SPOILER WARNING: STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVE NOT YET WATCHED THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF THE VAMPIRE DIARIES.

Okay? All set? Are you sure? Phew...

On "Do Not Go Gentle," viewers said goodbye to Alaric as we know him. In one of the most well done, heart-breaking scenes to date on TVD, all of this history teacher's loved ones gathered to silently say farewell.

Or did they? Will we see the old Alaric ever again? It doesn't sound that way.

"He's pretty clearly a badass vampire killer with a pretty magnificent, deadly, and unburnable stake," said Julie Plec at a press event in Los Angeles this week, following a screening of the episode. "I definitely think he's going to be a conflict-provider; not to make it an understatement. He's not going to be the friendliest version of Alaric we've ever met. He's pretty hardcore, which is going to be equally exciting and devastating, because he's one of our heroes who is no longer one of our heroes."

Plec added that this storyline was conjured before Matt Davis ever signed on for a CW pilot, and that next week's "Before Sunset" will find Alaric on the hunt.

“Alaric wants the Originals dead, and the very first thing that we see at the head of the next episode is Alaric in the high school where Caroline and Rebekah are having a little post-dance clean-up. So things only get worse from there. It’s a very extreme, hard-core episode of Alaric on a tear, and no one is safe."

As for other developments:

• Because it took so long to shoot, involving the entire cast, Plec said she had to fight for the goodbye-to-Alaric scene, but she did because she saw it as the "heart and soul of this episode, and one of the heart and soul moments of the season."
• Yes, Bonnie is possessed. And, no, she won't like it. Plec said the witch will start to ask: "'Where’s my free will? And where’s my choice?’ That’s going to impact her character moving forward."
• Elena WILL choose one sibling before the season is over and her decision will "effect everything," Plec teased.
• Caroline, conversely, has already made a choice, Candice Accola said: "She is fighting like hell to just have a normal relationship with her boyfriend, in high school. It’s all she wants."

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.