Lost veteran Henry Ian Cusick is returning to ABC with a lead role on the network’s untitled Shonda Rhimes pilot. Katie Lowes (CW’s Easy Money) has also joined the project, which revolves around the life and work of professional fixer Olivia Price (Kerry Washington) and her dysfunctional staff. Innovative-repped Cusick will play what is considered by some the male lead on the show, a handsome, intense and brilliant litigator who works for Olivia. Cusick started off as a recurring on Lost, landing a guest starring Emmy nomination for his role as former Scottish solder Desmond Hume, before getting promoted to regular in Season 3 of the island drama. Lowes, repped by Innovative and Sweeney Management, will play an ambitious and naive young lawyer recruited by Olivia to work for her. Lowes guest starred in this season’s opener of Rhimes’ Private Practice.

My Boys co-star Kyle Howard has been tapped as the male lead in the ABC multi-camera comedy pilot Smothered, from Andrew Reich and Ted Cohen. The project centers on young couple Zack (Howard) and Gillian who find themselves smothered by their two very different sets of parents. Howard, who recently signed with UTA, played one of the leads in the pilot for NBC’s Perfect Couples but had to pull out after the pilot was picked up to series because of his commitment to TBS’ My Boys.

Scottie Thompson (Trauma, NCIS) has landed one of the two leads in Ed Bernero’s pilot for ABC Partners, a cop drama centered on two female police detectives, Mattie (Thompson) and Jess, who are fiercely loyal to one another since they’re also secretly half-sisters.