#tvd8

Meanwhile, Damon rushes over to the bell to stop Vicky. Vicky tells him that he can’t stop her, so he throws her out the window. Pretty effective, except she doesn’t stay dead. Matt comes in and tries to talk to Vicky; she’s happy to see him and she doesn’t want him to die, but she’s gonna keep ringing the bell every five minutes for the duration of the hour. Matt points out that she’s just gonna die again if she does that. Vicky doesn’t mind since Hell is well, hell, and she’d rather just go to nothingness than be back at that. Fair enough, but do we actually have to kill a town full of people because we’re unsatisfied with our afterlife? Maybe that kind of behavior is what landed you in Hell Vicky. What did Mystic Falls do to deserve this? That’s the real victim of this show – Mystic Falls. Nobody should live there.

Damon leaves the bell tower, where he meets up with Stefan and Caroline. They ask what the deal is and Damon says that they need to come up with some other course of action since Matt is probably gonna fail at reasoning it out with Vicky. And sure enough, Matt comes out and calls down to the police station to start evacuating the people. Because we couldn’t just keep killing Vicky or lock her up somewhere for some reason.

Damon and Stefan go back home to get Elena’s coffin – the real main character of the past two seasons. They go in and see that the coffin is open. Elena comes around the corner and rushes to excitedly hug Damon. Except it isn’t Elena, of course. It’s Katherine and she’s in a manipulating mood. She claims that she had Cade wrapped around her finger since the day she got in Hell and that she’s the reason why Cade wanted them in the first place. A claim that makes absolutely no sense in the context of the entire season, but whatever. Since they’re not getting any information out of her, Stefan stabs her and they try to figure out where Elena’s body could be hidden.

Meanwhile, Caroline and Rick are packing up the twin’s stuff and Rick tells her that Bonnie is already in the car waiting to go. Caroline tells him what’s going on with Elena’s body and that she’s gonna help look for it. Rick tells her that he thinks that’s pretty stupid because she has two kids in the car that need her and if she doesn’t get out in time then they’ll have a tragic loss. But Caroline says she can’t just leave knowing that Elena is in danger and she promises that she’ll get out in time.

Stefan finds Elena’s body at the school and he goes to get her. But when he tries to leave the room that Elena is kept in, he discovers that it’s magically bound. He can get in and out without any trouble, but Elena can’t. He calls Damon to inform him of this change. Damon at this point is confronted by a revived Katherine who says there’s no way to break Elena out of there because Kai Parker did her a favor and created that magical spell. She also decides to go for Damon’s ego by saying it doesn’t matter because in the end Elena would chose Stefan because that’s what she would do since Stefan is the better man. Damon stabs her and walks away.

Caroline goes to the school and Stefan tells her about the spell; he says that he knows that Damon would stay behind because he wouldn’t want Elena to die alone. But he can’t leave his brother there alone too. They know there’s no way that Stefan can convince Damon of leaving, so Caroline says that she’ll stay with him. But Stefan can’t have that and he tells her to go and be with her kids, that family comes first. Caroline’s crying and reminds them that they’re family now too. And he says he knows, but Damon is his brother. She cries and says “family first” and they have a sad goodbye and she leaves.

At the Armory, Bonnie sees some research that Alaric and Dorian were doing. Rick says it was kind of their last hope in being able to counteract the potential of the hellfire, but it required a massive amount of power and seemed impossible, so they kind of gave up on it. But this gives Bonnie an idea. She calls Stefan and tells him she has a plan that will save Elena (and the town).

Caroline gets to the Armory and says she’s there as promised. Rick says that’s great, but they have to get moving again. Caroline asks what’s up, and Bonnie says she’s gonna save the world. She hugs Caroline and tells her to go and that Rick will fill her in while they’re traveling.

Damon is in the tunnels under Mystic Falls and Katherine comes in to do more taunting. Damon tells her they have a plan and they’re gonna make sure that she dies. He tells her about the tunnels, a convenient plot device, that connects Mystic Falls to the Armory. Because of that convenience, Bonnie is going to draw the fire away from Mystic Falls and through the tunnels. Katherine doubts it because she doesn’t think Bonnie is anywhere near strong enough to do it. Besides that, Damon being down there to make sure she dies means that he’ll be sacrificing his future with Elena, which she thinks he’s still too selfish to risk. But of course, we know that Damon is a changed man and is willing to do this for the greater good.

However, Stefan isn’t really feeling this whole sacrifice thing; he comes into the tunnels and Damon is like, “You need to leave, especially if this actually doesn’t work. You’re human and way too vulnerable.” But Stefan, true to Stefan nature, refuses to leave and have his brother compromise his potential happiness. Katherine tries to leave while the brothers argue, but they stab her – it’s basically a running gag; she’s been stabbed after every commercial break.

Stefan thinks that it should be him because he’s still looking for redemption and he thinks Damon deserves a chance at a happy future. Damon counters that Stefan always wanted to be human and he just got married. (Let’s not forget that this is actually the same day as the wedding.) Lots of emotional back and forth, lots of tearing up on both sides, and it all ends in Damon compelling Stefan to get out of town while Stefan sadly asks him not to do it. But he can’t counteract it and he leaves.

