What’s Next For "The Vampire Diaries"

Last season’s finale of The Vampire Diaries threw the show’s central love triangle into upheaval, with Stefan (Paul Wesley) running off to embrace his dark side and Damon (Ian Somerhalder) blearily declaring his love for Elena (Nina Dobrev) as she saved his life. So what’s on tap for Season Three? Don’t get your hopes up for any big, decisive answers anytime soon, executive producer Kevin Williamson warned while promoting the show at San Diego Comic-Con. “We like to torture the audience as much as we torture our characters,” Williamson said.

“The first chapter of our story will sort of be Damon and Elena’s search for Stefan and how their relationship changes,” Williamson explained. “At the end of Season Two, Katherine [also played by Dobrev] uttered that one line, that it’s OK to love both of them, and we’re sort of watching that play out. And what does that mean for Elena? I just think romantically it might not be OK for her to love both of them.”

Dobrev admitted that fans waiting for some Elena-on-Damon action might be disappointed. “You’ll see in the first episode that she may not necessarily be skewing toward Damon,” Dobrev teased. “Just because he’s there and Stefan’s not doesn’t mean that she’s going to fall into his arms. I think she realized that she’s in big trouble after she found out that Damon was going to survive after she kissed him.”

Candice Accola, Paul Wesley and Kevin Williamson on
The Vampire Diaries panel at Comic-Con (July 23, 2011)

(Photo by Wendy Redfern/Redferns)

With Stefan off exploring his more sinister side, Damon is left to try to balance things out — and that’s not something that’s going to sit too well with the bad-boy vamp. “Damon is like this reluctant hero who doesn’t want to be the hero — it’s not his role in life, he’s not good at it,” Williamson explained. “But Elena’s going to be there pushing him on to be the hero, but his nature’s to kill people. That conflict will escalate and blow up.”

“If people are expecting Damon to be this wearing his heart on his sleeve hero character, it ain’t happening,” Somerhalder warned. “I think he’s really not happy with the way things have turned out. But I think he’s going to rise to the occasion, and he’s going to have fun doing whatever it is. Whether he’s ripping someone’s head off or saving a kitten, he has the exact same grin on his face.”

Ian Somerhalder

(Photo by Wendy Redfern/Redferns)

But wouldn’t Damon’s near-death experience — and that life-saving smooch from Elena — at the end of last season have some impact? Not as much as you’d think, according to Somerhalder. “People keep talking about this ‘steamy kiss,’ and I don’t know if anyone was really paying attention, but Damon was pale, bleeding and sweating profusely, so I’m not exactly sure how passionate it was,” he said. “But he definitely remembers it.”

Besides, defanging Damon too much would take all the fun out Williamson’s job. “Damon’s my favorite character,” he said with a wicked glint in his eye. Of course, Somerhalder has his own theory as to why the character works so well when Williamson is at the helm: “Kevin has this thing where he writes so well for Damon because, I think, in many respects — ixnay on the maniacal killer aspect — there’s a lot of Kevin in Damon,” Somerhalder said. “We just have a really profound relationship, and he just has this ability to write these lines.”