THE VAMPIRE DIARIES: Julie Plec on the Alaric Twist and the Triangle Complications

So…that happened.

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES has never been shy about making big moves, killing characters off, or breaking our hearts, but boy, Thursday night’s episode was intense.

Needless to say, if you haven’t watched “Do Not Go Gentle,” please get yourself to the nearest place to watch it and do it ASAP. For the rest of you, read on for some teases from THE VAMPIRE DIARIES executive producer Julie Plec about what very important scene was almost cut, how the “Stelena” moment might impact the triangle and more…

While glimpses of Stefan’s humanity have been obvious for a bit, his comforting of Elena after Alaric’s “death” was a massive step forward.

“Stefan’s whole struggle, obviously, this year has been he’s hanging on by such a tenuous thread for the first half of the season and then he lost his mind for a nice chunk in the middle, so he’s been terrified of opening himself back up and letting those feelings in,” Plec told reporters earlier this week. “And it’s been a slow, slow permeation of his emotional life through the latter section of the season. And in this moment, seeing her at her most vulnerable, the support that she’s been trying to give him all season, it’s finally him saying, ‘It’s OK to feel and I’ve heard you all those times when you told me that. It’s OK to feel and it’s OK to have hope and I heard you. Now, let me give that back to you.'”

It’s a sweet gesture, but as you may expect, it does make things a bit more difficult for Elena and her looming decision between the two brothers who love her.

“And all of this is just illuminating to this girl at this point in her life that these two men who are so important to her, that she has no one, she’s lost everyone that matters to her — almost everyone — and how do you choose in a moment like that?” Plec questioned. “And in the last two episodes, it’s really going to be about her asking herself that question and trying to understand how she could possibly let one of them go when she’s already lost so much.”

Of course, that wasn’t the only moving moment of the episode. Arguably one of the most heartbreaking scenes the series has ever done was when everyone gathered to say their final goodbyes to Alaric before he sacrificed himself rather than allow himself to turn into a vampire. But according to Plec, that scene almost didn’t make it to air.

“That one scene is the most important scene in the entire episode for me,” she said. “And it’s funny, because when you hand that script over to production and they read a script that is too long, with too many scenes, it’s impossible to shoot in the schedule, and then they see a line that says, ‘Everyone gathers to show their respects,’ which is two lines of a 50 page script, that’s the first thing they say, ‘Oh, you’ve got to get rid of that. Can you simplify it? That’s going to take six hours to shoot, that’s the equivalent of a 7-page day, we can’t do it, we can’t afford it, it’s everybody, we can’t schedule it.’ And I don’t do this very own where I pitch the ‘I’m the boss, shut up’ bit, but I just like, ‘Guys, I’m telling you, this is the heart and soul — the little one two-line thing — is the heart and soul of this episode of this episode, and one of the heart and soul moments of the season and it’s going to stay. We have to figure it out.’ And they did, they always do, you just have to push them a little. Moments like that are what make our show special.”

Speaking of Alaric, now that Esther’s plan has succeeded and he’s turned into a vamp, what’s next?

“He’s very clearly a badass vampire killer with a pretty magnificent and deadly unburnable stake, so I definitely think he’s going to be a conflict provider,” Plec said. “Not to make it an understatement, but he’s not going to be the friendliest version of Alaric that we’ve ever met; he going to be pretty hardcore, which is kind of going to be equally exciting and devastating , obviously, because he’s one of our heroes who is no longer one of our heroes.”

The even better news? When I questioned Plec whether Matt Davis’ (Alaric) new pilot had impacted his screen time in the final episodes of the season, she quickly answered, “Not at all.”

And if you were wondering why the show chose this fate for Alaric, Plec has an explanation for that.

“We knew he needed to be stronger, as strong, resilient, immortal, fast, furious, fierce,” she said. “And the idea of the ironic symmetry of having this witch desperate to eradicate vampires and this alter ego of Alaric who hates vampires and knowing that becoming a vampire, your darkest impulses and your greatest wants are magnified to such a degree, it felt like it was this way of bringing the Original witches part in this whole mythology full-circle and her whole power of passing the baton to a villain who could succeed at the task that she’s been failing at all season.”

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What did you think of THE VAMPIRE’S “Do Not Go Gentle”?

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THE VAMPIRE DIARIES: Candice Accola Teases Tyler’s Return, What’s to Come with the Tyler-Caroline-Klaus Triangle and More

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