SPOILERS BELOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Good morning Vampire Diaries fans. Now that you have had time to sleep, or more likely have stayed up all night watching The Departed on repeat, let’s discuss. The Departed was a crazy whirlwind end to a crazy season, but not the best of the season. This wasn’t a result of the episode itself, which was very well done, but a result of the CW releasing too many spoilers. If you avoided the spoilers, kudos to you! You were able to enjoy an excellently written and directed story that likely left you breathless. For the rest of us, fans should have been shocked when Elena woke up in transition, but instead it was more of an “I knew it” moment. The true excitement of the finale is what it means for the series moving forward, but I will get to that in a bit.
The highlights of the episode were once again the subplots. Tyler and Caroline’s story in The Departed was beautiful. It fit in seamlessly with the theme of the episode, remembering a simpler life. They shared a wonderful moment of pure teenage emotion, which with all the death can be lacking on The Vampire Diaries. What is to come with Klaus in Tyler’s body? Who knows? It does put an awkward twist to that love triangle.
The humans rocked this episode! Matt, Jeremy, and Meredith showed us that in a town crawling with vampires humans can still make decisions for themselves (a sentiment crazy Alaric was also trying to get through during the episode). All of the scenes with Matt and Elena were perfect. We got to see what their relationship was really like. You could tell from the first episode of Season 1, that Elena was never really in love with Matt and The Departed brought us back to that. His attachment was always stronger than hers. It would be great to see someone fall deeply in love with Matt. Even his relationship with Caroline always felt forced. Jeremy and Matt pulled out the big guns and finally decided it was time to get out of Mystic Falls, that didn’t work out so well but the sentiment was well intentioned. Jeremy’s phone conversation with Damon and Stefan in the beginning of the episode was hilariously real. Damon’s frustration and Jeremy’s intent that he had done the right thing was palpable. And then there’s Meredith. The catalyst for change. She will definitely be someone to watch in Season 4.
So what next? How does a show go from a story about two vampires in love with a human, to two vampires in love with another vampire? Julie Plec spoke to EW about what is to come in Season 4. One of the things fans will be looking forward to is that if Elena does complete the transition (Plec confirms she will in the article) she will remember Damon’s compulsion. Plec told EW
“Damon now has a small collection of things that he’s compelled her to forget. If there’s one thing that everyone knows about our vampire rules it’s that when you die and are in transition, your memories start to come back. So, there’s some new information that will be introduced to Elena in the first episode of next season. I think it’s just all part of the ongoing friendship and romantic entanglement that Elena has with Damon. She’s never gonna be able to shake it completely, and new information is only gonna get under her skin and embed itself into her even more.”
The article goes into vast detail of what’s to come in Season 4. I highly suggest giving it a read; although, with The Vampire Diaries we know anything is possible. We will just have to suffer through the summer and wait for Season 4 to see what lies ahead for our friends in Mystic Falls.
The Vampire Diaries will return to the CW this fall.
