I'm Thinking Of You All The While

I'm Thinking Of You All The While is the twenty-second and final episode of the sixth season of The Vampire Diaries and the one hundred thirty-third episode of the series overall.
==Summary==
GOODBYE, MYSTIC FALLS — In the aftermath of Alaric and Jo's powerful nuptials, things take a dramatic turn when an uninvited guest shows up, leaving Elena in terrible jeopardy. Despite Matt's advice to leave town to protect herself, a defiant Bonnie takes matters into her own hands after finding herself on the receiving end of a twisted plan. As Stefan and Caroline reach an emotional crossroad in their relationship, a reunion with Liv leaves Tyler faced with a decision that could change his life forever. Meanwhile, Lily's reckless actions cause Stefan to realize the lengths to which his mother will go to reunite with her "family". Finally, after a devastating chain of events, Damon is forced to make the most difficult decision of his life. Jeremy and Enzo also appear.
==Plot==
Elena finds Damon lying in the road where they first met. She gets up and start to question Damon and claims that she knows something bad has happened.
Jump to the chaos following Kai's violent interruption of Jo and Alaric's wedding. Damon attempts to feed a wounded Elena his blood. Alaric cradles Jo's dead body in his arms lamenting that this can't be happening. Damon worries that Elena won't wake up after taking his blood. Stefan and Caroline awaken, brushing the fallen rubble off of themselves before rushing over to find a broken hearted Damon hovering over a lifeless Elena. They suggest that Damon rush Elena to the hospital, and like that, Damon picks up Elena in his arms and using his vamp speed, races over to the hospital. Caroline and Stefan are just coming to terms with what has just happened when Kai uses his magic to snap their necks before he goes after Jo. Kai's family converge on him, chanting a Gemini spell to send him back to a prison world. Before they can finish, Kai picks up a shard of glass and gleefully stabs himself in his own neck to take out his whole family.
As Elena lies in the hospital bed, she dreams of when her and Alaric were training - Alaric takes all of his anger out on the training doll wedged onto the tree, before bursting into tears. Elena walks up behind him, comforts him, and tells him to keep on fighting. - Back in reality, Damon calls Bonnie to tell her Jo is dead and Elena won't wake up. Bonnie tells him that for some reason, Kai drained hers and Matt's blood but left them both alive. They both seem confused.
In a trailer park, Stefan watches as his mother frantically searches for her six friends that Kai told her he'd brought back, in every container that she can find, but has no luck in finding them.
Outside the wedding, Liv and Tyler are badly hurt and lying on the ground. Tyler has a giant piece of glass in his stomach and Liv, along with the rest of her coven, is dying after Kai's inflicted suicide/murder. Tyler tells her he loves her. She notices it's a full moon and doesn't want him to die. She suggests he trigger his werewolf gene by killing her so he'll get a second chance at life. She tells him she loves him and tells him not to waste it, then places his hand over her mouth. Tyler sobs as he smothers the woman he loves. As the curse starts to kick in, Tyler calls Matt to warn all the vampires to stay away from him. He's not sure he can control himself and his bite will kill them.
Stefan gets fed up with Lily searching for her friends, whom she insists on calling 'her family'. He says if she doesn't come with him, she's out of his life. She takes no notice of him and responds that she won't leave them again. Then she confesses the really bad news, that Kai had offered her a deal, in order for him to bring back her family, she was to feed him some of her blood.
Back at the wedding, Kai comes back to life and yanks the glass out of his neck. He walks over to his dying father and licks his blood to complete his transition into a Hybrid. Outside, Alaric puts Jo in the back of his car and takes a gun out of his glove compartment. As he sees Kai approach him, he empties his gun into Kai, but unfortunately has little effect as he converted himself into one of Lily's heretics, he can siphon the magic of vampirism and turn it into more magic. Alaric doesn't care. He holds the gun to his own head and pulls the trigger, however, as he has used up all of the bullets in Kai, it's empty. Then, out of nowhere, Tyler, while still turning, tackles Kai and takes a ferocious bite out of Kai's neck. He stares down Alaric, then runs off.
Back inside Elena's mind, Elena dreams about standing on Wickery Bridge where she was again, saying good-bye to her human self with Matt by throwing flowers into the river, just as she did the first time.
