I do feel like they USED to deal with it a bit— Caroline and Elena were un-compelled when they became vampires. Jeremy got pissed that Elena asked Damon to compel him. I think the general attitude is, "Compulsion is totally fucked up if you do it to a regular, but necessary if you're doing it to a human bloodbag."

Also the Gilbert parents, Tyler's parents, Caroline's dad, Isobel, Vicky, Pearl, Anna . . .

I'm neither disturbed nor surprised. In S1 and S2, they had to hide from the Council. In S3, Alaric called Sheriff Forbes and Mayor Lockwood out on the fact that there's a conflict of interest at play, but then they let Klaus move in and . . . nobody's really cared about vampires since. The council quite literally…

Fuck, I'd let anyone on TVD be my doctor. "You have a cold? Here, take one drop of vampire blood and it'll go away. Crow's feet? Fuck, you should have had a drop and offed yourself ten years ago. Too bad for you, you fucking old. We don't allow YOU PEOPLE on The CW."

It brought to mind that scene in Labyrinth where the witchy-looking goblin shows Sarah her old room and it's just an oasis in a dump. There's probably all kinds of weird shit going on outside of their little bubble, and the bubble itself has an odd vibe as well. I'm guessing Bree will burst in at any moment.

Yeah, his exit from the show was so perfect (character moment for Damon who mourns his best friend and the woman he loves, Elena turns into a vampire, Alaric's two personalities die within 3 episodes); bringing him back just cheapens everything that happened in the wonderful S3. I feel like they're re-establishing the…

Carrie, thank you so much for your wonderful coverage of this show. I stopped lurking and started commenting here due in part to your reviews, and to the rest of you wonderful people. For that matter, I'm pretty sure I only watched S5 to see what you guys thought of it. Now that I won't have that option, I may just…

I also don't think it's THAT bad. I mean, there have been letters here from pedophiles asking how to control their urges. Virginity is fetishized in certain circles, so it's hardly surprising that people have a fetish for it.

Were they waiting for the iPhone 6 or something?

http://aattp.org/conservati…

When you someone eat supper before burlapping.

Exactly. Never make a promise you don't intend to keep.

Nope. I'd probably tell the wife to find someone else if she was getting jealous.

It could have been, but I think the subtext here is "If your partner is depressed enough to gain a significant amount of weight, maybe having an affair, even with permission, won't really do much to address the depression."

Good point about it being something she may have wanted but been afraid to ask for. Maybe her sex drive was flagging in part because she wasn't satisfied with one partner.

I get the impression that she was depressed, because gaining that much weight is usually a sign that something is wrong. THAT was the real problem— she was probably going through something emotionally, and rather than trying to be there for her, he focused on how it was impacting HIM. I think depression can account…

I am so sorry you had to go through that. I agree with all the other advice given thus far regarding therapy and so on.

Lying . . .

Honestly, that's probably about as good as his advice, if not better. "Feeling awkward about meeting new people? WHY NOT GO TO A SEX PARTY? SPECIFICALLY, MY SEX PARTY? THAT WON'T BE AWKWARD AT ALL!"

And a discussion of jinderalls?