Actor Feels `Lost’ After Season Finale

"Lost" star Harold Perrineau is questioning whether race was a factor in the decision to kill off his character, the traitorous Michael Dawson, in the season finale of the ABC drama.

"Listen, if I’m being really candid, there are all these questions about how they respond to black people on the show," Perrineau dished to TV Guide. "Sayid gets to meet Nadia again, and Desmond and Penny hook up again, but a little black boy and his father hooking up, that wasn’t interesting?"

The actor, who left the show in season two, was brought back this March – but Perrineau says he was never told producers planned to kill Michael off in the season finale.

"I had no idea," he said. "It’s like, `What the hell?’ I felt like, `Was that it? I came back for that?’ "

The death of his character left his onscreen son, Walt, "another fatherless child," Perrineau said.

"It plays into a really big, weird stereotype and, being a black person myself, that wasn’t so interesting."

"Lost" executive producer Carlton Cuse defended the decision to kill off Michael.

"We pride ourselves on having a very racially diverse cast," he said. "It’s painful when any actor’s story line ends on the show. Harold is a fantastic actor whose presence added enormously to `Lost.’ "

Perrineau later clarified his position, telling Entertainment Weekly that he was not "bitter," just disappointed in his TV swan song.

"I should probably think before I say things," he said. "I should especially think before I say anything racial, because I recognize that when you make a racial comment it polarizes people."