If you have watched last night’s episode…you know that something pretty epic happened at the very end. Something that we’ve all been waiting for…Elena’s a Vampire!!! I had a feeling that this is where they might be going and I’m very excited about it. But, were you like me, and found yourself with a lot of questions after the finale ended? Well, Julie Plec answers those burning questions and more with EW.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How long have you known Elena would end season 3 in transition to become a vampire? JULIE PLEC: The ending had been in the works for about two years. In the first series of books, that’s what happens to her. When Kevin [Williamson] and I first came on the show, we said, “Well, it can’t happen to her the way it happens in the books,” which is on, like, page 200 of the first book. [Laughs] That felt obviously soon and rushed, and we didn’t want to make a show about a teenage girl who instantly becomes a vampire. But we always knew that her journey would take her there eventually, and we just kept riding the way of when it felt. You’ve got a girl who just sorta lost her last adult living family member when Aunt Jenna died last year, so when we started this season, what we really wanted to do was begin this relationship with Alaric as her guardian and mentor, and then tear that away from her at the end leaving her and her brother with nobody. It felt like now was the time when you’re left with no grownup, no adult supervision, no parent, no guardian, for Elena to experience the next evolution of her journey. All the stuff that we did with having her get stronger over the course of the year training and getting in touch with her physical self, and all the grief and all the emotion that she went through, and all the compassion that she has for everybody, will all play into next year and what kind of person and vampire she will actually be– if she should so choose to see the transition through.

Read the rest of the interview at EW.