Let Her Go

Let Her Go is the fifteenth episode of the sixth season of The Vampire Diaries and the one hundred and twenty-sixth episode of the series overall.
==Summary==
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JULIE PLEC MAKES HER DIRECTORIAL DEBUT — After assigning tasks to each of her friends, Caroline attempts to deal with her current situation as reality begins to set in around her. While spending the day with Caroline, Elena grows concerned when she starts noticing a strange change in her behavior. Meanwhile, Alaric becomes wary when Kai, who has begun experiencing unexpected consequences from the merge, turns to Jo, desperate for her help. Elsewhere, while Bonnie finds herself in an unfamiliar situation, Matt and Tyler contemplate a major life change. And when Damon offers Caroline advice on how to cope with everything going on around her, it forces him to revisit painful memories involving his own mother. Stefan also appears.
==Plot==
In her mother's memory, young Caroline cries as Liz tends to her boo boo after crashing her bike without training wheels. She asks her mom if she'll die and Liz explains it won't be a long time, after Caroline is all grown up. 
Caroline wakes up in the middle of the night at the Salvatore house, surrounded by her sleeping friends. In the kitchen, Damon is trying and failing to write Liz's eulogy. He thinks it's Liz's way of making him deal with not being there when his mom died. Caroline is just trying to get through the next few days, but Damon tells her those aren't the bad ones, when she's surrounded by friends trying to make her feel better, it's what comes after. In the morning, Caroline makes a to-do list following her mother's death. She wants her mom celebrated and buried by the end of the day.
In 1994 nowhere land, Bonnie records a message on day 278. She got magic out of the Silas rock in Nova Scotia and is ready for the eclipse.
At Jo's house, she retches with food poisoning. Kai knocks on the door. Jo wants nothing to do with him, but after he spits up blood he explains that he's suffering from the results of not merging with his twin (her). She doesn't have food poisoning, it's affecting her, too. Kai thinks if he doesn't get better it could mean death not just for him, but Jo, Liv and the whole coven.
Damon remembers back to after his mother died, helping 10-year-old Stefan get ready for the funeral. Stefan didn't think he'd cry because his mother's angel visited him in his sleep.
Back in the present, Stefan can tell that Damon is struggling with the eulogy. But Stefan has other things on his mind. "I need your advice, and I need you to not be a dick about it because I have no one else to ask," Stefan says. Stefan tells Damon about kissing Caroline. Damon asks Stefan if he's in love, then seeing that Stefan isn't, advises him to bail now before Caroline gets hurt—just not today.
Meanwhile, outside the funeral home, Elena is counseling Caroline on post-loss pleasantries when Caroline blurts out that she kissed Stefan. She wants to talk to him about it but feels like he won't be honest about it today. Elena suggests she wait til tomorrow, but Caroline wants to know.
At Jo's house, she examines Kai, who feels like he's "being scrunched from inside out." She says there's nothing medically wrong with him, which doesn't surprise him because he knows it's magic related. When he starts to throw up blood again and grabs Jo and takes some of her magic, then realizes it made him feel better. He thinks she should give her magic to him. Alaric is skeptical, but Kai explains that if he does, Jo dies. And if he dies, the prison worlds collapse. Alaric notices the plural.
Back in Kai's prison world, Bonnie is ready down in the cave for the ceremony to go home. But just when the eclipse is supposed to start, the sun disappears and snow starts falling.
Back at the house, Damon is still laboring over the eulogy. Elena worries that Caroline isn't handling things well. Elena suggests the eulogy isn't about Damon, or even Liz, but about Caroline and what she needs to hear. Damon remembers the past, arriving after his mother's funeral. Young Stefan is in tears and upset that Damon didn't just stay good-bye.
At the hospital, Jo asks Alaric what she should do about her magic. He tells her he loves her and will love her whatever she decides.
At the church, Stefan finds Caroline alone before the ceremony. She chooses the "horribly awkward present", next to her mom's open casket, to ask him what everything between them means. He suggest they wait to talk. Caroline leans over her mom's casket and tells her everything will be OK and she's going to be fine.
In the winter prison world, Bonnie sees the sky light up with Northern Lights and finds a cabin. Inside she finds a journal mentioning the Aurora Borealis with a date: November 1, 1903.
