The Walking Dead: Seth Gilliam is Father Gabriel Stokes

The Wire's Seth Gilliam, who has been assumed for some time to be playing Father Gabriel Stokes in the upcoming fifth season of AMC's The Walking Dead, has been spotted on the set of the hit drama wearing a clerical collar.

You can see the shot on Imgur, via the Spoil the Dead forums. Registration is required for the latter, but the former popped up on our Google News feed's image search.

This almost certainly confirms the rumors. Unless a new character is created for the TV series, there's only the one African-American priest in Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard's long-running comic book series.

There's been speculationi that Father Gabriel would show up for quite some time; he first appeared in the comics right around the same point that many of the events from the second half of Season Four were taking place, and many fans believe that the car that kidnapped Beth Greene near the end of last season had a cross in its back window, pointing to Stokes as the obvious choice for who had taken her.

Father Gabriel lives alone, holed up in a church, when we first meet him in the comics; his fear over the zombie apocalypse led him to turn away members of his flock when they came seeking sanctuary, which allowed him to survive but left him tortured by guilt. In the comics, he joins Rick Grimes' group of survivors and goes on the road with them to Washington, DC.

The Walking Dead Season Five will start in October on AMC.