Alaric Saltzman may be dead (moment of silence, fans...), but Julie Plec has made it clear in a new interview that one of the history teacher's final acts will play a key role on The Vampire Diaries Season 4 premiere.

The Vampire Diaries Season 4 Trailer 

The Vampire Diaries Season 4 Trailer

Other tidbits/spoilers revealed by Plec include:

• Delena supporters should especially look forward to episode four of the new season: “There’s a really interesting moment between Damon and Elena where she’s acting a little bit out of character and they both get caught up in a moment."
• Klaus will quickly return to his body... and continue to cause problems moving Forwood: "Things are going to be evolving and changing for all points of all triangles on this show.”
• Bonnie will desperately try to prevent Elena from transitioning. We somehow doubt she'll succeed.
• Hot vampire sex may be on the way between Elena and a mystery man, but it doesn't go down on either of the first two episodes at least.
• We'll see various Originals return throughout the season... but should we NOT refer to them as Originals? "Esther’s creation of the original vampires was predicated on a spell that she already had, so where did she get that? And what does that mean?” asks Plec. “Does it mean that there are vampires that pre-date the original vampires?”
• Look for Klaus to have some kind of agenda that involves the new hunter in town.

Which of these storyline has you most excited? Who might be involved in the aforementioned death sequence? And, seriously, how much will you miss Alaric?!? Sound off now.