And finally the vampires are back to eating people.  Elena, Damon, even Klaus bit someone.  Yay for vampires being vampires on a vampire show.

Matt ends up being the parental-figure to all these crazy, overly-hormonal, permanently-teenaged vampires?  I would definitely watch that show.

You just fixed this episode for me, thanks.  That's a perfect argument.

Agree on Lexi — I like her when she's working with Stefan, but scenes between her and Damon are almost always bad.

He knows about blood banks for the same reason that Finn spoke English despite being daggered for 900 years — hand wave, hand wave.

@SatelliteInternetIsSkynet from now on I will think of TVD time as Cookie Time.

Ugh, the Haley/Klaus stuff. It felt so forced the whole time - shoe-horned into the show as an intro to the spin-off. Tonkin is gorgeous. Morgan is gorgeous. Together they just fall flat. I could tell from the beginning of the ep that they'd get together and I found it very frustrating and forced and really kinda…

I think he can be anyone at this point - he was Shane while he was still alive, right?

Super good list. I had some of these in my head, but you found even more. Everyone is getting dumped upside down by switched off Elena.

Denial is Caroline's best friend right now. If he hadn't left that note, she might have left him voicemails till the finale. Hell, she still might.

I regret that I can only like this once.

1. Damon using the sire bond early in the ep was super douchey. Ok, it's always douchey, but this seemed more extremeextreme. Something was just over-the-top patronizing in the way he said it (although his voice was weird all ep - sounded like Somerhaulder had a bad cold or something).

Yup, I think she's grasping at anything that let's her pretend he's gone for a short while. Total denial of the situation. I don't find the calls annoying, just sad.

Vampire Elena from the rest of this season just seems so flat and lifeless. She's way more interesting in this ep than she has been. And I don't think it's Dobrev's fault at all, I think they're just writing her really poorly.

As long as she keeps her mouth shut — that accent is terrible.

When I realized it was his house I threw both hands in the air - Matt gets to have hot showers again! Victory!

The whole ep I was thinking Rebekah was actually Silas (Rilas?) there to figure out what the gang is up to. Something just seemed weirdly off about her the whole time, plus it seemed odd for Shane to just die offscreen with one line of explanation.

Sometimes, AVClub, I think you're a little crazy.  I read the review for this before I watched the episode, so I went in thinking this was going to be dreadful.  Nope.  Not nearly as bad as that season opener — which screamed "look look look we can still do this la la la!"

Eh.  They're vampires.  The Salvatores probably have more money than god between them, just from being alive so long.  And they can always compel people to give them stuff.

@avclub-979a78536c56bfb5b2130655c1fdb31a:disqus He already did, right? He moved in to help Jeremy a few episodes ago.  
So really she burned down his home too.  Altogether heartless of her.