The CW's "The Vampire Diaries" (Season 8)

[jlaavenger]

Love the episode. It and the season finale of Fringe just blew me away!

[Groo The Perverted]

Just watched the finale and all I can say is....

[Groo The Perverted]

Below there be spoilers! You are warned! Massive spoilers for the finale!

[Show spoiler]At one point in the season 2 finale of The Vampire Diaries, Jeremy does a Bing search for "back from the dead." He should find this episode, because it's all about coming back from the dead. Several characters come back from death or near-death, old versions of characters come back after being dead for decades and two very memorable former stars make a shocking return in the final scene that was absolutely perfect.

Let's look at the finale by breaking it down into the five most shocking moments, which include three deaths, one very huge kiss and the shocking return of two familiar faces.

Shocking Moment #1

Damon is ready to die and it's sad to see him so willing to give up. Luckily Stefan can't quit his brother, so he gets Bonnie to channel Emily Bennett for the 411 on curing a werewolf bite. It turns out there is a way to do it, but it involves Klaus.

Stefan asks Katherine (still stuck in Alaric's apartment) for help, but he doesn't need it because Klaus returns to the same apartment after two nights of madness and mayhem as a werewolf. Before dealing with Stefan, Klaus has to uphold his promise to Elijah to reunite him with their family, so:

Klaus kills his brother!

How Biblical. I feel really bad for Elijah, because by my count that's the fourth time he's died this season. One more and he gets a free meatball hoagie at the Mystic Grill.

Shocking Moment #2

Damon dying and having hallucinations about Katherine and Elena turns ugly when Sheriff Forbes storm the Salvatore mansion to deal with the town's vampire problem, choosing the absolute worst possible time to finally act on her intelligence.

Damon escapes and gets found by Jeremy, who takes him to the Grill. Sheriff Forbes shows up and tries to shoot Damon, but Damon runs away at the last second and:

Sheriff Forbes shoots Jeremy!

My gasp was so loud it may have registered on the Richter scale. Bonnie and Caroline show up and Caroline tries feeding Jeremy her blood to bring him back, but he's dead. That's not OK with Bonnie, who races him to the witch burial site and demands that Emily Bennett and the other witches help her undo this. She's told there will be consequences, but Bonnie doesn't care because she loves him. And just like that, Bonnie's witch powers bring Jeremy back to life.

Shocking Moment #3

Klaus reveals to Stefan that the cure for a werewolf bite is his own blood, but in order to get it, he wants Stefan to return to his evil, murderous self. This starts when Klaus makes Stefan drink about a dozen bags of human blood before he finally gives Katherine his blood and lets her leave. Later, as Klaus shoves Elijah into a mausoleum, he brings Stefan a present in the form of a live, un-compelled girl. And:

Stefan bites her!

That's right, the old, evil Stefan we've seen from the past is back and he's on Team Klaus.

Shocking Moment #4

Damon's downward spiral continues and he finds Elena and bites her. She takes care of him, he professes his love for her, and just as he's near death:

Elena kisses Damon!

It's so on. And just in the nick of time, Katherine shows up with Klaus' blood to cure Damon and leaves just as quickly, but first she gives Elena a little advice: It's OK to love both brothers. With Stefan gone with Klaus, I think Damon and Elena are bound for couplehood in season 3.

Shocking Moment #5

After coming back from the dead, Jeremy feels a little weird and the episode ends with him walking downstairs to something very familiar:

Jeremy sees Anna and Vicki!

AWESOME! After being gone for a long time, Jeremy's dead vampire girlfriends are back. Also, kudos to the show for keeping this a secret because I didn't hear about Kayla Ewell and Melissa Jow returning. I think it's safe to assume coming back from the dead means Jeremy has the sixth sense and can see dead people. That's a fantastic way to end the year, because it gives The Vampire Diaries an excuse to bring back as many dead characters as it wants.


So that's The Vampire Diaries season 2 finale. I like that all of the big events are shocking, but not painful cliffhangers. Stefan is going away to be evil with Klaus, Elena and Damon are on the fast track to being an item, Caroline reunited with her mom and Jeremy sees dead people. All cool, and while I can't wait for season 3, I'm not angry at all like a usually am with cliffhangers. I officially love The Vampire Diaries.

[WyldeMan45]

So to break this down in a much less winded version than Groo's recap.

