"One thing I was certain of though was that Sachi and I didn’t have a romantic relationship. We never slept in the same bed together, never cuddled with each other, talk about love or even look at each other. "

All of that Kirito hax was amazing. I was pretty much laughing out loud at how ridiculously OP he was during the "ambush".

Lawl at the ambush guild, they really should lrn2lvl instead of just ambushing weaker players. Oh well, they'll spend a long time in the black prison now.

So... next episode is Inner Area Incident.

Is there another good chance to introduce <Laughing Coffin> then that? They are going to want to set a premise about them long before incidents on the 74th floor.

I don't really consider that a problem. Laughing coffin gets a very brief explaination in the first volume, and I think it did fine. All the viewers really need to know is that they're a murdering guild that got taken down by the clearing group a while back. Laughing coffin didn't really become a big deal till stuff way after the 4th volume. Heck, the "murder" case side-story didn't even exist until volume 8, and it didn't really introduce anything vital. It just fleshed out the whole Asuna/Kirito napping on a nice day thing, and then showed the three main laughing coffin members at the end. And then Xaxa made that stupid comment about wanting to ride a horse(that part made me face-palm so hard).

It just fleshed out the whole Asuna/Kirito napping on a nice day thing

This right here is why they're doing it. Instead of just flashbacking to that incident with something later, they're going to do the situation that caused Asuna to start looking at Kirito in a different light as it happened in the timeline.

Ah man, that's like 3 minutes of actual content. If you're right, that's just silly. Especially since this epesode's gonna need 2 episodes if it wants to land anywhere close to good.

-Checking out the wall with the all the names on it to confirm that the guy was dead (which lead to something pretty interesting).
-All the scenes involving Schmitt up until the meeting with everyone at the inn room.
-Kirito and Asuna experimenting with the game mechanics.
-And most notably, the meeting with freaking Hiethcliff!! That scene had a really interesting discussion. Not to mention the fact that...

I think it did a fair job explaining the first half. Them not checking the wall is going to make a certain event next episode seem out of place, if they do indeed follow the same path...

Also, yeah, they need to stop delaying Heathcliff's introduction.

They did leave out the fact that Yoruko had the box holding the ring from when Griselda died, which is what spawned the whole idea to expose the true murderer. Leaving out the fact that Kains' real name is Caynes, and the fact that the real Kains died a year ago on that day was an oversight though, especially with how fast Asuna and Kirito were able to properly track Yoruko with the menu.

Oh well, we know they're leaving small details out by this point. Overall, they got the point across.