Why is Katherine the perfect villain to end the series with?
Julie Plec: Well, when you think about it, Katherine is the villain who launched the series. We didn’t know it at the time, but she was the reason our brothers were vampires. Their shared love for her was the thing that put them at odds, which was then repeated 145 years later with Elena. She has had a hand in the torture, discomfort and/or misery of pretty much every single regular character that’s ever crossed through the doors of Mystic Falls. And so to be able to bring it full circle and say that she is the ultimate Big Bad was an idea that made us so excited when we landed on it. And we were really happy we were able to get Nina back so we could execute it.

How early in the episode does Elena wake up? Will we get to spend a lot of time with her?
Plec: I’m not going to speak about at what point she wakes up, but I will say that between Elena and Katherine there is quite a lot of screentime. And I think fans who are excited to see Nina back are going to be really happy with what they get.

Damon has been through so much since Elena was put in her magical coma. What is it like for him to see her again and experience this moment he’s imagined so often?
Plec: I think poor Damon has just been knocked down and dragged through the mud so much in his efforts to be the kind of man he wants to be for her return in allegedly 80 years, that seeing her right right now in the present is shocking and probably a little bit of a concern for him that he’s not quite there, that he’s not quite ready for her yet. Continue Reading at TV Guide

8 years and it all comes to one last episode Friday…I’m really not ready to say goodbye, for 8 years, we have been with these characters on our TV’s in homes all over the world, welcoming them into our lives, and now we have to say goodbye. I am so glad Nina has came back to reprise her roles one last time it is going to be bittersweet and I know we will all be crying together on Friday. I could go on and on but I’ll save that for later. Enjoy the Trailer.

“We met, and we talked, and it was epic, but then the sun came up and reality set in.”

When Elena Gilbert first said those words to Stefan Salvatore in the second episode of The Vampire Diaries, she was finding a reason why they couldn’t be together. Their lives were just too complicated. But by the end of the hour, Stefan would remind her of just how epic their connection was, repeating those words before kissing her for the first time … even after reality set in.

However, what was happening onscreen wasn’t the only thing that was “epic” about that moment. Co-creator Kevin Williamson will never forget reading that interaction and what it meant for the show. “[Co-creator] Julie [Plec] wrote that beautiful monologue, and I remember reading it for the first time and just crying,” Williamson tells EW. “And then Stefan came back and said it to her again, and I remember tearing up. I thought we were onto something special. When you shoot a pilot, you never know if anything is going to work. But it’s those second and third episodes where it starts to come together. And that’s when you know if the show has legs.” Continue Reading @ EW.com