THE WALKING DEAD will feature Rick’s former BFF Shane in a Season 9 episode!

Shane is coming back to The Walking Dead… sort of.

Rumors have been swirling since Jon Bernthal, who played Rick’s best friend turned violent steal-yo-girl nemesis on the first two seasons of the show, has been spotted around Norman Reedus‘ and Greg Nicotero‘s restaurant in Senoia, Georgia. Now, TV Line reports that Bernthal will make a one-episode guest appearance in Season 9!

Shane was killed by Rick in Season 2 and briefly turned into a walker, shot down by Carl. This means we’ll almost definitely be seeing either flashbacks or hallucinations of the character. Given that Andrew Lincoln aka Rick Grimes is due to exit the show mid-season (alongside Lauren Cohan aka Maggie Rhee,) one can assume that Shane will play a gut-wrenching role in Rick’s goodbye.

After his Season 2 exit, Bernthal’s Shane made one guest appearance in Rick’s hallucination of a perfect Woodbury in Season 2, but he hasn’t been seen since.

There’s currently no word as to which episode he’ll appear in.