[Show spoiler]Elijah's probably not really dead, Stefan has become Angelus but still has some soul remaining. Jeremy has picked up the sixth sense, but instead of seeing lame ass Bruce Willis, he gets to see all his dead hot ass vampire girlfriends. Much better power than that little kid had.

[WyldeMan45]

Finale Post Mortem: Your Burning Questions Answered!

[Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Thursday's Season 2 finale of The Vampire Diaries. If you've yet to watch, avert your eyes...now!]

[Show spoiler]

Having far surpassed its “number of deaths per season” quota last week, Thursday’s finale of The CW’s Vampire Diaries managed to do what it does best: Pull long and hard on the heartstrings while nailing those jaw-dropping shocks at every turn. As a courtesy, I’ll offer up one last spoiler alert before letting executive producer Julie Plec fill you in on how the season-ender successfully achieved countless OMG moments, and tease what’s to come in Season 3.

TVLINE | Excuse me while I lift my jaw up off the floor…. OK, let’s start with the biggest surprise of the night: the returns of Vicki (Kayla Ewell) and Anna (Malese Jow). How and when did that twist come to fruition?
That is something we’d had in the works for a really, really long time — in fact, almost back to beginning of this season — and it was born out of two things: Kayla was so much a part of the Vampire Diaries family in the beginning and we missed her terribly, and Malese made such an impact last year as Anna. Killing her needed to happen for the Jeremy character, but it certainly wasn’t a trigger we were happy to pull. So, when we start thinking of how we can bring back people that we love, and how can we give the audience the gift of seeing them again, that started spinning lots of ideas around, and we landed on this one pretty early. We’re really excited about it.

TVLINE | Can you talk at all about what this means for Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) and his dearly departed exes, moving forward?
I can’t say much about where it’s going, but it is born out of this idea that Bonnie (Kat Graham) went against the laws of nature when she brought Jeremy back to life. As we’ve learned a lot this season, witches, as servants of nature, have a lot to say when you abuse your magic. And they said to her in that scene that there will be consequences. We have now seen the beginning of what those might be.

TVLINE | Will this new development directly impact Bonnie and Jeremy, if only because both entities he saw at the end of the episode were women he once loved?
It will certainly have an enormous impact on Bonnie and Jeremy if Vicki and Anna stick around — whether they’re in his mind or haunting him, or whatever outlet they turn out to be. Talk about awkwardness in a relationship!

TVLINE | Is it safe to assume that this twist may propel Jeremy into a bigger solo storyline next season?
You can never say anything until it’s written, but Jeremy’s frustration has always been that he’s not supernatural and everyone’s always having him sit in the corner while they do the dirty work. Now suddenly he’s having some supernatural experience that’s going to put him right in the center of everything… however it plays out. This season was about building Jeremy from a boy to a man — and now it’s a man with a problem. [Laughs]

TVLINE | That was a very sweet moment between Alaric and Jeremy. Are you perhaps setting up Ric to be the Gilbert kids’ new parental figure?
We made a promise to Matt Davis to take Alaric and give him a good kick in the ass, and really make better use of that character. We wanted to give him a stronger point-of-view and a richer on-screen life, and this is just one of many things that we hope to be able to do. Matt’s a terrific actor and very valuable part of the show, and to finally be able to have Alaric in the midst in a way that we can really do some great emotional and supernatural stuff with him is really exciting.

TVLINE | Bad Stefan finally arriving was another standout moment. Was it exciting to take this character to such a new place?
When we talked about the series as a whole, we always knew there would be a period in which Stefan (Paul Wesley) would have to journey through his dark side. Early in the season we decided that would be the path we’d take by the end of the season, so everything we did with him was trying to lay the groundwork for the shift in his journey. We are beyond excited about the opportunities here. For Stefan, it’s never as black-and-white as “Good Stefan” and “Bad Stefan”; it’s Stefan struggling with this thing that overpowers him so significantly, that no matter what he tries to do to break himself out of it, it still rules him. And it rules him in a way that it never really ruled Damon (Ian Somerhalder). Watching Stefan fight that, and perhaps continue to get overpowered by it, is a story that story could go on for a long time. There’s a lot of great opportunity there.

