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Fans said goodbye to a veteran member of the "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" family during Sunday's (Feb. 12) Season 15 finale. Nick Stokes (George Eads) made his decision to leave the team after getting an offer to head up his own lab in San Diego. Eads departure from the show leaves Jorja Fox (Sara Sidle) as the only original "CSI" character to still be on the show. However, as showrunner Don McGill explains to Zap2it, Nick Stokes has reached the full circle of his evolution.

"I hope fans will embrace what we embrace -- which is the evolution of the Nick Stokes character from Season 1 through Season 15 now. We first met Nick as a young CSI who was clearly being mentored by [Gil] Grissom [William Peterson]," McGill explains. "With Grissom leaving, Nick in many ways inherited the role of Grissom -- not just in his forensic expertise but just kind of in his role as heart and soul of the team."

Peterson's character Grissom left the show in the Season 9 finale. Though Grissom is still married to Sarah Sidle his character also evolved out of the crime lab. Now it seem that Stokes and Eads will do the same.

"I think we came up with a pretty great finale to the serial killer arc for the season with Mark-Paul Gosselaar -- but a big part of the finale is saying goodbye to Nick Stokes and George," McGill says. "I think there [was] a really great emotional kind of tear jerker ending, even as we have a little bit of a cliffhanger going. I hope people will really embrace the duality of that finale."

Though Eads is leaving the show as a regular that doesn't mean that fans should give up on ever seeing him again. McGill certainly isn't closing any doors.

"At least it's goodbye for now," he says. At least the idea of a reunion in the future will bring solace to fans who are sad to see Eads depart the show.

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'CSI' Season 15 finale: George Eads completes Nick Stokes' character evolution