Ummm, could we agree to keep speculations on people's private lives out of this thread? I'm fine with speculations on why LE left the show as long as those are speculations of a professional nature (pay cuts, other professional contracts, less screen time during the coming season, etc.). Send anything that goes over and above that via PM to the person(s) involved in the discussion, please.

As for the timing, Brighid meant the Christmas hiatus, I think, and there was already a massive re-write of the season opener. The original, 'Thunder Roadtrip' had identical text for the team/Richardson plot, but a completely different House/Cuddy plot.