Adz, I seriously love you.
I don't know what to think of the hypothesis, though. I mean, I does seem quite valid, but a little too... how do I put this... in depth and thoughtful for it to be any explanation TPTB would use. Unfortunately, I think we're often more engaged in the characters' motivations and feelings more than those who are responsible for helping mold them.
That said, I do think that loss triggers something in human beings, and in Gil's case that could have been part of it. However, I wonder if it could have just been something more simple, like a mid-life crisis.
I know that sounds cheesy beyond belief, but Gil doesn't seem to undergo any great change in the show leading up to his burnout, as you said. I do think that we were supposed to see him even more burned out in other episodes, and it got caught. However, I saw him more passionate about letting Paul Milander go than he was about the miniature killer.
I mean, if you look at his life, things were going pretty well. He had the love of his life literally in his arms. No longer was he wandering aimlessly in his love life, turning away from the one person whose beaming light welcomed him. Something just sort of snapped inside of him, and I legitimately think it was burnout.
Mr. Petersen has often said the Gil felt a little unecessary, like he wasn't needed anymore as a teacher, like he was losing sight of himself. I mean, that to me sounds like a perfectly plausible explanation without any great event.
Please don't get me wrong, I like you idea a LOT. I'm just playing devil's advocate and arguing a different, and hopefully also valid idea.
I think Gil just got to a point where he felt like he wasn't as useful, and he started to feel like he wasn't needed by those around him. We already saw in season 5 that Gil's prized student, Sara, had grown up to take care of others. Warrick and Nick are no longer constantly looking for his approval, and Catherine's basically getting things together in her life, as well. Even Greg, the baby, is showing some chutzpah and working through his own life-problems. Gil starts to feel useless, and then he's bombarded with this case he can't break.
So, he's already feeling invalid and rusty when a case comes before him, and he can't crack it no matter how long he tries to work at it. I do think he comes home from his sabatical fresh and ready to try again, hence his idea to construct his own mini. However, I think that Gil reached a point coming up the sabatical when he saw an opportunity to get away and refocus.... There were kids who needed him, and it wouldn't be for long.
In his mind, it was just a quick trip, but he'd be useful. He'd be there for kids and he'd be furthering their education using that wealth of information inside his head. It was something in his specialty, something that he could feel comfortable in, and he needed that because his home for so many years was evolving and changing too fast for him to keep up.
That's why he didn't see a problem with leaving and not telling Sara, in my mind. I tihnk he just thought it was a quick trip, and expected her to understand it the way he did. I mean, yes he loves her and he's grown a lot, but he's still Grissom, and he's still going to have brainfarts as all men have. Yes, I just wrote "brainfart." There's no better word for it.
I love my husband DEARLY, but every now and then he'll just assume something that makes no sense to me. After all these years, he still sometimes just assumes that I'll be ok with something, when I'm not. Sure, he doesn't run off for six weeks, but it's the basic same principal on a smaller scale.
So, I think that Grissom's sabatical and burn out could just be the result, not so much of being worn out by a case, but of feeling useless, and then feeling even more inept due to the complexity of the case.
I even said earlier, and so did you, Adz, that he used to handle things like this on a daily basis all on his own. But, due to his stress and issues with inadequacy, he's unable to perform to his top ability, in his mind. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. He's just set himself up and psyched himself out, and he's frustrated he can't crack it because he thinks it shows a deficit in his abilities as a crime scene investigator.
I mean, I remember when he went through the whole hearing-loss thing, and he just struggled so immensely to hide it because he didn't want people to know he was struggling. I bet he didn't tell Sara, partially, for the same reason.
Anyway, I've rambled on, but I love you for posing a conversation topic that's so engaging!!! I can definitely see your POV on this, but I do think it could have been something just.... that happened, that evolved, rather than one big event that changed his world.
