| Stay to the Lights |
03-08-2017 07:58 PM |
From the article
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It’s a sunny January day in Atlanta as the Vampire Diaries cast films its last group scene in the woods. In between takes, there’s laughter and excited whispers about who’s in town for the upcoming wrap party, but when showrunner Julie Plec, the director of the show’s final hour, calls “Action,” an emotional fog sets in. This is a goodbye — and it’s a big one. “We wanted to go big, emotionally, with the action, and with the spectacular of it,” says Plec, who co-wrote the episode with co-creator Kevin Williamson. “We were absolutely feeling epic.”
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Back at the cemetery, the emotional fog is replaced by a literal one. This is Mystic Falls, after all. And in an instant, heartbreak seamlessly turns into romance when one of the show’s main couples share a passionate kiss. Watching the kiss unfold, Plec gets within an inch of the monitor. “I want to see that tear,” she announces, prolonging the scene until she gets the perfect blend of romance and tragedy that has become the show’s signature over the years. The moment that tear falls, she calls “Cut.”
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Sitting in the middle of the town square, Plec watches as two longtime characters walk off the screen for the final time. “That was so good,” she says through her tears as she makes a note of the take. That one’s a keeper.
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“It’s this very interesting melancholy,” Paul Wesley says of the feeling on set. “I did Stefan’s final scene with Elena. It was strangely emotional for me.” Wesley pauses as if coming to terms with what he’s about to say in this very instant. “You’re saying goodbye to this time and this moment. The two of us are never going to be playing these characters ever again, and these were really important characters in television for eight years.”
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Sitting on a plane, Wesley read the finale script for the first time, and the actor, who admittedly doesn’t get sentimental when it comes to the show, teared up. He then took a photo of said tear and sent it to Plec and Williamson as proof, of both his ability to cry off screen and the power of the ending they’d created.
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However, it’s not the ending they originally came up with during the second season. “The big finale episode that we had always planned did not happen because the show was successful and lasted eight years,” Williamson says. For example, the original ending involved ghosts, which no longer exist now that the Other Side has been destroyed. Plec adds: “While it was not a journey with a straight line — it took many, many forms along the way — the heart and the sentiment, dating back six years ago when he and I first thought we knew how the series would end to the way it’s ending, is pretty spot-on.”
Sitting on set, Plec starts singing “guess who’s back” from Eminem’s “Without Me” with one of the biggest returning cast members. Nostalgia might be a bitch, but on this set it’s also cause for celebration, and the finale is filled with it. “I feel like I’ve watched other shows where the series finale leaves you unsatisfied, but we really do come to a conclusion with all the characters and their lives,” Dobrev says. “Julie and Kevin wrote a really beautiful episode, with a lot of callbacks to the pilot.”
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Walking away from the funeral scene, Dobrev wipes away Elena’s tears. At this point, you’d think Elena would be used to goodbyes. But this one’s different: There will be no more witchy high jinks, no more Other Side. Bonnie Bennett’s no longer in the business of bringing people back from the dead. This goodbye, much like the show’s final hour, is goodbye forever — which, for a vampire, is forever-forever.
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