Caroline asks Rick to tell her what is going on and he does, but it’s muted for the audience. We see Caroline starting to cry and she tells Rick to pull over. She gets out and calls Stefan and gets his voicemail. She asks him to please call her and tells him that she gets it and she understands. She’s crying but she smiles at the end when she says she understands and will love him forever. So in case this wasn’t enough of a hint –

Twist! Stefan has been taking vervain (obviously) and was never going to leave. He passed by the hospital and stole a syringe and extracted his blood, removing the cure from his body. So now his body will age rapidly. He goes back to the tunnels and tells Damon this and stabs him with the syringe, letting Damon get his chance at a happy, human life with Elena. Gee, Stefan, hope that everything works out and that Bonnie is actually successful with fixing everything. He throws Damon’s body into one of the rooms of the tunnel and grabs onto Katherine to kill her one last time.

Vicky rings the bell for the final time and the fire erupts. Bonnie successfully draws it away and through the tunnels; Damon tragically witnesses this from the safety of the room while the fire rushes towards Bonnie in the armory. She holds it back but feels too weak to keep it back. Enzo comes in to give her a pep talk about how strong she is and how she isn’t alone. Bonnie’s grandmother joins her along with the whole line of Bennett witches. Together they keep it contained and send the fire back into the bell. Stefan and Katherine burn in this.

Stefan is in limbo, at the high school. He talks to Elena tells her all about what happened. How Damon was willing to sacrifice himself for everyone and how much he admired Damon’s bravery and selflessness. He wanted Elena to have an opportunity to know that man. He says that it was his time and he’s ready. But damn, I mean, the guy didn’t even get to be married for 24 hours. He hugs her and says that he was glad he got to see her one more time; he asks her to pass along a message for him. Then he walks out, into the light. Where he’s greeted by Lexi, who he runs to hug. It’s a wonderful moment and helps drive home that yes, Stefan is dead. No twist. He’s actually gone.

But it feels kind of unnecessary because he didn’t really have to die. Every time they stabbed Katherine, she was out for a fair amount of time. They said someone had to be down there to make sure she was dead when the fire came. But there was that safe room that Damon was in, right there in the tunnels. And Katherine demonstrated that she had no powers; so she wouldn’t get out in time. Why didn’t Stefan just stab her and throw her into the fire, while being in the safety of that room? In true TVD form, Stefan and Bonnie had to be the ones to make the biggest sacrifices this season.

The last 15 minutes are commercial free, so that way everyone can get the real impact. However, these last 15 minutes are super rushed. Here’s what happens: Elena wakes up, without Bonnie having to die. She found a way to break the spell. Elena asks how she managed it and Bonne says it took time but she figured it out. I.E. It was a total cop out, but just be happy because they both get to live. Elena asks where Damon is and Bonnie tells her that he’s with Caroline, saying goodbye to Stefan. Because nothing says happy reunion like a funeral.

Damon and Caroline have a sweet bonding moment as they say goodbye to Stefan. Caroline walks out first and sees Elena and smiles. Then of course Damon comes out and sees her and they have an emotional reunion. A reunion that probably would have been much more emotional if he wasn’t burying his brother or if it hadn’t only been like two years. I get it, even two years feels like forever, true love, but 60 years… you can see what I’m getting at.

And we just finish with a super long montage. Everyone gets a diary entry.

Matt: Still the sheriff and they even give him a bench. He feels like Vicky did eventually find peace, which gives him a sense of peace. We see that he’s being watched over by Tyler and Vicky, who are happy to see him accomplishing things and making a difference. It’s actually very sweet and this is the point where I started crying a bit. As irritated as I have been by Matt for the past couple seasons, I wanted him to have a good ending. He was mistreated as much as Bonnie was really. They don’t show him after this, but I’d like to think that he found love and stopped getting into life-threatening situations every other day.

Bonnie: Decided to live her life and go traveling. She’s packing up and Enzo is there to remind her to get her passport. So even though he’s not physically there, he’s still with her, watching over her. They also don’t show further into the future for her, so I’d like to imagine that she also found love again and really did live life to the fullest. Maybe she reunited with Jeremy or ended up with Matt or found someone else great for her. I kind of hope she ended up with the best deal of them all.

Alaric: He and the girls are being watched over by Jo, who is happy to just see the girls growing up and being happy kids. He and Caroline did what they believed would have been Stefan’s last wish and convert the Salvatore boarding house into a school for the gifted. They do this with the help of Dorian and Jeremy(!). Jeremy! Who gets no lines. And who we never see reunite with his sister.  

Caroline: Of course is being watched over by her mom. She’s also living her life to the fullest. The message Stefan left with Elena was for her; he did get her message that she left that night and he will love her forever. She gets a hefty donation for the school from Klaus; so perhaps that’s her happy future. Because all her friends and family are human and she’s still a vampire – a bit of a thinker.

Elena: Ended up going to medical school and living a happy life with Damon. We see that she is wearing a ring, so we know they get married. We can assume they had kids too. We know that they grow old together. We just don’t actually see any of those moments. In the afterlife, we see that Elena reunites with her family – her birth parents, her adoptive parents, and Aunt Jenna.

Damon: Also lived a full, happy life, though he obviously missed his bother. And really, the brothers were the heart of the show, even in the beginning; their dynamic and relationship was always the most interesting. That’s what kept me watching the show and that’s what I’ll miss. In the end, we see him walk up to the Salvatore home and Stefan opens the door. Damon says, “Hello Brother”.