Outside the church, Tyler stumbles up the stairs and Matt realizes he's drunk. Matt tells him to get lost. Inside, Liz receives a full policeman's funeral. Then it's Damon's turn. "Liz Forbes was my friend. In her last moments she asked me to pass along a message to her daughter.... Your mom wanted you to know how proud of you she was, and she should be. You're a beautiful, strong woman and a generous friend. A bright light in a sea of darkness. She said you were extraordinary and you are, and so was she," Damon says, adding that Liz was a hero to everyone including him. Stefan keeps looking at Caroline as Damon talks. Caroline gets up and sings "Go In Peace" for her mother.
Later at the Grill, Tyler is there—sober. Matt tells him how moved he was by the policeman's honors for Liz. He got an application for an officer's training program, and got one for Tyler, too. Caroline says good-bye to Elena and goes home to be alone.
In the 1903 prison world, Bonnie finds framed photos of Stefan and Damon. She realizes
where she is.
In the present, Jo is ready to give Kai her magic. As she begins chanting, Bonnie finds herself back in 1994 prison world with the eclipse underway. Then suddenly she's back in 1903 as she runs through the forest to the cavern. She begins the spell just as a woman in 1903 clothing appears (not Katherine). "Who are you?" Bonnie asks. Before the woman could answer! Bonnie is whisked up into the heavens.
Jo finishes giving Kai her magic. He congratulates her then whispers something in her ear. "Have a good life, sissy," he says. Jo tells Alaric she wasn't sick from food poisoning—Kai says she's pregnant. Alaric immediately asks her to marry him. "What? No! That's a pity proposal. You can't throw a pity proposal at a pregnant ex-witch," Jo says, going on until Alaric cuts her off by pulling a ring out of his pocket. He's been looking for the right time, which was supposed to be this morning before she started puking her guts out. It's not a pity proposal. He gets down on one knee and proposes. She says yes.
At the Grill, Stefan compliments Damon on his eulogy. He remembers failing Stefan by not doing their mother's eulogy and he didn't want to fail anyone. Stefan tells Damon he thinks he was wrong, he definitely feels something for Caroline. Damon tells him to stop wasting his time with him. "I think she could use a piece of news like that today," Damon says.
Caroline comes home to empty house. Elena soon joins her. She figured out what was bothering her about Caroline's behavior. She was so focused on just getting through only today, like there was no tomorrow. She guesses that Caroline is planning to turn her emotions off. Damon made her realizes things are going to get worse. Caroline thinks she'll handle having no humanity better than Elena did, even though Elena says it was one of the biggest mistakes she ever made. "And if Stefan had said the right thing earlier would that have changed your mind?" Elena asks. "Well, he didn't. So it doesn't matter," Caroline says through tears. Elena hugs her and tells her she won't let her. Caroline keeps crying then coldly snaps Elena's neck. Caroline is suddenly cool and collected. "That's not your choice to make," Caroline says.
Damon comes home, leaving a voice mail for Elena and finds pancake fixings in his kitchen—and Bonnie, surprising him, leaps into his arms.
Stefan arrives at Caroline's house and sees Elena dead on the floor.
Back with Damon, Bonnie tells him she was in his house in 1903 in the prison world. She still had her camcorder on and plays it for him. Damon sees the woman Bonnie saw. It's his mother.
==Cast==
===Main Cast===
*Nina Dobrev as Elena Gilbert
*Paul Wesley as Stefan Salvatore
*Ian Somerhalder as Damon Salvatore
*Steven R. McQueen as Jeremy Gilbert (credit only)
*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 (credit only)
===Recurring Cast===
*Marguerite MacIntyre as Liz Forbes (corpse/flashback)
*Jodi Lyn O'Keefe as Josette Laughlin
*Chris Wood as Kai Parker
===Guest Cast===
*Annie Wersching as Lily Salvatore
===Co-Starring===
*Brad Sanders as Pastor
*Yvonne Singh as Woman
*Mckenna Grace as Young Caroline (flashback)
*Sawyer Bell as Young Stefan (flashback)
*Daniel Pruitt as Police Officer
==Trivia==
*Antagonists: Kai (Indirectly) and Caroline Forbes.
*Kai is dying due to the improper merge with Luke, however, he gets better after siphoning some magic from Josette. 
**To keep him alive and to prevent herself and the rest of Gemini Coven from dying with him, Josette makes the decision to relinquish her magic to Kai.
