For the first third of The Vampire Diaries' seventh season, we've caught glimpses of our characters three years in the future. Everyone's scattered around the country, but brought together when a mysterious female foe goes after the Salvatores. Now, in the penultimate TVD episode of 2015, it appears the show might have revealed just who that dangerous hunter could be: Their mother.
And that's not even the craziest part! Just minutes before, in the present day, Lily Salvatore (Annie Wersching) had given up on the idea of figuring out a way to stop the evil doings of her d-bag boyfriend, Julian, to whom she was supernaturally linked, without hurting herself in the process. So instead of waiting for someone to Macgyver a fix, she just decided to end it all and staked herself in the heart.
It would've worked, except for the fact that Julian had already lifted the curse that linked them. So not only was she dying for no reason, her dangerous monster of a boyfriend got to live on.
Flash forward three years, and we see Damon chained up inside Caroline's news studio. "Mom, are you still here?" he asks. "I'm so sorry. I don't think I can save you. You've been poisoned with werewolf toxin. Without proper treatment, you'll die soon," an alive and well Lily responds. (Um, Originals crossover alert?)
But, you ask, why would she decide to go after her sons? (Well, you're probably asking how she comes back to life, but it seems pretty obvious that the Phoenix Stone, which can reunite the souls of dead vampires with their bodies, will come into play.)
The reason Mama S. could be so pissed at her sons? Oh, just the fact that they were essentially like, "Bye, b----" as she laid on her deathbed. "You made your bed. Have a nice nap," Damon told her. Damn, Damon! That's ice cold!
We don't actually know if Lily is the mysterious woman after the Salvatore brothers, but it seems very likely that it could be. Do you think it's her, or is this a fakeout? Were you sad to see her go?
EDIT: Watching the last scene again without your cable cutting it off is very helpful, huh? Turns out Damon was hallucinating his mom, and she really is gone. The woman after them has got to be the latest addition to the cast, Leslie-Ann Huff, right?