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You had to figure this would happen. That with the rapid clip at which sexual assault allegations have been unearthed and brought forward during the #MeToo movement, we’d end up with an Oscar contender taken down in the middle of an awards campaign. There was almost a cosmic prophecy to it, given that this all kicked off with the downfall of Harvey Weinstein, the biggest Oscar guy on the block.

So now we have James Franco, fresh off of a Golden Globe win for his performance as Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist, in line to get a Best Actor nomination at the Oscar for same. But pretty much while he was giving his acceptance speech at the Beverly Hilton, James Franco’s walls were crumbling down via accusations leveled on Twitter that have now been backed up by an article in the Los Angeles Times wherein five women accuse Franco of “inappropriate or sexually exploitative behavior,” much of it stemming from his position as a film director and/or acting school proprietor. While not reaching the depths of the Weinstein accusations, which included violent rape, the Times article paints Franco as a decidedly scummy guy who used his position of authority to coerce women into sex acts, cast acting students in myriad topless roles, and on one occasion remove a plastic guard from atop an actress’s genitals before simulating oral sex on her for a scene.

Franco appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Wednesday night, where the late-night host wasted no time in asking Franco directly and intently about the accusations. Franco’s responses — basically that he says the accusations aren’t true but he thinks it’s important that they’re aired out because: feminism, which is why he isn’t specifically refuting them nor contacting, say, Ally Sheedy, who tweeted that he behaved poorly while directing her in a play — left a lot to be desired.

So the next question is for what looms down the road, specifically for the Oscar nominations, which get announced on January 23rd. The Franco accusations came out during the one-week window where Oscar voters are filling out their ballots. Ballots were mailed out to Oscar voters on January 5th are are due tomorrow, the 12th. It’s a hell of a timeline:

January 5th – Oscar ballots sent out
January 7th – Franco wins Golden Globe; accusatory tweets are posted
January 9th/10th – Franco appears on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Late Night with Seth Meyers and is asked about the accusations
January 11th – Los Angeles Times article
January 12th – Oscar ballots due

Anecdotally, it’s long been said that the majority of Oscar voters fill out their ballots and send them in right away, and while there’s no proof of this, if it’s true, that could mean that most voters cast their Best Actor votes without knowing anything about the Franco allegations. So basically: if Franco was already in line for a nomination, it’s less likely that these allegations would have an impact on that.

There’s also the fact that the allegations about sexual misconduct against Casey Affleck were widely known at this time last year, and not only did he get nominated anyway, but he won Best Actor. Now, whether Affleck would have been nominated/won had his scandals come to light under the increased vigilance of the current #MeToo environment is hard to say for sure, though you have to imagine that would be a really tough sell in this environment.

Certainly, Franco will have no shot at winning an Oscar with this kind of dark cloud over his head. Particularly because so much of his alleged bad behavior came via his position as a filmmaker. There’s even a scene in The Disaster Artist where Tommy Wiseau treats his lead actress poorly during the filming of a sex scene. It’s going to be damn hard to watch that scene again without having Franco’s real-life scummy behavior not bleed into our minds. But also, let’s be honest: Franco was never going to win this year anyway. The nomination will be his reward. That’s the problem, too. The nomination could be seen as the Academy rewarding Franco despite his bad behavior, even if the votes were cast before that bad behavior was brought to light.

Assuming we don’t have a significant enough percentage of Oscar voters who a) are turned off enough by the Franco accusations to lop him off their ballots, and b) those voters haven’t already mailed in their picks, there would seem to be only two methods of recourse available to the situation. Either the Oscars’ board of governors would move to rescind Franco’s nomination, an unprecedented move that would set a far-reaching precedent that would likely include calls to rescind past nominations/Oscars from anyone accused of sexual misconduct. Not going to happen. The other option would lie with Franco himself, who could decline the nomination, either by taking his name out of the running before nominations are announced or after he’s (likely) nominated. The ball may very well end up in his court.