Was James in fact kicked off? I remember reading something about one of the showrunners mentioning that they don't know if he'll be back since he's now on Sleepy Hollow (although his character is now dead). Maybe they were just being cagey...
Jim and Dave confirmed that James' character Eric IS dead. Eric's storyline ended with 3.02. Unless he had an unexpected twin James is out.
Well, he's still quite busy, his role on Grimm was ended because of his work on "The White Queen", then came "Sleepy Hollow", after that "The Tunnel" and now he just finished "The Architect". It's not like he absolutely needed the role, he enjoyed playing Eric and wanted to come back.
Sleepy Hollow is a weird thing. I guess he was first suspected to play the Sineater there as he mentioned he would play again a recurring character. I don't know if I'm right but it was kind of weird that his character was dead then.
I remember reading something about the actor wanting to do other projects, and that he wasn't really on Grimm enough to justify sticking around which is why the writers decided to kill off the character ... or maybe I just imagined that.
It's a shame that we couldn't have more Eric and Sean rivalry, but I'm glad to see Frain on things like Sleepy Hollow. And if the showrunners really do want him back, they can always say he faked his death or something.
"I can feed the caterpillar, I can whisper through the chrysalis, but what hatches follows its own nature and is beyond me."
-- Hannibal (TV show)