This Friday, CBS’s Ghost Whisperer airs its 100th episode, and next week the stars will go to work on their fifth season finale, to air in mid-May. The stars and producers came together Monday night in Hollywood to celebrate their milestone. I was there too – and left with a goodie bag of scoops.

“‘Explosive’ is the word I would like to use for our 100th episode,” previews star/producer Jennifer Love Hewitt, who also directed the installment. “There will be an unexpected death of someone you may not want to see die and this death puts everyone in jeopardy.”

This being Ghost Whisperer, you can expect this killed-off character (not a series regular) to return in some form.

The finale, titled “The Children’s Parade,” will wrap up the season-long Shadows storyline involving Melinda’s five-year-old son, Aidan. “The connection of Aidan, Melinda, the Shinies (who will turn out to be the crossed-over spirits of children here to protect Aidan and Melinda) and the Shadows will come to a climax,” teases executive producer Ian Sander, with fellow EP Kim Moses adding, “There’s going to be a lot of action from the dark side and you’re going to have a lot of answers to some mysteries about the intersection of the living and the dead.”

Series creator John Gray will direct the episode, which he describes as “one of the show’s scariest. It’s basically about a haunting at a hospital by the ghosts of kids from an abandoned polio ward in the early 1900′s. They go on a march every night.”

Love adds that her spooked-out character, “will realize just how little she knows about what her son knows – and that’s scary for her. Because if she can’t see it then she can’t save him from it.”

Guest star Margaret Cho will be back for two more episodes this season as a teacher of the occult who works alongside Eli. “She’s going to help solve some crimes,” says Sander.

“She’s so amazing; so dirty and I love it,” raves Love of Cho. “We have so much fun together.”

Also guest starring in an upcoming episode: The Shield actress Catherine Dent as a boozy ghost named Laura. “It was really fun playing a drunk,” says Catherine, “because I could show up to work looking like crap.”

Love helming the 100th turned out to be a real treat for the cast. Christoph Sanders, who plays Ned, says, “she has a knack of getting us wrapped about three hours earlier than other directors. No matter how hard the day is, she never has us work more than ten or twelve hours as opposed to sixteen.”

“She knows all my week spots, so she protects me,” adds Love’s co-star and real-life love, Jamie Kennedy. “She knows I’m not a great actor before 11 am, so she made sure to shoot everyone else first before coming to me.”