In a new interview, The Vampire Diaries showrunner Julie Plec discusses what’s coming up for various characters in the rest of the season! Insert spoiler alert here!

Speaking to TV Guide, Julie Plec not only reveals that Alaric doesn’t die, but further teases:

We will actually see Alaric again and he’ll find himself in this week’s episode caught right smack in the center of this murder investigation. We’ll start to get a lot of answers about what’s going on, and who’s behind what and who is going to take the fall for the serial killings that are going down in the town.

She also talks about Abby becoming a vampire and what it means for Bonnie:

What we’ll see is that a witch is connected to the Earth, and when you turn a witch into a vampire, she’s no longer a witch, so it’s losing a part of yourself. It’s not just losing your humanity, it’s losing what really connected your soul to God, if you want to get religious about it. It’s not going to be easy for her or Bonnie, because there’s no spell she can whip up to help. It’s, “How do I help my mother here, who I don’t know very well, who left me? We just barely got our relationship going, now how do I help her find her true self in all this tragedy?”

On the season 3 finale, she says:

It hasn’t been put on the page yet, but the finale this year is like a combo platter of the finales from season 1 and season 2 in that the mythology and the villain are going to continue to drive us to the end of the season, but emotionally, there’s a lot going on in the characters’ journeys. Just breaking this story I probably cried four or five times, got a few chills, got very excited, got nervous about how we’re going to do it. There’s a lot of story to tell and not a lot of time to tell it in. But fingers crossed on what I think is going to be really good.

Julie Plec also discusses the Damon/Elena/Stefan triangle, why Caroline is such a good vampire, what it means that there’s another white oak tree out there and more. Read the full interview at TV Guide.