As we expected he would, Brian (The Griffins' family dog) will be back on Family Guy.

While the show created an uproar amongst longtime fans and ignited faux-outrage from people who stopped watching five years ago when Brian died on the Nov. 24 episode, Entertainment Weekly is reporting that he will be back on Dec. 15.

Although the method of his return is unknown, the most popular hypothesis centers around Stewie's time machine, which was actually at the core of the story line leading up to Brian's demise.

The Dec. 15 episode, titled "Christmas Guy," provides this lone description: "Stewie devises a master plan to get the one and only thing he wants for Christmas."

We also already know that Maya Rudolph is slated to make a guest stint on the show next fall and that Brian goes to extravagant means to impress her character.

Considering that Fox's animated series are produced nine months to a year in advance—as evidenced by the Rudolph episode, it's clear this was always the plan and not necessarily the result of fan petitions. Following Brian's "death," executive producer Steve Callaghan told E! that the idea to kill Brian "got pitched in the writers' room and it sort of caught fire, and we thought it could be a fun way to shake things up."