‘The Vampire Diaries’ season 6 finale review: Is Nina Dobrev’s Elena dead?

Thursday night’s season 6 finale of “The Vampire Diaries” was the biggest episode of the show since the pilot. Never has there been so much pressure to completely nail every aspect of the story.

Did they succeed? They tried to swing for the fences tonight, and what we imagine is an episode that is polarizing at best. There will be some who are happy with the decisions made by the writers. Meanwhile, we imagine that there are others who will feel somewhat slighted by the way it feels almost-impossible for her to return. So long as Bonnie is alive, she cannot live. She will have a chance eventually to roam the earth, but it will not be potentially for many years. This is painful, devastating, and a real test of Damon’s patience and care for a friend.

Since Elena’s fate was revealed fairly early on in the episode, and that meant spending a great deal of time in order to ensure that every single person had a proper farewell to her. Tyler Lockwood had a chance to run off using his newfound werewolf powers once again, while Alaric now has to yet again think about life as a single man. Why in the world can this guy not catch a break romantically? The death of Jo was the worst part of the episode, mostly because we deem it so unnecessary.

The episode had so much going on that it really needed to be longer, especially when thinking about Damon and what he is going through now. While he now feels alone, Stefan finally admitted to loving Caroline, and maybe these two will have more a committed relationship moving forward. We will have to think about how we feel about this episode for a while; it was far from perfect, but did the best that it could to accommodate an end that most fans will not be happy with. Grade: B+.

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