Nina Dobrev was at her most bad-ass on ‘The Vampire Diaries’ midseason finale. Do you think Elena & Stefan are really over for good?

Every episode of The Vampire Diaries deserves a standing ovation worthy of Carnegie Hall, but the Nov. 10 midseason finale was one of those hours that literally takes the series to another level. When the dust finally settled, Mikael (Sebastian Roché) was dead, Stefan (Paul Wesley) was free from Klaus’ (Joseph Morgan) compulsion, and Elena (Nina Dobrev) finally realized that Damon (Ian Somerhalder) is the better Salvatore.

OK, I may have embellished on that last one a little bit.

But there’s still no denying that “Delena” is closer to happening than ever before. While Damon and Elena plotted their attack on Klaus — Stefan was sort of lurking around too, I guess — Damon asked her if she trusts him; and not missing a beat, she answered, “Yes.” I feel like it was only yesterday that Elena was slapping Damon outside the school for even coming near her. My, how far these two have come.

Putting Elena and Damon’s drama aside for a brief second, we also got to know a lot more about the dysfunctional Original family — and talk about about daddy issues! It turns out Klaus hates Mikael because he felt like he could never live up to his expectations, while Rebekah (Claire Holt) hates him for turning their family into vampires in the first place. Of course, neither one of them will have to worry about Mikael anymore… now that he’s super dead.

Here’s how that whole plan went awry: Elena and Katherine — welcome back, lady — swapped places at the party so Katherine could survive Mikael’s stab wound and nail Klaus’ hybrid army with wolfs-bane grenades. That’s when Damon was supposed to stab Klaus with the one weapon capable of killing an Original, but Stefan swooped in and saved his master. This freed Klaus up to stab Mikael, and he stood and watched as the world’s first vampire went up in flames.

We later learned that Stefan knew killing Klaus would also mean Damon’s death — Klaus’ hybrids were commanded to kill anyone who harmed him — so his little act of rebellion was actually a sign of him “caring” about his brother. Someone should probably tell Damon that, as he was pretty pissed at the end of the episode.

And his anger led to a beautiful little “Delena” moment: There may not have been any kissing or beds involved, but there was lots of face touching — and that’s fine by me. “We’ll survive this,” she told Damon. “We always survive. Trust me.” And when he asked her what they were going to do about Stefan, she simply responded, “We’ll let him go, OK? We’ll have to let him go.”

Tyler (Michael Trevino) and Caroline (Candice Accola) are also in kind of a weird place after the events of this week’s episode. She’s been iffy about him ever since he became a hybrid, and him injecting her with vervain at the homecoming party certainly did nothing to ease her concerns. But he did it to keep her safe from Klaus’ little hybrid army, which he explained a little “trust me” speech at the end. I’m really curious to see how their relationship plays out.

Back to Stefan: I may think Elena belongs with Damon, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love Stefan. And his eyebrows. He can be truly awesome when he wants to be, like when he decided to use his newfound freedom to snatch up all of the Original family members’ bodies at the end of this week’s episode. He may have shaken off Klaus’ compulsion, but it looks like he kept that Ripper fire. I approve.

OK, enough ranting. What did YOU think of the midseason finale? Do you think Elena really let Stefan go for good? And who will Klaus choose as his first victim now that’s going on an all-out killing spree? Hit up the comments section below with your thoughts!

— Andy Swift

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