ONTD

From Ep 3.19  ”Heart of Darkness”:

“We have a very passionate fandom that has very passionate opinions about things like whether Elena should be with Stefan or with Damon,” Plec says. “With Stefan’s encouragement, Elena is trying to understand and explore this relationship that she’s developed with Damon. There is some series-wide epicness that goes down in this episode, for sure.” (Something she and the series’ director of photography Dave Perkal will talk about on that NAB panel is how they strive not to make the best-looking episode of television each week, but the best-looking movie you could see on TV. “We don’t tend to go on the road very often, and we’ve got Damon and Elena in a motel,” she says. “It’s a dive motel by our production office that we called Crack Alley,” she adds. “It’s a very dingy, disgusting exterior, and Dave Perkal and Chris Grismer, who directed the episode, worked together to make it sexy and interesting and visual in spite of the complications of the location itself.”

From Ep 3.20 “Do Not Go Gentle”:

“Stefan and Elena have had a lot of beautiful moments together at these decade dances in spite of the chaos that tends to drown them at these events. This episode, they’ll definitely get to have a nice moment or two before the s— hits the fan.” Yes, there is a promo shot of Elena sobbing in Stefan’s arms. How dark will the show’s annual decade be this season? “All I can say is that I’ve watched the episode five times now through the editorial process, and every single time I end up crying like a baby with Elena. I’m not in Stefan’s arms. I’m alone,” she laughs. “But it’s a pretty powerful episode. We’re really proud of it.”

May 3rd ~ “Before Sunset”
Undefined Enemy

“Things get pretty harrowing as we get to the end of the season. We’ve got Klaus [whose plan is to leave town with Elena, whose blood he needs to make more hybrids] stepping up his game and returning to a more villainous place. We’ve got our heroes in dire straits. We’ve got Elena in the center of it all, as usual. We’ve got basically everybody stepping into battle because the enemy, who I can’t define for you at this moment because the April 19 episode tees it all up, is taking some pretty relentless and hardcore extremes against our heroes.”

Elena's decision:

“It will not be easy. It will be very emotional for both sides because it’s going to be a very honest, very pure, very difficult decision. Hopefully if we’ve done our jobs right with Elena’s character over the season, we’ll understand why she’s making the decision that she’s making and how that decision is meant to be right for where she is in her life right now. I cried many, many times. I haven’t seen it yet. I have no idea if that ended up on the screen. I don’t want to brag,” she laughs. “But it was a very, very emotional experience writing the finale, for a lot of reasons, one of which has already been talked about in the press. We do flashback to a time when Elena’s parents were still alive and when she was a cheerleader dating Matt, the football player, and before Bonnie knew she was a witch and thought she was just uncannily psychically available to predict fashion trends. It’s just a really poignant, sweet and bittersweet reflection back to a time when life was so much simpler for all of our humans and former humans. I hope it turns out as well as we want it to because it’s a really special episode.”

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