TVLINE | Also on the list of “wows” from the finale is the tender “goodbye” between Damon and Elena. What made now the right time to explore this relationship? And what does it mean moving forward?
It felt very much that it was earned for Damon to finally get some kind of acceptance and compassion and reciprocation to the feelings he’s made very clear. He needed it, and Elena (Nina Dobrev) needed to give it to him. She obviously cares about him in a lot of ways, and that’s going to be a big struggle for her next year — for all three of them, actually. What did that moment between them mean? How do they recover from it with Stefan? And where do those relationships lead?

TVLINE | Since you’ve revealed that Season 3 is the “Season of the Originals,” I think it’s appropriate to ask: Are Joseph Morgan and Daniel Gilles now series regulars? Also, will we see Elijah above ground?!
The decisions on the extent of the life of those characters haven’t been officially made, but in our show there are flashbacks all the time. And if we’re going to be exploring the history of the originals, I can guarantee that we’ll be seeing Daniel Gilles again in the past. And when we see him again in the future is part of the fun we’ll have when we start talking about next season.

TVLINE | And finally: Klaus (Joseph Morgan) appears to be pure evil. Would you like to write a more sympathetic side to him next year?
We certainly don’t want to make him any less evil. [Laughs] We love him as our unflinching villain. But if we’re going to start learning about the past and his family, it’s going to be really hard to at least not to have a perspective of Klaus that is somewhat compassionate. It will be interesting to dig into the side of who he was. But by no means is he going soft.

[Batman1980]

I just want this to go at least 4 seasons, the bitter taste of Veronica Mars is still in my mouth, not to mention this story is just hitting its stride and there's probably 3-4 seasons more worth of stuff, at least, that they can do.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by Darth Anakin

I just want this to go at least 4 seasons, the bitter taste of Veronica Mars is still in my mouth, not to mention this story is just hitting its stride and there's probably 3-4 seasons more worth of stuff, at least, that they can do.

Nah it's the CW, they will do whatever they can to make it last 10 seasons. The kids will have graduated college by the time it ends.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by WyldeMan45

Nah it's the CW, they will do whatever they can to make it last 10 seasons. The kids will have graduated college by the time it ends.

The thing is the CW is a money pit so there's a chance the show will be dead soon due to not having a network to air on. I do hope if the CW dies, it will do what Buffy did and jump onto something else to keep going, at least for awhile.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by Darth Anakin

The thing is the CW is a money pit so there's a chance the show will be dead soon due to not having a network to air on. I do hope if the CW dies, it will do what Buffy did and jump onto something else to keep going, at least for awhile.

I haven't heard about it dying, they need to market their network better than cause they have damn good programming, just most people have no idea what The CW is, but they all knew what the WB was. Things need to change if they expect to survive.

[Batman1980]

I think the CW is a fringe network that really can't exist much longer, especially during a recession. At least this show went 3 seasons, so it won't break my rule of not getting into shows that end after 1 or 2 seasons. Will be interesting to see

[Show spoiler]Stefan turn on Klaus next season and kill him, probably with the help of Elijah. Assuming Elijah can stay alive long enough to do the deed.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by Darth Anakin

I think the CW is a fringe network that really can't exist much longer, especially during a recession. At least this show went 3 seasons, so it won't break my rule of not getting into shows that end after 1 or 2 seasons. Will be interesting to see

[Show spoiler]Stefan turn on Klaus next season and kill him, probably with the help of Elijah. Assuming Elijah can stay alive long enough to do the deed.

Yeah Elijah is fine, it's just like the basement death.

[PS3-Playb3yond]

Vicki and Anna are back? Whaaaaat?! That was a great cliffhanger. Lots of stuff going on this season compared to season one finale. I wonder if they're ghosts or if Bonnie brought them back because Jeremy was attached to them. This makes it possible for Jenna and John to come back too I guess, would be cool!

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by PS3-Playb3yond

Vicki and Anna are back? Whaaaaat?! That was a great cliffhanger. Lots of stuff going on this season compared to season one finale. I wonder if they're ghosts or if Bonnie brought them back because Jeremy was attached to them. This makes it possible for Jenna and John to come back too I guess, would be cool!

I doubt Bonnie would intentionally bring back to life women that could complicate things between her and Jeremy. John and Jenna need to stay gone, other than appearing in flashbacks in season 3.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by PS3-Playb3yond

Vicki and Anna are back? Whaaaaat?! That was a great cliffhanger. Lots of stuff going on this season compared to season one finale. I wonder if they're ghosts or if Bonnie brought them back because Jeremy was attached to them. This makes it possible for Jenna and John to come back too I guess, would be cool!

