Was Michele Lee Right?

[Seaviewer]

I misremembered her as being absent for an episode before the reveal that she had been kidnapped.

 

[Stillwitty]

They probably originally wrote Karen's visit with Diana occurring off-camera (as ML's "non-appearing" episodes) but once ML offered to appear at the cut rate, they decided not to rewrite, but instead to just "follow Karen to New York" and have CL do a guest-star gig to make it meaningful.

Probably correct, since her "leaving Mack" was too dramatic and extreme a measure after 10 years of marriage for him essentially being in a bad mood. She was probably written to take an extended break in NYC as an excuse to write her out of the script. Just as Mack "went fishing" then showed up at Gary's with his catch.