The Vampire Diaries series finale recap: 'I Was Feeling Epic' 4

One final Stefan-Elena goodbye

Jumping back to Stefan and Elena in the hallway, Elena slowly registers what Stefan is saying. Damon is fine, but Stefa … he did what he had to do, he tells her. “Tonight I saw a side of Damon that I hadn’t seen in a while: the older brother I looked up to, the son who enlisted in the Civil War to please his father, the Damon I knew when I was a boy. I wanted that Damon to live, and I wanted you to have an opportunity to get to know him.” Contradicting Katherine’s statement from earlier in the episode, Stefan tells Elena, “He’s the better man. He’s the right man.”

I have a small issue with Stefan, who’s just sacrificed himself, saying that Damon is the “better man,” but the point is that Damon has finally completed his evolution. He became a “villain” when his brother forced him to become a vampire. And now, almost 200 years later, he’s back to being the guy he was before he died, and not just because he’s human, but because the self-described selfish vampire has learned to put others first. In terms of redemption, this one moment has delivered it for both brothers: Damon because he was willing to sacrifice himself, and Stefan because he did.

It’s also a potentially unintentional nod to the season 2 finale, when Damon, on his deathbed thanks to a werewolf bite, told Elena that he thought she would’ve liked him if she’d met him when he was human. And now, finally, she’s going to get to know that guy.

Returning to the moment, Stefan wipes a tear from Elena’s face as he tells her, “It’s good to see you, Elena. One last time.” The two of them hug before he whispers one final message in her ear. Then, mirroring the moment when she left with Klaus in season 2 and the moment they said goodbye in the season 6 finale, they let their hands slowly separate. They’ve finally come to the end of their love story. And that’s one of the things I love most about this moment. It does not take anything away from Damon and Elena’s love story or Stefan and Caroline’s love story, but by the simple fact that Stefan told Elena that his brother was the right man in this scenario, it brings us back to the love triangle that was the foundation of this show for so long. It’s a beautiful wink to the fact that maybe there was a future in which Stefan and Elena found their way back to each other. We’ll never know. But now, because of Stefan’s decision, he’s ended their story. But he’s also the reason their story began.

By putting Katherine’s comment about Stefan being the better man in the beginning of the episode and bringing it back here, it makes the triangle relevant again without undoing years of other relationships. Just like in the season 3 finale, it came down to which brother, but this time, it wasn’t about who Elena would choose. Instead, it was about which brother would make the ultimate choice, and once again, it was Stefan. So maybe, in a way, it was always going to be Stefan, whether it was about getting a girl or making a sacrifice.

I also just have to tip my hat to both actors in this scene. I feel like there’s so much they’re juggling here. They can’t make the moment romantic, because that would feel odd, but they have to acknowledge that they’re saying goodbye to an epic love, and they handle it so perfectly. I’m sure some of you will disagree, and I respect how you feel, but for me, I feel like this moment respects all the ships.

And finally, there’s the beautiful callback as The Fray’s “Never Say Never” plays, the same song that ended the pilot, when Stefan showed up on Elena’s porch after the bonfire and she invited him inside. It was the start of their love story — that was the night that they would talk and it would be epic. And now, it marks the (also epic) end of their love story.

Walking down the hallway away from Elena — which took me back to the moment he did the same in season 4 after hearing her say she loved Damon for the first time — Stefan opens the doors and enters… peace. And waiting for him is none other than Lexi, leaning against his Porsche. “That was beautiful,” she says, to which he responds, “I was feeling epic.”

Cutting from Lexi and Stefan’s reunion, we get Elena’s final “Dear Diary.” As she wakes up in Damon’s bed, her voiceover — mirroring sentiments she said in the pilot — says, “Dear Diary, Today will be different. Today I will smile and it will be genuine because today is the day that I get to live again.” (Much in the same way that Stefan helped her figure out how to live again after her parents died.)

Just then, Elena wakes up to find Bonnie watching over her. After all this time, Bonnie found a way to break Kai’s spell, and as she puts it, “It took some time but I think I finally figured this witch thing out.” They hug, and then in a moment that absolutely destroys me, the reality of the situation sets in for both of them. Elena asks where Damon is, and Bonnie lets her know that he’s with Caroline… “saying goodbye.”