Matt comes back to the Salvatore house, where Bonnie has found a recorded message from Kai in which he explains the new "inspired" ways he's going to make her suffer. While this is going on, at the hospital, Damon gets a text : "Ty werewolf, Kai vampire". Then Kai shows up with the werewolf bite in his neck. Damon offers to get the cure in New Orleans (from Klaus) if Kai tells him what he did. Back in the Salvatore House, on the video, Kai explains that he had linked Bonnie's life to Elena's. As long as Bonnie lives, Elena will stay asleep, and that he'll made sure, as a result, if anyone attempts to find a loophole or try to undo the spell, it will lead to both of their deaths. Matt immediately urges Bonnie to get out of town, knowing full well that Damon might now come after her.
Elena dreams about the time she and Stefan went on their post-vampire hike, but this time she says good-bye. Caroline and Stefan visit Elena in her hospital bed. Caroline is OK with waiting for Bonnie to live a long and happy life before Elena wakes up, un-aged. She asks how Stefan feels about his "soul mate." Stefan notes that Elena was the only person who ever thought his brother was worth loving, and brought him closer to Damon - "I think in the end I needed him more than I needed her," adds Stefan with a bittersweet smile. He tries to talk to Caroline about them, but she stops him from continuing as they need to focus on Elena.
Bonnie finds Kai back at the wedding and uses her magic to torture him into undoing the spell. He only laughs and says he can't. Bonnie then stops, while realizing that she may never see Elena again. Kai, then has a brainstorm. He claims that he never even knew that werewolves even existed and that since they were of magic too, so would the venom on a werewolf bite be. He then raises his hand to his neck where he siphons the magic from his werewolf bite before standing up and raising Bonnie up into the air, then forces her crushing into a wall with great force - then falls to the floor, where she lays lifeless...
Back on the road in Elena's mind, Elena asks Damon again how bad it is. He tells her what Kai did.
Damon finds Bonnie bleeding internally with a collapsed lung. Kai tries to encourage Damon to walk away, to leave Bonnie to die and go live the life he always dreamt of with Elena. Damon apologizes to Bonnie, then kisses her on the forehead, Bonnie attempts to move her head out of the way, then walks away. Kai is outraged Damon gave up on her so easily. But Kai doesn't stay upset long as Damon sneaks up behind him and suddenly takes off his head with one clean swipe of his arm. Damon then rushes to feed his blood to Bonnie while stroking her head, comforting her.
The next day, everyone regroups at the Salvatore house. Elena is now asleep in a coffin. They take turns saying good-bye. Caroline holds Elena and Bonnie's hands and helps Bonnie talk to Elena in her memories. The three of them imagine a sleepover. Elena asks them to write down everything that happens to them so that when she wakes up she can read all about their lives. Bonnie apologizes, but Elena says they both get everything they want—they just can't have it with each other at the same time. Elena asks Bonnie to levitate feathers from a pillow, just like the first time Bonnie showed her her powers. Elena sees herself back on the bridge with Matt, who she hopes becomes a cop, spending his life fighting for people who are good, like he is. He knows there's a chance he'll never see her again. Elena tries to help Alaric deal with his grief, telling him to let himself drown in his grief at first, and then he'll start to swim and get stronger.
Outside the dream/vision, Jeremy arrives and rushes over to his sleeping sister and grabs her hand. In the memory, Jeremy and Elena are in the stoner den at school where Elena is happy to see him. He tells her he'll be happy doing what he was born to do. In another vision with Tyler, she urges him to leave Mystic Falls and embrace his wolf side, while apologizing to him about his girlfriend. Finally, it's Stefan's turn. He cries as she sees them back at the quarry. She tells him she loves him and
can't wait to see what life he's chosen for himself in 60 or 70 years when she sees him again. All he knows is it won't be high school.
Enzo arrives to meet Lily at the shipping containers where she expected to find her friends. She tries to explain what they mean to her. Then Enzo notices a building that wasn't there last night. Kai had it cloaked, then he died so it's now uncloaked. Lily walks in and to her surprise, her family come towards her. Lily runs and gives them a huge hug.
Damon and Stefan close Elena's coffin in the crypt. "If word gets out that her body has the cure in it, every vampire will come after her. Bonnie is going to spell it shut." It's Damon's turn to say good-bye. She tells him to live his life and enjoy himself. They slow dance in the middle of the road. Stefan sits down with Caroline, and tells her he made a list about all the ways loving her has changed his life. He understands if he has to wait for her, and says he will. "When you're ready for me, I will be ready for you," he says. Damon and Elena finish their dance and Damon prepares to spend the next 60 years of his life without her in it. He sadly kisses her.
After an unknown amount of time passes, it appears that Mystic Falls is now a war zone. Matt still looks like he did as he patrols the streets in his sheriff car and his badge ... and stood there on the clock tower, Damon Salvatore as it appears, watches over a destroyed Mystic Falls.