I would assume that is one of the side effects to the situation Emily warned Bonnie about when she said there would be complications. It wouldn't make sense in the slightest for Bonnie to bring back the other two women Jeremy has loved. Unless she wanted to turn their already complicated relationship into a love square full of major drama, lol. I believe that since Vampires are technically undead that when they "died" vampires, there is no real crossing over, so they are stuck in type of limbo or purgatory and since Jeremy died and was resurrected with the help of the witches he can see the dead in a similar way to how Bonnie can hear the dead witches. It would allow them to bring back as many fan favorites as they want, while only allowing Jeremy to see them. It finally ends his complaint that because he wasn't special he's always been left on the sidelines. But that's just my thoughts on this.

[Groo The Perverted]

Am I the only one who thought originally when he woke up on the bed, that he was a vampire? I remembered Caroline giving him her blood, and for a split second I was thinking "he wasn't completely dead before the blood was sent down his throat, and so once he died he came back as a vampire.

lol.

I was mad originally because I hate that "they're dead...ha! Gotcha!" bullshit, (even though Jeremy's one of my favorite characters on the show), but I like how they did that twist.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by Groo The Perverted

Am I the only one who thought originally when he woke up on the bed, that he was a vampire? I remembered Caroline giving him her blood, and for a split second I was thinking "he wasn't completely dead before the blood was sent down his throat, and so once he died he came back as a vampire.

lol.

I was mad originally because I hate that "they're dead...ha! Gotcha!" bullshit, (even though Jeremy's one of my favorite characters on the show), but I like how they did that twist.

No, you're not alone. I was like oh man, the season one finale ended with Jeremy having ingested vampire blood and they made you think he was a vamp all summer, and when this season finale started to imply the same thing I was thinking "oh you've got to be kidding me, dude is a vamp now!? So I was relieved when he saw Vicki, I thought the woman might have been the ghost of his mother but when it turned out to be Vicki and Anna I was pleasantly delighted. Since nobody ever stays dead on this show, whenever somebody dies I never react to it, I'm always like "Yeah I'll see you alive in 10 minutes" and that is usually the case, unless you're an adult, then you are always really dead.

[PS3-Playb3yond]

Originally Posted by Darth Anakin

I doubt Bonnie would intentionally bring back to life women that could complicate things between her and Jeremy. John and Jenna need to stay gone, other than appearing in flashbacks in season 3.

Originally Posted by WyldeMan45

I would assume that is one of the side effects to the situation Emily warned Bonnie about when she said there would be complications. It wouldn't make sense in the slightest for Bonnie to bring back the other two women Jeremy has loved. Unless she wanted to turn their already complicated relationship into a love square full of major drama, lol. I believe that since Vampires are technically undead that when they "died" vampires, there is no real crossing over, so they are stuck in type of limbo or purgatory and since Jeremy died and was resurrected with the help of the witches he can see the dead in a similar way to how Bonnie can hear the dead witches. It would allow them to bring back as many fan favorites as they want, while only allowing Jeremy to see them. It finally ends his complaint that because he wasn't special he's always been left on the sidelines. But that's just my thoughts on this.

Yeah, I know Bonnie would never bring them back on purpose even if she knew she could. I wonder where this is all going to lead to though, what could Anna or Vicki want from Jeremy unless it's a way for them to get out or something by getting closer to Bonnie.

[Groo The Perverted]

Originally Posted by WyldeMan45

Since nobody ever stays dead on this show, whenever somebody dies I never react to it, I'm always like "Yeah I'll see you alive in 10 minutes" and that is usually the case, unless you're an adult, then you are always really dead.

YouTube - He's Only Mostly Dead- Princess Bride

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by Groo The Perverted

YouTube - He's Only Mostly Dead- Princess Bride

Hahaha wow that sums up exactly the school of thought these writer's must be using! They are usually mostly dead, but rarely all dead.

[PS3-Playb3yond]

So you guys think there will be more Damon and Elena now that Stefan is gone with Klaus? I'm sure a lot of people want to see them together lol.

And I'm guessing Stefan will at some point betray Klaus and free Elijah and his family, or tell Damon about it and he'll free them with Bonnie so they can all reunite and take him down....still though there is nothing that can kill him as far as we know.