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Who Suffers a 'Desperate' Death and Will it Kill Sheridan's Case?

By Robyn Hagan Cain on March 09, 2012 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

We don’t come across many television spoilers in our line of work. Case law and court transcripts generally don’t contain juicy plot points. Thankfully, the judicial powers-that-be sent us Nicollette Sheridan’s Desperate Housewives lawsuit, and, for once, we have an interesting piece of non-legal gossip: A Desperate Housewives character will die this week.

We read enough People.com to know that television spoilers must occur after the jump so as not to ruin the surprise for readers who like to be surprised. If you want to know who dies, click through and keep reading.

But before we get to the big reveal, let's run through the background in the case.

Nicollette Sheridan played Edie Britt on ABC's Desperate Housewives from 2004 until 2009. Sheridan claims that Housewives Creator Mark Cherry struck her across the head with his open hand during a September 2008 rehearsal after an argument about the script. Sheridan allegedly complained to ABC execs about the altercation. In April 2009, her character was killed, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Sheridan is now at trial in a lawsuit against Cherry and ABC, seeking $4 million in damages for battery and wrongful termination claims.

To support her wrongful termination claim, Sheridan argues that major characters are never killed off primetime shows. That argument might come back to bite her, as Housewives Executive Producer George Perkins revealed in court this week that another major character will die in Sunday's episode.

So who's the unlucky victim?

***SPOILER ALERT ***

It's Mike Delfino, played by James Denton, according to the Los Angeles Times.

We don't watch Desperate Housewives, so we have no idea who this person is or why it's a big deal, but apparently it's huge. The Los Angeles Times reported that the courtroom was collectively stunned and "two female jurors clasped their mouths" when they heard the news. (No word on whether juror either fanned her face or complained of the vapors.)

The big question now is whether this plot twist hurts Sheridan's case. Desperate Housewives is ending this season, so killing a character at this point wouldn't have as much impact on either the show or the actor as Sheridan's character's death did in 2009. Furthermore, Sheridan could claim that ABC and Cherry killed Delfino in a self-serving attempt to undermine her argument that character killing never happens.

Any bets? Will Cherry's plot-shocker save ABC $4 million?

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