The Walking Dead Adds The Wire Alum Seth Gilliam As A Series Regular
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Well that didn’t take very long at all. Season four of AMC’s hit zombie drama The Walking Dead is barely in the books, but that has never stopped the producers from moving forward, and the series has already added another cast member for season five. And yet again, they’ve poached some talent from HBO’s The Wire. I guess it isn’t really poaching, since The Wire is dead and gone, but they’re definitely mining that talent pool. Seth Gilliam, who played detective Ellis Carver on the classic cop show, has been cast as a series regular next season. In addition to this news, Telltale Games has also released some new screenshots of the newest installment of their The Walking Dead video game.
Deadline reports that Gilliam, who has done turns on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Teen Wolf in his years since The Wire wrapped up, will play a character named Michael Todd. That isn’t his real name, which is being kept under lock and key, but the report speculates that he could be Gabriel Stokes, a priest who joins the crew, that is assuming they get out of that sticky situation in Terminus in one piece.
It is possible Gilliam could be Gabriel. A black man in his 30s, he certainly fits the role in that regard, but that’s where the similarities end. The character is described as “having two sides, displaying a friendly, puckish humor but also having a haunted side stemming from a dark secret.” Gabriel certainly has multiple parts to his personality, as well as his fair share of lingering darkness, but calling him “puckish” and saying he has any sense of humor at all is a bit of a stretch.
If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say he’s most likely going to be one of the residents of the Alexandria Safe-Zone that the group comes to once they abandon the road to Washington D.C. There are a wide array of characters among the residents, and he could easily fit into the puzzle there. Then again, he could just as easily be someone else, and the show could tweak the Gabriel character into something a little different. They’ve shown time and again that they’re not above altering the source material to fit their needs.
Gilliam joins other Wire alums Chad L. Coleman, who plays the series incarnation of Tyreese, and Lawrence Gilliard Jr.’s Bob Stookey. Now all we need is for them to get Herc or McNulty in on the fun and we’ve got a full-blown reunion on our hands. Maybe by the time we get a few more season in, all of the cast members will be replaced by actors from The Wire. I feel like surviving life in the Baltimore underworld has given them a decent shot at making it through the zombie apocalypse. Maybe that’s the plot of the spin-off they’re working on.
I haven’t played it, but Telltale’s Walking Dead video game has garnered almost universal acclaim. Multiple people who are fans of Robert Kirkman’s comics have said the game tells the story the way they wish AMC’s show did. Working up to the release of Season 2, Episode 3, which they’ve titled “In Harm’s Way,” the game designer has unveiled a collection of new screenshots from the game, and they look fantastic. There’s everything you want out of a world like this, zombie peril, guts and gore, and some grim, grizzled looking survivors. There’s no word on when the game will be released, but we’ll let you know when we get word.
