ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD!
For eight years, we’ve watched our friends from Mystic Falls go from a supernatural high school clique to semi-functional vampire adults. We all knew The Vampire Diaries would come to an end, but it was beginning to feel as if we would never really have to let go. This show wasn’t a television masterpiece and didn’t pretend to be. TVD was important to a generation of kids who wanted to engage with something a little extraordinary. Last night, we had to say goodbye to a TV show we’ve loved, characters we’ve grown up with, and a piece of our teenage years.
The re-introduction of Elena was talked about ever since Nina Dobrev left the show and her character was put in her Sleeping Beauty nap. The big question was: how were they going to make that work? Much to our surprise, Katherine was the first character Nina would resurrect. Her performance seemed to pick up right where she left off, like reuniting with a familiar friend (or in this case enemy) and I loved it. In her last act of manipulation, Katherine revealed she had the devil “wrapped around her fingers” and that’s why he took an interest in our Salvatore boys. Now, isn’t that the Katherine we all know and adore?
Katherine came full circle beautifully, but for the first half of the finale I was in a WHAT-HAPPENS-TO-ELENA panic. Finally, our favorite diary keeping, human-turned-vamp-cured-human, doppelganger queen Elena Gilbert rose from the almost dead. Elena’s entrance back into TVD was brief, but oh so welcome. Finally, we got a happily ever after for her and Damon. It only took eight seasons to get there.
Bonnie’s final spell was a great encompassment of her as the strong female character we’ve always loved. Surrounded by the baddest witches of all time, Bonnie finally figured out the whole witch thing, which she adorably noted a few scenes later. Now she can get as far from Mystic Falls as possible because boy does she deserve to treat herself. Caroline had a rocky end since she lost her husband a day after their wedding in the final cruelty the creators would burden us with. But, she has Alaric, their cute little witch twins, and her best friends back so I’m certain she’ll be alright. The Salvatore Boarding School was a fun twist I didn’t see coming. It was certainly a sweet ode to Stefan and something that probably should’ve existed twenty years ago so Bonnie could’ve figured things out a bit sooner.
The later seasons did one thing really well—strengthen the bond between the Salvatore brothers. This motif of brotherhood has always been a key component stringing the story along. Some of TVD’s most iconic moments were exemplary of this. Without Elena, the center of the love triangle that started it all, our favorite boys had significantly less motive to kill each other. In this finale, they fought over the opposite—who gets to save the other. I think the right brother died for this cause. And while I felt it was bold to end the series with yet another funeral, those moments were what TVD did so well. Plus, the reunion of Stefan and Lexi made it all worth it.
I could make a list of every ridiculous storyline that was taken too far or count how many characters they killed off, but at the end of the day, something about this show stuck with me. I’ve never been able to put my finger on it. Maybe it’s just a guilty pleasure or maybe it’s steeped in nostalgia for my younger self. But, the final montage of the finale reminded me of why I loved the show in the beginning. It was sad (trust me, I was sobbing) but it connected to innate human feelings: the joy of life, the pain in death, and the prospect of peace. And yes, it was all glorified by the vampire craze, but take away the fangs and you have people who experience life the same way we all do. Death scares the hell out of people. Nobody talks about it, no one likes to think about it, but this show did—repeatedly. We joke about how characters were brought back from the dead over and over again, but under the drama there was the idea that maybe people are never really gone. The final scenes solidified that as each character was reunited—in flashes of remembrance or in death—with the loved ones they had lost. In a wonderful tie to the beginning of the series, the characters read their own diary entries as their futures unfolded for us to see in one of the best moments the show had ever created.
Series finales are meant to provide closure to the characters, the show, and for the audience. The job of The Vampire Diaries finale was to find peace for these characters. After watching, I think I’ve found the same for the show. We’ll look back on TVD as a pinnacle of the vampire era and a nostalgic ode to teenage love, but also a lesson in loss. And it will always be there when we need a reminder of any of those things.