Just as Caroline Forbes and Stefan Salvatore were enjoying a few hours of wedded bliss, Katherine Pierce sent two Donovans to kick-start her plan to take down Mystic Falls with hellfire on the penultimate episode of “The Vampire Diaries.”
Katherine’s already caused havoc through hell escapee Kelly Donovan, who blew up the mansion Caroline and Stefan’s wedding was held at (Kelly also stabbed her ex, Peter Donovan!).
And while that chaos kept the Salvatore brothers and their friends occupied, another escapee from the bad place — Vicky Donovan — started ringing the Maxwell bell to unleash the hellfire. The ringing seemed to be the reason Bonnie collapsed at the end of last week’s episode, bleeding as Stefan held her.
Friday night’s series finale, titled “I Was Feeling Epic,” is the last battle for Stefan, Damon and the gang. We’ll also see the return of Nina Dobrev as Elena Gilbert and as the show’s final villain – the back-on-Earth Katherine Pierce.
In a new interview with AccessHollywood.com, Executive Producer Julie Plec, who wrote the episode with fellow EP Kevin Williamson (she directed it too), shared hints about what we’ll see from the Mystic Falls gang in Friday’s “The Vampire Diaries” series finale on The CW.
AccessHollywood.com: Directing this episode and that being on your shoulders — did you feel more pressure because you were directing the series finale?
Julie Plec: I felt pressure, but not in a bad way. … Directing’s always a race against the clock. You’re always trying to get things done and [there’s] not enough time to get them done perfectly. So for me, it was just making sure that I didn’t miss anything, one — because you have no opportunity to go back and fix it; two — because there’s no such thing as short shrifting a moment when you’re wrapping up a series of eight years. That being said, I still had to accomplish it in the time I was allotted, so there were some stressful days and a few extra hours here and there, but when all is said and done, we had saved our pennies properly and managed our time properly, and we were able to give it everything it needed.
Access: … I want to get into a little bit of the story line. … Poor Bonnie Bennett – [she] was left bleeding at the end of last week’s episode. Can it get any worse for her? She’s been through so much. Poor Bonnie!
Plec: You know what, Bonnie’s been through a lot, and she’s also done a lot of really extraordinary things for herself and for others, and people can look at her like she’s a martyr or people can look at her like she’s a hero. Heroes bleed, you know? And I think that she’s had to suffer a lot, as has everybody, and I’m rooting for her to see the other side of it, and then live a long and happy life — but we’ll have to wait and see.
Access: I know. We’ll have to wait and see, especially with what Enzo said. It sounds like they’re not going to be together for a while. [In the last episode, he said,] ‘Live your life,’ which I think crushed me when that scene happened. Can you give us any hope that there could be some more sweet scenes between our lovely #BonEnzo in the finale? They are so good together.
Plec: That’s been my absolute favorite relationship over the last couple years. I love them. I love them together, I love the power and the fierceness of their love for each other. I love it even in the midst of all the tragedy they’ve had to experience, and the loss. I think it’s a beautiful relationship and it’s one of those relationships that will stay with Bonnie for all eternity, even as she grows old, possibly, and dies. So, I don’t think it’s the last we’ll see of him.
Access: How much [of] Nina [Dobrev] are we going to get in the finale? … Obviously she’s playing two characters. … Is there quite a lot of her?
Plec: Yeah, I mean, it’s by no means a single day appearance. She was with us for six days. She shot the complete episode and so I think fans will be really happy to see as much of her as they’re going to get to see.
Access: How about Damon — how’s he going to react? Do we need to have the tissues ready for when Damon sees Elena again?
Plec: I think Damon — poor Damon is just so shell-shocked. He thought he had 80 years ahead of him to like, get his sh** together, and so suddenly that’s cut short. He’s probably more stunned than anything else.
Access: You had said on Twitter — I was following you when you were doing a Q&A not too long ago — and I think you said there was like a teeny, teeny, tiny reference to ‘The Originals’ in the finale. Is it Klaus-related related since he’s in the summary [trailer]?
Plec: It is. That’s all I’ll say on it. It is, but it does not involve a look at Joseph Morgan because he unfortunately was not available to join us.
Access: Well, also, his character is behind a wall on ‘The Originals.’
Plec: Correct (laughs).
Access: [In the writers room,] were there lots of ideas on the table or did you guys know where you were going to go? It’s so hard to craft a series finale to close the story. That’s a lot of weight on your shoulders.
Plec: It is, but we had a year to figure it out and every time we talked bout an episode we would end up in a conversation about where we could see the character going and ending. And so we had probably dozens of different versions of the ending over the course of the year, always though knowing emotionally what we wanted to accomplish and how we wanted to make the audience feel and how we wanted to honor the characters. So, the fate of each individual character shifted tens and twenties of times, but our desire to respect each character’s journey was unwavering.
Access: Do we have a little time for Stefan and Caroline to have any sort of honeymoon in this episode?
Plec: (laughs) No, you know what’s so funny? What’s so funny is there was one scene in the first act when everybody’s running around realizing that they’re all doomed, where Stefan and Caroline have a very sweet moment about, ‘I guess this our wedding night.’ And she says, ‘I love you Mr. Salvatore,’ and he says, ‘I love you, Mrs. Forbes-hyphen-Salvatore.’ And, she’s so thrilled because they had never talked about her name change. And he says, ‘I know who I married.’ And it’s such a cute, beautiful little scene and we were nine minutes over and everything had to go and so it hit the cutting room floor, which is a shame. Maybe somebody will restore it later.
Access: Yes! … That’s how I should wrap this interview up is just asking you if there’s any other things that made the cutting room floor that you’d love for people to know about, that won’t spoil too much about what’s going to happen?
Plec: You know, honestly, people [talk about] oh, my director’s cut was so great. No, the cut that we’re airing is great. The nine minutes that hit the cutting room floor were all beautiful moments in a show filled with beautiful moments and while I wish that people were able to see them, I didn’t have to cut any plot, I didn’t have to cut any big character moments, I didn’t have to cut anyone’s story. I just cut lines of dialogue and little moments here and there. And yes, it would be nice to be able to show them off, but the story remains intact, which was the goal.
Access: [Lastly] tell me there are lots between Stefan and Damon in the finale.
Plec: There’s a couple doozies of scenes with those brothers and really some of the best brother moments we’ve probably ever had.
“The Vampire Diaries: Forever Yours,” a retrospective, featuring cast interviews, airs on Friday at 8/7c on The CW followed by the series finale of “The Vampire Diaries” at 9/8c.
— Jolie Lash