The Vampire Diaries isn't just a soppy teen drama. Contrary to popular belief, it had some pretty complex storylines and subplots. It goes deeper than any stake could go into a vampire's heart.
What many people don't know about the making of the show is that the writers took great pains crafting a dynamic show that didn't always give us what we wanted or gave us what we didn't know we wanted. TVD started off shaky, but after that first episode, the writers had a better picture of what they wanted to accomplish. They had a lot planned from day one, but even they couldn't control the plot after strong fan reactions.
They struggled to keep Damon the bad guy and ended up crafting an even more interesting story arc for "the bad brother." They also struggled to keep Damon and Elena apart and resisted for quite a while, which is why it took so long for them to kiss. They had their reasonings for resisting fan's pushback, and they stuck to their guns about certain things. They knew they'd give us what we wanted...eventually.
We did get Delena in the end, and down the line, the writers paid homage to the fans who'd shipped the couple since day one...in that rain scene.
The Delena Rain Kiss Was Like A 'TVD' Easter Egg
Season six's "Do You Remember The First Time?" is a walk down memory lane, because Elena had just erased the good memories of Damon to deal with his death.
Throughout the episode, Damon tries to jog Elena's memory of them and brings her to the last place she told him I love you. He remembers a moment during the summer after season four, where they went to see a meteor shower. Just as the meteors started to fall they got caught in a huge rain shower.
After going over the town border, Elena remembers pieces of that night, but instead of filling in the blanks for her, Damon decides to let her go...again. That night in the rain was special to Damon. It down poured and they stayed to enjoy the moment. Elena said, "Promise me this is forever," and Damon promised and they kissed in the rain.
The Delena makeout in the rain is everything we've wanted since all the way back in season one when Damon was just starting to fall in love with Elena. Remember season one's "Let The Right One In"? Damon is just starting to turn good and he takes Elena to scope out the house where the tomb vampires were keeping Stefan hostage. Remember that moment in the rain?
Since this scene, fans have always wanted a Delena rain kiss. So in season six, executive producer, Julie Plec thought it was about time to honor fan's requests.
"So this was born out of… when Stefan got kidnapped in season one and Damon and Elena — who heretofore hadn't worked together much — had to go and rescue Stefan from the vampire house, from Fredrick," Plec confirmed.
"It was raining and they're standing there talking to each other about rescuing Stefan, and that was one of those canon moments where people started really connecting with Damon and Elena as a potential couple." Plec continued, "[They] always called out that moment as like, 'Oh God one day they'll be in the rain, and they'll kiss.'"
Plecs thinks fans also wanted a rain kiss because, "There's something about two people coming together in the rain that is the ultimate expression of love in the minds of most audiences, I guess," she said.
She and the rest of the writers always played with the idea of finally giving that scene back to fans the way they always wanted, but they knew it would be difficult.
It Was Hard To Shoot
Rain scenes are tough, no matter what set you're on. So the only fears they had about the scene, other than the anti-Delena fan's reactions, was being able to shoot it and have it come out great.
"It's been sort of a frustrating request to fulfill because it's just so awful to shoot," Plec said. But giving Damon a romantic moment to recall to Elena to jog her memory was more important than fussing about shooting it.
"We were writing the story, and we were thinking, 'Okay, what could that memory be?' Plec said. "What was that summer that we skipped between season four and five where they had the summer of their lives?
"We were just pitching all of these ideas, and then all of a sudden — I don’t even know who it was, maybe it was me, maybe it was somebody else — [said] 'What if they kissed in the rain?'" she revealed.
"Then we laughed because we were like, 'Ohh the director is going to get killed by the people who hate Delena!' And the writers will get killed, but the people who love Delena are going to be so happy."
Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev also revealed that they were frozen shooting it. "It got so cold the muscles in my jaw froze and I couldn’t speak. I looked like I had Bell’s palsy," Somerhalder said at Paley Fest. He told Julie Plec, "You write another rain kiss and I quit!" Dobrev also got sick after.
In the end, Plec thought it came out "beautiful and epic."
"For every naysayer that’s like, ‘Fan service, blah, blah, blah’ … There’s fan service when you’re telling stories as though the fans think it’s a choose-your-own-adventure, and that’s not what we do," Plec said. "Then there’s the fan service when you have a group of people who, for five years, have been begging for one little thing and you find the perfect way to give it to them. That’s called honoring your fans, and I believe that so strongly."
Thank the Originals we finally got the scene we'd been waiting an eternity for. Not only did the writers pay homage to that season one moment, but they also paid homage to the fan's obsession about it. That scene can go down as one of the best Delena moments in TVD history.