==Cast==
===Main Cast===
*Nina Dobrev as Elena Gilbert
*Paul Wesley as Stefan Salvatore
*Ian Somerhalder as Damon Salvatore
*Kat Graham as Bonnie Bennett
*Candice Accola as Caroline Forbes
*Zach Roerig as Matt Donovan
*Michael Trevino as Tyler Lockwood
*Matt Davis as Alaric Saltzman
*Michael Malarkey as Enzo
====Special Guest Star====
*Steven R. McQueen as Jeremy Gilbert
===Recurring Cast===
*Penelope Mitchell as Liv Parker
*Jodi Lyn O'Keefe as Josette Laughlin (corpse)
*Annie Wersching as Lily Salvatore
*Chris Wood as Kai Parker
*Christopher Cousins as Joshua Parker
===Co-Starring===
*Joy Spears as Elena Dance Double
*Jamie Bennett as Damon Dance Double
*Andrene Ward-Hammond as Gemini Coven Member #1
*Karen Tiegren as Gemini Coven Member #2
==Trivia==
*Antagonist: Malachai Parker
*Despite telling Jeremy that they find a way to go on in Black Hole Sun, Alaric attempted suicide with a revolver left in his cars glove box due after losing Josette and the twins. He didn't succeed, however, due to attempting to kill Kai and using all of the bullets.
*Damon tells Elena he's willing to lay desiccated in the Salvatore crypt until she wakes but she tells him to live his life.
*Kai commits suicide in this episode but, as Lily had given him her blood, he comes back to life as a witch-vampire hybrid.
*Tyler Lockwood becomes a werewolf again, as Liv was going to die anyway and triggering the curse by killing Liv was the only way to save Tyler's life.
*Elena and Bonnie's life forces are linked by Kai. As long as Bonnie lives, Elena will remain in a coma as well, not aging under the sleeping spell. As Kai said that as Elena's frozen in this moment.
*The Gemini Coven and Prison Worlds are destroyed with Kai's human death.
*When Damon says goodbye to Elena, it takes him to the road where they first meet but in their clothes for Alaric and Jo's wedding.
==Body Count==
*Josette Laughlin - Stabbed/loss of blood; killed by Malachai Parker
*Joshua Parker and the Gemini Coven - Gemini Coven Leader's life link; killed by Kai
*Olivia Parker - Suffocation; killed by Tyler Lockwood
*Malachai Parker - Stabbed / decapitation; killed by himself and transitioned into a hybrid and killed by Damon Salvatore
==Continuity==
*Jeremy was last seen in Stay. His voice was heard in The Downward Spiral.
*Malachai was last seen in I'll Wed You in the Golden Summertime at the end of the episode.
*Niklaus is mentioned. He was last seen in 500 Years of Solitude on The Vampire Diaries and Ashes to Ashes on The Originals.
==Locations==
*Elena's hallucinations
**Road
**Woods
**Wickery Bridge
**Steven's Quarry
**Gilbert House
**Mystic Falls High School
***The Stoner Pit
**Forbes House
*Unknown
**Wedding barn
**Warehouse
**Cellar outside Mystic Falls
*Mystic Falls, Virginia
**Mystic Falls Hospital
**Salvatore Boarding House
**Mystic Falls Cemetery
**Town Square (flashforward)
**Mystic Falls Police Station (tower, flashforward)
==Behind the Scenes==
*This is Olivia Parker's 20th episode and her final appearance.
*This episode had about 1.44 million viewers in the USA.
*This episode features the final regular appearances of Nina Dobrev and Michael Trevino in the series, while Steven R. McQueen is billed as "Special Guest Star".https://www.latinpost.com/articles/52909/20150513/the-vampire-diaries-season-6-nina-dobrev-opens-up-about-her-decision-to-quit-tvd.htm
**Nina Dobrev's final day of shooting her final scene of TVD playing Elena Gilbert was Wednesday April 15, 2015.
**The last scene shot for the season and Nina as Elena was the Damon & Elena dance scene, which according to her WhoSay post the day this episode aired she shares a picture of herself after getting caked by the cast & crew, but took Ian Somerhalder down with her by putting some of the cake on him as seen in another photo.
**The dress Nina wore in this episode and the previous episode was hand made.
**Nina Dobrev is willing to come back for the series finale.https://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/14/vampire-diaries-after-nina-dobrev-ep-julie-plecs-master-plan Saying she wants to end Elena's story on a happy note with Damon.
