Did anyone else just watch The Vampire Diaries Season 7 Episode 16 and wonder if Julie Plec and her writers just pranked us all? It is April Fool's Day, after all.

You guys. The Phoenix stone is gone. Stefan was trapped inside when it exploded.

WHAT IS HAPPENING?

In an interesting twist of events, Rayna Cruz developed a fondness for Stefan during her time spent as one of the Armory's test subjects. The scar was a window into his life as well as a tracking beacon, and it allowed her to experience what he experienced during his time on the run with Valerie.

He was happy. He was free. He didn't have the burden of his brother to hold him back. And the moment he thought he was dying, the only and first person Stefan wanted was Damon.

These brothers, man.

I'm not even upset that Valerie knew all along that all she had to do was transfer the scar to Damon and Stefan would be okay. Was she dishonest in withholding that information from Stefan? Yes, if you view lies of omission as lies.

But really? She was protecting him. She knew before the idea was ever even possible that Damon would back out of the offer to accept the scar and didn't want to put Stefan through that. And, yeah, she's in love with him and didn't want to lose him. Given their history, that's sort of understandable.

Stefan and Valerie were ripped apart once through the most brutal of circumstances. Why would she want to repeat losing him?

Okay, okay, there's that whole "he was in love with Caroline..." thing...yada yada yada. There was almost no way for Stefan and Caroline to have anything even kind of normal after she had the twins and couldn't bring herself to leave them. He heard and saw that the night he stood outside her house and listened as she and Alaric talked. He knew and he chose to go.

They're vampires. Forever is a long time.

While some people are going to be very hung up on Valerie's dishonesty, I'm just going to be over here all irritated that the stone was capable of being destroyed this ENTIRE TIME and instead of doing that after bringing Julian out of it the Heretics just left it laying around to be reunited with the sword.

I MEAN, REALLY.

Now Stefan's stuck inside the stone. Or somewhere. He's stuck somewhere. And there's no telling what sort of whacky scheming will have to happen to get him back now. If they're able to get him back at all.

The Internet would have erupted by now if Paul Wesley were leaving The Vampire Diaries (especially since The Vampire Diaries Season 8 is a go for launch). So that's definitely not what we just witnessed.

Valerie and Damon will figure out a way to bring him back. Right?

Bye bye, Mary Louise and Nora. May the afterlife or whatever treat you well. Thanks for your sacrifice?

Sure. Thanks for your sacrifice. Which totally ripped millions of holes into this story, sort of like the holes Rayna Cruz ripped into her victims with that sword of hers.

It's pretty clear that Enzo has screwed up big time and given Bonnie the poison pills to take so that she can stay cloaked from locator spells while she...recovers from whatever landed her in an institution. He better get on the ball with coming up with a cure, and somehow I think Rayna will be the answer to everything.

She'll have the answer to curing Bonnie, and she'll have the answer to bringing Stefan back. She'll probably have to die in order for both of those things to happen. I can't see them wanting to keep a hunter around. It's not like she can be reformed, right?

While we've jumped forward three years in the story and it seems like we're going to stay there for a while, we still have many, many questions which need answers. Chief among them is when Stefan killed Matt's girlfriend/partner Penny.

Why couldn't we get the answer about that? We watched Matt kick Stefan out of Mystic Falls and doing so made sense. Matt wanted his town back. It's so, so unlikely that Stefan would kill Penny on purpose.

What do you think, guys? We know Penny's dead, but how did that go down? And how will Valerie and Damon get Stefan back? Or will they? Let's talk about tonight's return! If you need to review anything, you can always watch The Vampire Diaries online!

Get your first look at The Vampire Diaries Season 7 Episode 17 with the photos below!