‘The Vampire Diaries’ Season Finale Recap: Elena is a Vampire?!

Last night, OK! Met up with Nina Dobrev, who plays Elena on The Vampire Diaries, at the unveiling of her new Got Milk? Ad in NYC and she filled us in on what to expect from the season finale.

And let’s just say, she set us up perfectly for the intense episode. “Elena’s whole arc this season has been Elena discovering how little humanity is left in her life and that’s why we do a flashback in this last episode, so we see Elena before the vampires were in her life and how simpler her life was,” Nina told OK! before the finale aired last night. “She’s kind of sick of people dying and she just wants to be normal and in this episode she’s constantly running and so many people’s lives are at stake. The finale is dramatic and sad and intense, but fast-paced… it’s Vampire Diaries.”

He summons the help of Jeremy, explaining to him that Elena deserves to live a life without vampires. Although Jeremy agrees with Ric, he still doesn’t trust him, so he decides to lie about where Damon is taking Klaus’ body before talking to Matt (Zach Roerig) about figuring out their own way to keep Elena safe. But while Damon, who lets Bonnie have a few minutes to curse out Klaus’ lifeless body, is waiting for Rebekah (Claire Holt) to show up and take Klaus’ coffin away with her and Elijah (Daniel Gillies), Alaric finds him and kills Klaus before Rebekah gets the chance to save her brother’s existence. You know what that means, everyone who was created from Klaus’ blood line is going to die, including Damon, Stefan, Caroline (Candice Accola), Tyler (Michael Trevino) and Abby (Persia White).

Strangely enough though, the others who were created by Klaus are not dying, which makes them wonder if the Klaus’ bloodline really does run through their veins. As it turns out, it does, but Bonnie the witch, who had some alone time with Klaus earlier in the episode, made a pact with the evil hybrid that if she sacrifices Tyler’s body, he will allow her to use a spell to save the rest of her friends.

So, yup. Klaus is still alive in the form of Tyler Lockwood. Still, Elena, who was drugged by Matt so that he could take her far away from Mystic Falls and vampires, finds out Klaus is dead and tells her former flame that she needs to go back and say goodbye to her ailing friends. This is when Matt puts her love of Damon and Stefan to the test, telling her he could either drive back home to Stefan or drive 100 miles out of town to where Damon is. Earlier, Elena confessed to Matt that although Damon “consumes” her, Stefan “saved” her that horrific day when her parents died, and she has loved him from the minute she laid eyes on him.

Elena calls up Damon and tells him her choice, saying, “No matter what I feel for you, I never unfall for Stefan.” As you can imagine, Damon is crushed. Elena, rubbing salt in the womb a bit, tells him that maybe if she met him before Stefan, things would be different. But in one of the many epic flashbacks of Elena’s life prior to her parents death and her life as a vampire lover, we discover that Elena did actually meet Damon first while she was fighting with her then-boyfriend Matt. Damon let her know that she deserves to find “consuming” and “passionate” love, but then compelled her to forget they ever spoke. Heartbreaking!

While Elena makes her way back to Stefan and the rest of her supernatural friends, a pissed off Rebekah, who is still grieving the death of her brother, goes out to find Elena and kill her in order to destroy Alaric. Matt, who’s driving Elena, ends up skidding off the road to avoid hitting Rebekah and his truck ends up landing in the river under the Wickery Bridge — the same spot where Elena’s parents died and Stefan rescued her a few years ago.

This time around though, a drowning Elena begs Stefan to save Matt first and ends up dying before the love of her life could reach her. We then see Alaric, who comes back to kill a deserted Damon, die in his old friend’s arms and return to Jeremy as a ghost. Jeremy then puts two and two together and realizes that if Ric is a ghost, then Elena is dead as well.

But, that’s not the case at all! Turns out Elena did in fact die in the submerged truck, but Dr. Fell, who realized Elena had a much more severe brain bleed than anyone realized, gave her vampire blood while she was in the hospital to save her life. So… Elena, who died with vampire blood in her system, is now a vampire herself. Crazy, right!? How will we make it to September? Share your thoughts on the season finale and let us know what you think of Elena becoming a vampire!