*The flashback to 1858 shows a ten-year-old Stefan, just shy of his 11th birthday birthday, and an eighteen-year-old Damon.
*Damon gives Liz's eulogy during her funeral. During the funeral, it is revealed Liz has had been in the police service for twelve years and four months, and that her radio number is 2-6.
*Josette is told by Kai that she's pregnant with Alaric's baby.
*Alaric and Jo get engaged.
*Bonnie returns back home from the 1994 Prison World where she briefly encounters Stefan and Damon's mother when she accidentally shifted into the 1903 Prison World.
*It is revealed that there is another Prison World, a copy of October 31/November 1, 1903. If the Gemini Coven leader dies, then those worlds will collapse.
*Matt decided to join a officer training program and suggested to Tyler to sign up as well.
*As a result of being unable to handle the pain of her mother's death, Caroline decides to turn off her humanity.
**Elena realizes her plan and tries to talk her out of it, Caroline snaps Elena's neck before telling her that it isn't her choice to make.
**During their conversation, Caroline points out Elena's own experience with turning off her humanity and erasing her memories out of grief calls her a hypocrite, but Elena confesses that she considers both to be the two worst mistakes she's ever made.
*It has been 278 days since Home, which places the events of this episode on February 3, 2013. Bonnie obviously didn't start her video diary at the beginning, since her birthday (February 5) on The Day I Tried To Live.
**Note that the exact day in 2012 that Home occurred is not known.
**This means that it has been 39 weeks or about 9 months since the events of Home.
*After initially deciding against a relationship with Caroline, Stefan realizes that their potential relationship is worth trying and decides to tell Caroline. Unfortunately, he is too late, because when he arrives at the Forbes House, he finds Elena with a snapped neck on the floor and Caroline gone after she had turned off her humanity.
==Body Count==
==Continuity==
*Bonnie, Tyler, and Kai were last seen in The Day I Tried To Live.
*Jo was last seen in Prayer For the Dying.
*Candice Accola (Caroline) sings again for the second time.
*Bill Forbes was mentioned. He was last seen in Bringing Out The Dead.
*Steven, Bill's partner, was mentioned. He was last mentioned in Christmas Through Your Eyes.
*Liv was mentioned. She was last seen in The Day I Tried To Live.
*Joshua Parker was mentioned. He was last seen in Prayer For the Dying.
==Locations==
*Bill Forbes' Cabin (outside, flashback)
*Mystic Falls, Virginia
**Salvatore Boarding House
**Salvatore Estate (flashback)
**Archer and Sons Funeral Home
**Mystic Falls Cemetery (flashback)
**Mystic Grill
**Forbes House
*1994 Prison World
**Salvatore Boarding House
**Woods
***Cave and underground tunnels
*1903 Prison World
**Woods
***Cave and underground tunnels
**Salvatore Estate
*McKinley, Virginia
**Alaric's apartment
**Whitmore Hospital
==Behind the Scenes==
*This episode had 1.41 million viewers in the USA.
*This is the first episode in the series to be written and directed by the same person (Julie Plec).
*Hashtag during the airing is #RIPLizForbes
==Cultural References==
*"Let Her Go" is a song by from their 1994 album . This title continues the season-long trend of naming episodes after songs released in 1994.
*"" is also a song by the singer from the album released in 2012.
**It was used in the 100th episode 500 Years of Solitude.
*"Let Her Go" is also a song by from the album released in 2003.
==Quotes==
==Multimedia==
===Soundtrack===
===Videos===
The Vampire Diaries - Let Her Go Trailer
The Vampire Diaries 6x15 Australian Promo - Let Her Go
The Vampire Diaries - Let Her Go Clip
The Vampire Diaries - Let Her Go Clip 2
The Vampire Diaries - Inside Let Her Go
The Vampire Diaries - Rehash Let Her Go
===Pictures===
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|-|Behind The Scenes=
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2015-02-20_Candice_King_Instagram.jpg|Julie Plec, Candice King, Paul Wesley
2016-01-16_Annie_Wersching_Instagram.jpg|Annie Wersching's first Lillian Salvatore fitting and hair and makeup test
2016-01-19_Kat_Graham_Annie_Wersching_Instagram.jpg|Kat Graham
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==References==
==See also==
Category:The Vampire Diaries Episode Guide
Category:The Vampire Diaries Season Six
Category:Flashback episodes