*This is the last episode of the series overall, in which Candice King is credited as 'Candice Accola'.
*Nina Dobrev announced on her Instagram account on Monday April 6, 2015 that she was leaving the series after the Season 6 finale, this episode, after having spent the Easter weekend on Lake Lanier in Georgia saying goodbye to both the cast & crew of The Vampire Diaries including Michael Trevino who was also there.
*Nina Dobrev will no longer be living in Atlanta, GA a place she called her hometown for the last 6 years as she's posted a photo on her WhoSay account on Monday May 4, 2015 telling her fans that packing up things and will be moving to live in her new house in the L.A. area. A later post says that she will take a cross country road trip when she's done packing up her things. This implies that she plans to drive her car across the US rather than to ship it to Los Angeles.
*Just like The Originals season finale this episode was dedicated in loving memory of Andre Perreault (1953-2015), TVD and TO's sound re-recording mixer.
*Hashtag during the airing is #GoodbyeElena
==Cultural References==
*"I'm Thinking Of You All The While" is a song composed by David Reed and recorded in 1903 by Arthur Collins.Discography of American Historical Recordings – "I'm Thinking Of You All The While"
==Quotes==
<tabber>
|-|Trailer=
:Damon (to Kai): "What did you do to my damn girlfriend?"
:Caroline: "Take her hand, close your eyes. Just let her enter your thoughts."
:Elena (to Stefan): "You knew me better than anyone."
:Stefan: "I can't do this."
:Elena (to Damon): "Are you ready for this?"
:Damon: "Ready to spend next 60 years of my life without you. Who's ever gonna be ready for that?"
|-|Extended Promo=
:Elena: "I'm not a believer. People grow old, then they die."
:Elena (to Stefan): "I'm Elena."
:Stefan (to Elena): "I'm Stefan."
:Elena: "But how can I deny what's right in front of me?"
:Stefan (to Elena): "I'm a vampire."
:Elena: "Nothing about my life is normal."
:Elena (to Stefan): "You didn't tell me that you had a brother."
:Damon (to Elena): "You must be Elena."
:Elena (to Damon): "Do you see a future with me?"
:Damon: "I've seen it since the second I laid eyes on you."
:Elena: "There's nothing more I could ever want. Other than for it to last forever. But I can't."
|-|Inside Clip=
:Alaric (to Jo): "No! No no no no! Jo!"
:Kai (to Alaric): "I was gonna wait until "The death do us part" but... it seemed a little on the nose."
:Kai: "Miss me?"
:Damon: "Stefan! Stefan! She won't wake up!"
:Kai: "Looks like someone is having a very bad day."
</tabber>
==Multimedia==
===Soundtrack===
===Videos===
The Vampire Diaries - I'm Thinking of You All the While Trailer
The Vampire Diaries - Inside I'm Thinking of You All the While
The Vampire Diaries - I'm Thinking of You All the While Clip
The Vampire Diaries 6x22 "I'm Thinking Of You All The While" Sneak Peek 2 (sub ita)
The Vampire Diaries Rehash I'm Thinking of You All the While The CW
===Pictures===
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|-|Promotional=
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The Vampire Diaries - Episode 6.22 - I'm Thinking Of You All The While (Season Finale) - Promotional Photos 595 Mini Logo TV white - Gallery.jpg
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|-|Screencaps=
|-|Behind the Scenes=
2017-01-05_Ian_Somerhalder_Chris_Grismer_Instagram.jpg|Ian Somerhalder by Chris Grismer
2015-10-15_Ian_Somerhalder_Chris_Grismer_Instagram.jpg|Ian Somerhalder by Chris Grismer
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2015-05-15_Jamie_Bennett_Twitter.jpg|Joy Spears, Jamie Bennett
2015-05-15_Nina_Dobrev_Joy_Spears_Ian_Somerhalder_Jamie_Bennett_Instagram.jpg|Nina Dobrev, Joy Spears, Ian Somerhalder, Jamie Bennett
2015-05-15_Nina_Dobrev_Ian_Somerhalder_Jamie_Bennett_Joy_Spears_Instagram.jpg|Nina Dobrev, Joy Spears, Ian Somerhalder, Jamie Bennett
2015-04-15_Ian_Somerhalder_Joy_Spears_Instagram.jpg|Joy Spears, Ian Somerhalder
</tabber>
==References==
==See also==
Category:The Vampire Diaries Episode Guide
Category:Episodes featuring all main characters
Category:Full moon episodes
Category:Season Finales
Category:The Vampire Diaries Season Six
Category:Flashforward episodes