'Vampire Diaries' EP Teases Return of Elena, Damon's Deadly Affliction (2023)

Elena Gilbert will get her body back from Katherine sooner rather than later, and when she does, there's going to be a major cleanup.

How much does it cost? Executive producer Caroline Dries goes into more detail in this Q&A with EW previewing Thursday night's episode and all of the upcoming Mystic Falls drama.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We have to start talking about Elena. One of our gang now knows the secret, when will the truth be known?

DRYING:Matt is really the only person who knows that he's going to get into this episode. And that will be a knowledge that will be difficult for you to harbor because he will literally hold you hostage. Nadia found out that Matt knows. Then Matt says, "What do I do with this information and how do I let people know what I know without Nadia killing me, and without me killing myself?" So our people, with Katherine, mistook her for Elena: thrown into situations where her actions don't necessarily add up. And that combined with Matt's knowledge. I think our characters are going to start putting this together sooner rather than later, “What the hell? That's not Ellen." So that's going to happen soon.

Speaking of actions not similar to Elena's, we did get a glimpse of a possible connection in the preview. Tell me about it

So everything Katherine does is obviously very calculated and manipulative, but she's also very thoughtful. So she won't do anything too extreme. It will all feel natural, but it's just one of several things. She essentially, she takes Stefan on a road trip to find Damon, so she manipulates the situation so that she can actually attack Stefan. So, her all the little actions of hers don't seem so suspicious by themselves, but when you start to add them one at a time, she starts to say, "Okay, there's something here." This is definitely my favorite story of the episode. - these two together. We see her turn around and try to leave Stefan alone and we see how sneaky she really can be.

Tell me about the logistics of Elena's situation. Will we find out how much she knows about what's going on?

Certainly. It's fun to talk about logistics when you have a traveler on the force. [laughs] But yes, Elena will finally return to our team and she will have to deal with all the consequences that Katherine has caused to her life, including getting closer to breaking up with Stefan, Caroline and Tyler... and, of course, trying to keep busy She deals with the aftermath of Damon going on a killing spree: killing Aaron Whitmore, nearly killing Jeremy. So Elena says, "My God. How do I juggle all these things?" Also, "What the hell? My friends didn't even realize I was missing the whole time?" So she's busy and she'll be busy moving on.

What's up with Tyler and Caroline since you mentioned them? Is there hope for these two crazy kids?

I think there is definitely hope for friendship. But Tyler is always right, in my opinion, to be mad at Caroline for sleeping with the guy who killed her mom. At the same time, Caroline is quite a hard character on herself, quite tortured. So she's quite capable of feeling guilty on her own. She doesn't need Tyler to remind her what she did every 30 seconds. You know, once she can speak her mind, I think the two of them can at least be friends.

We have seen some promotional photos of a confrontation between Caroline and Nadia. can you see that before

Since Matt harbors this secret, he basically gets involved in the story with Caroline and Tyler, where Caroline suspects that Matt is dating Nadia, like, "What's up with those two?" I just don't trust anyone, the Descendant by Katherine Pierce. And he gets involved with Nadia and that's how this confrontation takes place.

We have to talk about Damon, who is now a vampire eater, a madman. Please joke for me what's going on with Damon this week and what episodes are coming up.

Well, when we found out that we were going to create the Ripper virus, we thought: "Who should get infected?" And we said if we do it, we do it big or we go home. So we developed this story around Damon, who got infected, and now his conflict is, 'Well, how can I keep filling up and feeding on vampires, which turns out I have to kill and feed until they die to be fed? . So how do I do that without killing everyone I love?" So she works with her wingman Enzo hers and they try to find vampire blood for Damon to drink. Eventually Damon, Stefan and Elena will face each other and the question is will he kill these people or will they find a way to save him? Hopefully, our characters will be able to locate and save him.

Should Enzo be worried? I mean, she was worried about him at the end of last week's episode.

Yes, Enzo should be very worried. But Enzo, if you remember, he's a soldier and he's basically been in prison experimenting for 70 years. So Enzo has a pretty high fear threshold and also has no friends, no family other than Damon. So he decided that he should stay with my boyfriend.

Are you worried that it will be difficult to get Damon out of the infection? Any concerns about making it unrecoverable?

I think what we decided as writers was that instead of running away from the problem of creating a villain like Damon, who is also one of the main love interests, we delve deeper. We put Elena in this situation where she's still in love with this guy we all know as the guy who killed her brother and did all these horrible things. [When Elena returns] she asks, "Have I changed? Has my attitude toward what I consider acceptable and moral changed? Who am I?" And Damon will look at her and himself in the same way. He has made the relationship very grey, confusing and turbulent, instead of just black and white.

Finally, I want to talk to you about this.Blackboard for Sarah. (Note: previousTVDcrew member, Sarah Jones,was murderedwhile working on a movie on February 20. A Facebook page has been created in his honor and many in the entertainment industry are now calling for more on-set safety precautions.) What was it like to see her honored in this way?

It was that emotional surge and outpouring of support. And it was so moving to watch. For me personally, I can't even speak as someone who was very close to her, but meeting her when I visited Atlanta and she was on set, your first instinct when you find out what happened is just anger and fury. "How could someone make such a mistake? How did that happen?" And then this Slates for Sarah campaign just turned the tide. He made it such a positive and inspiring move. I find it very uplifting.