Yes, the beloved talking canine who met his demise in the Nov. 24 episode will pop back up on the animated Fox comedy in the Dec. 15 installment. (Network declined to comment.) How exactly Brian — who is voiced by Seth MacFarlane — will re-emerge from the land of the dead is unknown, but he will continue to play a role. (In an episode slated to run next fall, for example, he becomes enamored with an avid runner, played by Maya Rudolph.)

For those who missed the Nov. 24 episode, Brian was given a proper burial after being run over by a car. Stewie, who had destroyed his time machine, was unable to acquire a titanium capacitor to build another device, preventing him from changing the course of events on that fateful day. And the Griffins kickstarted the moving-on process by getting a new dog, Vinny (voiced by Tony Sirico). “We thought it could be a fun way to shake things up,” executive producer Steve Callaghan said of the decision to off Brian. “As soon as this idea came up, we started talking about what the next couple episodes could be and we got very excited about the way this change will affect the family dynamics and the characters.”