‘Vampire Diaries’ Season 7: Seven Things to Know
The Vampire Diaries returns Oct. 8 for a seventh season that, in many ways, will be a reboot. Gone is Elena (Nina Dobev), who’ll rest in a sort of magical coma until the day Bonnie (Kat Graham) dies. Without a love interest to come between them, the Salvatore brothers’ mother, Lily (Annie Wersching) — who at the end of Season 6 was reunited with her other “family,” the witch-vampire hybrids known as the Heretics — will be the one to cause friction between Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Damon (Ian Somerhalder).
“In the wake of losing Elena, Lily kind of organically filled that third point in the triangle,” executive producer Caroline Dries tells Yahoo TV. “And so, even though it’s not a romantic love story, it is this relationship story of them trying to get to know their mom better, and she’s trying to pull them into her life, and sometimes she’ll manipulate one against the other to win him over, and so it becomes a complex love triangle among the three of them. But, the boys kind of figure out, ‘Wait, is mom using us? What is going on?’ And then they realize, ‘Look, we need to stick together if we’re going to beat Lily.’”
Related: ‘The Vampire Diaries’ Season 6 Finale Recap: Goodbye, Elena
Dries and co-star Candice King — whose Caroline is grieving the loss of her mother and deciding if/when she can be with Stefan — offered Yahoo TV six more teases of things to come in Season 7.
Annie Wersching as Lily and Jaiden Kaine as Heretic Beau
1. Lily’s agenda is revealed… and it really was peace. It was tough to trust her claims last season that she wanted to reunite with her Heretic family so they could all live a tame life together, but she actually meant it. “Now that she has them, it would be really great if she could get her sons to get along with them and vice versa. But of course that’s not going to happen because the heretics are intrinsically bad people, so they become instant foes,” Dries says. “Lily’s real drama will be about trying to find a balance between her two families and decide who she’s more loyal to if she were to have to pick a side. She’s actually one of our most complicated characters because she means well, but she surrounds herself with pretty intense, crazy people.”
Elizabeth Blackmore as Heretic Valerie, with Wersching
Teressa Liane and Scarlett Byrne as Heretic couple Mary Louise and Nora
The Heretics may surprise viewers at first, but Dries says, “Ultimately, you have to think, ‘What would anyone want who’s been cooped up in a prison world for 100 years?’, and you are not safe. So the question would be how will they clash with our heroes? Obviously last season ended in a huge massive explosion of death and destruction for them, but by the end of our finale, things had kind of healed in terms of the tension and the suspense. So they’re coming from a place of like, ‘Look, we’re just trying to start fresh, start over minus Elena.’ And then the Heretics pop in and they’re like, ‘Okay, we just got out of jail. Let’s party.’”
Not a premiere party we’d like to attend
From the promo below, we know Stefan supports a deal with the Heretics that gives them the town and Damon doesn’t.
2. Stefan and Caroline’s love story continues. At the end of last season, he said he’d wait for her to come to terms with her mother’s death and what she’d done while her humanity switch was flipped. But now that both of them have put their cards on the table, it’s hard to hide their hands. “There is this awkward dance that these two characters are doing,” King says. “In such a heavy show with a lot of drama, it’s funny to see these two tip-toeing around each other trying to play it cool.“
A move may get made: "They’re thrust into a story together in the premiere where she’s forced to deal with her romantic feelings for him, and so we’re rooting for them to get together,” Dries says. “And as their love story evolves, they will have to deal with some crazy stuff thrown at them.”
That “crazy stuff” involves the Heretics. “Even though she’s very much a girl’s girl character, Caroline is always a little weary of new girls coming into her turf,” King says. “She doesn’t like who these newbies are, and we’re going to see her struggle with how to deal with them and their loud presence within Mystic Falls.”
By the end of the premiere, we’ll understand the flash-forward we saw of a desolate Mystic Falls at the end of the Season 6 finale. “It’s going to be interesting for fans of the series to finally see this picture-perfect town where all of these characters have hid in chaos for so many years have the veil ripped off of it,” King says. “What happens to Mystic Falls, and what the town becomes known as to the surrounding towns, is going to be really interesting for viewers.”
3. Damon, meanwhile, begins the season in Europe with Alaric (Matt Davis), who’s mourning the loss of bride Jo… “They’re both basically going through a very similar grief process. Damon is going through the supernatural version of what Alaric’s going through,” Dries says. “They kind of cry on each other’s shoulder, so they’re going to have a lot of scenes together.”
4. …. and Bonnie is their chaperone. “She’s been empowered by her best friend Elena to kind of follow her… to become this stronger woman that she’s become, but also take on the role of being Damon’s moral compass,” Dries says. “With Elena sidelined, Bonnie’s worried: ‘Is Damon going to go off his rocker? Do I need to keep an eye on him?’ Then there’s Damon, who’s obviously grieving the loss of the love of his life, and the big question is, ‘Is he going to become the monster that we saw in Season 1, the real villain of the show?’”
Like Damon, Bonnie is now doing what she wants. “And so, she’ll kind of get involved in Alaric’s storyline a little bit,” Dries says. “But as she’s working with Alaric and helping him through the grief of losing Jo, Bonnie starts to get herself embroiled in a little bit of a love story. And so, that’s been very fun to watch unfold.”
5. There may be a love interest in Matt’s future, too. It’s something Dries and the writers hope to do down the road this season: “He’s so good when he was with Rebekah and Nadia. I love Matt when he’s got a fun girlfriend,” Dries says. But he’ll start off with bigger concerns as he earns his badge and vows to protect the town. “The stakes are incredibly high for Matt. He continues to press his luck and fight as a human, even though it’s incredibly dangerous,” Dries says. “As his story unfolds, he starts inserting himself into more and more dangerous situations.”
6. Enzo (Michael Malarkey) gets his due. “He grows into himself a bit this season,” Dries says. “I think people think that he considers himself one of Lily’s children, and Enzo, fairly early on in the season, shakes off that reputation and makes a stand of what he means by wanting to be in Lily’s life.”
We will also see him have scenes with Caroline. “I think fans just like to see Caroline with anyone that has an accent,” King says with a laugh. “I always love working with Michael Malarkey, and we’re going to see his struggle with really being back in his life and all the Heretics, and how that affects him greatly affects his and Caroline’s relationship.”
Season 7 of The Vampire Diaries premieres Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. on The CW.
