There’s a lot at stake (heh, stake) going in to Thursday’s (May 15) Season 5 finale of “The Vampire Diaries.” The Other Side is still crumbling, leaving Bonnie, Enzo and Stefan’s fates in the air; Tyler’s body has been hijacked by Julian; Markos and the Travelers have taken over Mystic Falls; and oh yeah, Stefan Salvatore is dead. Dead.

The Season 5 finale, “Home,” is going to be one shocking and emotional hour of TV, executive producer Caroline Dries promises. “The Travelers are trying to rip away their home and it’s something that they rally around and in the meantime, the Other Side is falling apart,” Dries says. “The question is what’s going to happen to Bonnie, what’s going to happen to our friends who are over there that we occasionally check in with, do they just go away like Vicky did? These things are spiraling out of control around them.”

Dries teases there is one major event that goes down in the finale that changes the entire series going forward. “This giant thing happens and we’re breaking Season 6 now in the writers room and it starts with everyone in a different orbit, in a way,” Dries says. “Season 6 will be a lot of bringing people back together from different places.” Read more at Zap 2 It!