Look, finales can be tough. Empires can be squashed under the weight of subpar endings (can anyone reference How I Met Your Mother without ruminating about that fatal last episode?). Hopefully, The Vampire Diaries can overcome that stress.

The Vampire Diaries has been a long-standing CW favorite, making its way to its eighth and final season after a staggering 171 episodes. Julie Plec, who co-created and executive produced The Vampire Diaries, told Variety that the timing to end the series just felt right after so long, saying, “The reason that we decided to actually end it in the first place was that the themes in the season were so specific to an ending.”

Endings do seem to be a theme in this season, as its centered around the existence of Hell and a version of the Devil, with some hope of redemption to keep things from getting too dark. “You kind of want to see that happen to these characters,” Plec went on to say. “And you want to answer those questions. Does peace exist? Is Hell real? Am I going one way or the other? And so, it just felt like what we were doing was bringing the story to its proper close at the proper time. And that’s something not a lot of people get to do, so we felt really good about that.”

So what does it mean for The Vampire Diaries to have a proper close? “There is so much in this last episode that is either calling back on, celebrating, or mentioning things that happened in the early season,” Plec continues, mentioning that the episode’s title (“I Was Feeling Epic”) harkened back to the relationship between Stefan Salvatore and Lexi.

The series finale is set to give viewers everything from closure to a major case of the feels, so Plec warns her audience to be prepared for some major waterworks–especially after the foreboding hint Plec gives to tease the episode: “Dot dot dot dead.” While Plec didn’t delve into what exactly that means, she did tell Variety that the show will be rife with surprises.

The Vampire Diaries airs its series finale on March 10 on the CW.