into the fold in the first place. He's always wanted to help, even through all the terrible stuff that's happened since then. But Gabriel doesn't want to preach and doesn't want to help, because he thinks the world is mostly full of evil people.

Later that night, they learn that the warehouse isn't abandoned at all. It belongs to Mays (Robert Patrick), a hard case who makes them play Russian roulette. Aaron and Gabriel — Gabriel especially — manage to talk Mays down and make him think he can come back to Alexandria with them and start over. Aaron is sincere, but Gabriel isn't, and he kills Mays with Aaron's prosthetic mace.

Of all the characters on The Walking Dead, Aaron might be the most consistently good-natured one. He's always tried to help people and is always thoughtful and compassionate, even to killers like Mays. The episode contains little reminders of who Aaron is and always has been, as Reddit user SendEldritchHorrors pointed out on The Walking Dead's subreddit.

"The line Aaron says right before opening the locked door and encountering the boar ('My name is Aaron. I'm a friend.') is exactly what he said to Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) when he first encountered them" in his debut episode, season 5's "Them," the Redditor wrote.

SendEldritchHorrors also pointed out a season 5 callback when Aaron and Gabriel find the burned remains of a family who had seemingly been killed by the Reapers, the season's new bad guys. Aaron looks back with great sadness at the skeletons as he's walking away from them. "This is 100% a callback to Season 5, Episode 13, where Aaron and Daryl (Norman Reedus) try to rescue a horse, only for it to be eaten by walkers; we see Aaron give the same look then, when he's walking away from the dead horse."

"I imagine these allusions to Season 5 Aaron are to illustrate that, in spite of his different appearance" — that is, his big beard and his weapon for a hand — "he's still the same man who wants to help people... making Mays' death at Gabriel's hands all the sadder," SendEldritchHorrors wrote.

It's a salient observation — and one that really sets Aaron up as a counterpoint to Gabriel, who no longer has any idealism. Gabriel has changed a lot over the course of The Walking Dead, while Aaron has not, and the events of this episode feel very true to both of their characters.