LOSTBLOG -- Trouble in paradise

WARNING: Spoilers after the jump.

"Lost" actor Henry Ian Cusick, along with ABC, is being sued and accused of sexual harassment by a woman who says she was fired from her unspecified job with ABC Entertainment 12 days after reporting Cusick had fondled her. The improprieties are said to have occurred in October of 2007, during filming for the show's fourth season.

Whether this is true or not, I can't help but think we've been down this road before -- remember what happened to Libby and Ana Lucia after Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Watros got busted for DUI? (Of course, Daniel Dae Kim also got a DUI, but he only appeared to be dead.)

Now here's where we enter spoiler territory.

Though it may be a stretch to assume a harassment suit will lead to an actor's demise a la the Season 2 DUIs, the news about Henry Ian Cusick does come three weeks before a Season 5 finale in which a major character is supposed to die. And by major, I mean "regular cast member" major. Kristin Dos Santos at E! has already confirmed the victim won't be Jack or Sayid, and says in her original post that Kate is safe. When I first heard this news in March, I tried to think of the most shocking death possible and decided that Hugo Reyes would no longer be with us for Season 6.

But now, Desmond is the logical choice. Though the finale was written and filmed weeks ago, the producers at "Lost" surely knew legal action against ABC and Cusick was imminent.

So let's assume Desmond goes back to Ms. Hawking after his little run-in with Ben at the docks. Des finds out where the island will be and somehow makes his way back. He crashes there in 2007 -- where Ben, Sun and John are piecing together their latest puzzle -- and has every intention of killing Ben. But someone kills Desmond first.

It would be safe to assume that Ben would kill Desmond, but if Locke is really going to inherit Ben's position, Ben's cachet as leader of the Others, wouldn't it make more sense for him to be the one that kills Desmond? That might change everything. If Locke were to become a "bad guy," killing the father of Charles Widmore's grandson, the inevitable war for the island that awaits us in Season 6 could take on a whole new layer of complexity. And that's exciting. Too bad that potential excitement may have been born from an ugly incident in real life. Oh, that pesky reality ...

But that's all rampant speculation. What I know for sure about May 13's finale is that it's called "The Incident," referring to whatever happened that led to the creation of the Swan Station protocol (aka pushing the button). I also know that we're finally, finally going to meet Jacob.

Of course, we still have two episodes before the finale. "The Variable," a Daniel Faraday flashback episode, airs this Wednesday.