The strigoi have come and gone from St. Vladimir’s and left a trail of destruction — plus an illegitimately installed leader of the dominion — in their wake. The good news is, Mia and Meredith both survived the attack and are finally able to be together in the finale of “Vampire Academy.” And according to series star Mia Mckenna-Bruce, those emotions and tears flowing on screen were very real.
What do you call it when you’re betrothed to the heir to a throne who you definitely aren’t in love with, but then he dies, throwing your entire future into chaos, only for you to then fall in real love with a woman in a class “beneath” you, all while your father is now vying for that throne and allowing your sister to use her magic to heal his incurable illness, only for her to then be turned strigoi because using her powers allowed darkness to consume her? You call it Mia Karp’s trauma on season one of “Vampire Academy.”
And that’s why those tears were real. According to Mckenna-Bruce, it was a combination of her character’s journey, particularly with Meredith (Rhian Blundell), and extensive shooting schedules that made the moment where Meredith shows up in Mia’s room after the battle so poignant.
“I mean, it was my favorite scene of the whole series. It was just — we filmed it relatively, I think, towards the end so you know, it was evident everything everyone had been through,” Mckenna-Bruce explained to TheWrap. “And also, we were genuinely sad! Like, we had a really long shoot that everyone had been through a lot anyway. So it was kind of a genuine let-out of emotions for us both anyway.”
She continued, “It felt really real, and really raw, and really beautiful that they both — everything they’ve been through had finally come together and it was just them. It hopefully means that they’re gonna be in a good place when we pick them back up.”
Mckenna-Bruce would also credit her scene partner for making the emotional moment so easy to really fall into, and be vulnerable during.
“I’ve said it so many times, just, hats off to Rhi, she’s just so incredible to work with,” she said. “And I felt so safe with her that we were able to just really, really, in everything that we did, we were able to just let it out and just go there.”
Of course, by the end of the episode, Mia Karp is also grappling with the return — and subsequent loss, again — of an old relationship. During the strigoi attack, Lissa’s (Daniela Nieves) brother Andre (Jason Diaz), who we learned at the end of last week’s episode is definitely still alive, and being held hostage by Tatiana Vogel (Anita-Joy Uwajeh), manages to escape and find the two women.
“I think she was seeing 100 million and one things at once. Because obviously, when he died, they were set to be married, which meant she was going to be queen, which was everything she had prepared for for such a long time,” she explained. “So all of a sudden he’s back, and it’s like ‘Wait, this old part of me that I prepared for for so long, and had destroyed me losing, is all standing right in front of me again now.’”
She continued, “Like is that going to be possible? What about Meredith? What about Lissa? What about my dad, my sister? Everything came to a head, I think, in that one moment of seeing Andre, because almost everything she had been been through in the series was as a result of him dying in that first episode.”
Granted, Mia and Andre were never romantically involved, but he still meant something to her, and she was definitely shocked to see him again, if only briefly. And that’s something Mckenna-Bruce would like to explore more in a possible season two of “Vampire Academy.”
“There was a line of Mia’s quite early on where she said, ‘we were good together.’ Like, ‘We didn’t love each other like that. But we would have been good together.’ So I think there was a genuine, even respect for each other,” she said. “I don’t know. I think there’s still hopefully stuff to unpack with where that came from and what that actually meant, but I definitely think there was a depth to their relationship, whatever it might have been.”
For now, Mia — and Lissa — is processing the death of Andre again, and this time, at the hands of her own sister. What Mia doesn’t know is that Andre survived once more — just turned strigoi. And what that means for everyone? Well, fans will have to hope for a season two to find out.
All 10 episodes of “Vampire Academy” are now streaming on Peacock.
