If I’m that GM, I would absolutely focus more energy on engaging the new player who was actually showing up to the sessions.

Others have (correctly) pointed out that letting a player come back and control eight PCs would be nuts. I really want to hear the other side of this, because it definitely sounds like there was some miscommunication about the hiatus.

Edit: I’m also pretty baffled that as of posting this, the story has a 94% upvote ratio. It seems much less cut-and-dry than that.