Showrunner Caroline Dries shares teases about the show's new
triangle, the "heart and soul of the conflict" and moving past Elena.
The Vampire Diaries is about to officially enter its next phase of the series.
The CW drama closed a significant chapter of its run in May when Elena (
Nina Dobrev),
the show's female lead, was hit with an unbreakable spell which would
keep her unconscious as long as one of her best friends, Bonnie (
Kat Graham),
was alive… and Elena opted to not fight it, saying a tearful goodbye
(for now) to the people she loved the most. (The move was made to
accommodate Dobrev's real-life exit from the series.)
When the series returns this fall, life will move on for Elena's loved ones.
"Obviously the big thing for us is we lost the main character of the show,"
The Vampire Diaries executive producer
Caroline Dries tells
The Hollywood Reporter.
"We had the privilege of Nina gifting us with the knowledge that we'd
be losing her midway through season six. And so, once we knew we were
losing a main character, we could build the main infrastructure for a
show that could exist without her. Not just Elena Gilbert, but Katherine
Pierce -- who had already left. ... We had been looking at this for a
while, ever since Katherine left: how do we fill that voice of the very
confident, sultry, sexy woman who is a villain? How do we keep the love
and heart and soul that is Elena? And that's what our task was as
employed writers [was] to go, 'Let's pull this off.'"
Dries spoke with
THR to share a bit more about what's to come in season seven:
The series will dive deeper into the characters it already established.
Though a whole group of new faces have joined the show in light of
Dobrev's exit, Dries shared the plan is to explore the characters fans
already know and love in season seven.
"Our show has 500,000 cast members on it, so we have gotten to know
them, watch them mature as characters for 130 episodes," she says. "So
to fill the void of a main character, it just means seeing people we
already know very well a little bit more. This season, the guts of the
show is really the Salvatore brothers. And it's really Stefan's
relationship with Caroline. ... The show feels like it's still
Vampire Diaries,
but there's this level of maturity to it now. Especially with the
presence of Lily and Caroline's character now. She just feels like she's
getting more mature and more self-assured of herself. Damon and Stefan
are dealing with way more adult problems. The show feels the same, but
feels new."
The season starts off "a little grim."
Following a season that saw the deaths of Sheriff Forbes (
Marguerite MacIntyre) and Alaric's (
Matt Davis) pregnant fiancée, Jo (
Jodi Lyn O'Keefe) -- as well as the exits of Jeremy (
Steven R. McQueen) and Tyler (
Michael Trevino) -- things won't be entirely pleasant when season seven kicks off.
"Tonally, it's a little grim at first, because you got a little
glimpse of that town [in the flash-forward]," says Dries. "It doesn't
necessarily start that way, but that vibe will be [present] in the show.
Personally, I think the show is best when we do a heavy episode and
then like a college party episode and then a heavy flashback and then a
fun dinner party. I think the show is best when we're mixing it up. My
sensibility is to do things that are a little bit more fun and less
really dark and daunting. But every once in a while, I think that
works."
The Salvatore family will form a "love triangle" of sorts.
With Lily's (
Annie Wersching) family -- aka the
heretics -- now loose in Mystic Falls, that only further complicates her
relationship with her biological sons, Stefan (
Paul Wesley) and Damon (
Ian Somerhalder).
"It's this love triangle, if you will, which we've created between
Damon, Stefan, and Lily," teases Dries. "Lily has naturally entered as
the third point in the triangle."
Working to Lily's advantage is the very complicated feelings the
Salvatore brothers have toward their mother. "They love her, and care
for her, in different ways," Dries acknowledged. "They hate her, they
have mixed feelings towards her, they have resentment, they love her,
because they used to love her and raised them. They feel guilty because
she died and they didn't know she was still alive. There's just a
million emotions."
And Lily's complications don't extend to just her sons. "Right now, she
is the heart and soul of the conflict," Dries shared. "When I talk to
directors when we do our tone meetings, I say, 'Lily Salvatore is the
most complicated character on this show. She has a lot going on in her
brain; she has different loyalties. She's made huge mistakes, but you
can also root for her.' She is kind of our villain, because she wants
things our characters don't want to happen. But she's also very
grounded. She can kind of manipulate them differently. Her goal is to
turn them against each other."
But after being a part of more than one triangle which did cause a rift
for the brothers, Lily's plans might not work out the way she
hopes. "In turning them against each other, the brothers remember, 'Hey,
you and I have been together 150 years,'" says Dries. "'Let's not let
this woman come and mess with us.'"
Here(tics) comes trouble.
At Comic-Con, Dries shared the introduction of the heretics is "the
first time we've seen our characters go against them and they go, 'Oh,
we don't know what we're doing.' It's very hard."
One of the things that doesn't help is the sheer numbers against the
characters. "There's six heretics in total: three men and three women.
We meet five of them in the premiere," says Dries. "The three women are
this little posse of bad girls. Valerie, who has this brooding darkness
to her. We learn early on in the season she got burned in the past, and
it transformed her into this person; she wasn't always this way. And
then there's Mary Louise and Nora who are very fun and a gallon of pep
and fireworks. They're very different -- they're dating, but they have
different desires. One wants to explore the world; Nora, is like, 'Look,
we just got out of prison, let's stretch our arms and legs a little
bit.' And [Mary] is like, 'I'm insecure in letting you go.' They're fun
to watch, because they have this great, normal relationship in an
abnormal environment."
"[And for the boys] there's one guy named Beau, who is Lily's
henchman-y guy," continues Dries. "He's very loyal and mysterious. And
so he is very scary and weird. And then there's this guy, Malcolm, who
is the kiss-up, Lily's pet. And then there's a mystery guy, Oscar, who
is only mentioned in the premiere. We're wondering where is that guy?
But he's a real trip when you meet him."
The show will explore Lily further via flashback.
Though Lily and her heretics have a huge amount of unmined backstory,
the show won't use flashbacks more than usual. "It's shaping out how our
normal seasons go," says Dries. "Episode [three] will be a flashback
episode. We have one coming up in a little while. But it's just little
flavors."
"Lily gives us this great [gateway] into seeing her old-school life,"
she continues. "The boys existed in that world as well, we just didn't
realize it. We're always looking for an excuse to do a flashback story,
and the reality is we've exhausted the Salvatore boys' life. We know
every year of their life. She does allow us the excuse to tell more
stories in the past."
Wesley and Somerhalder may step behind the camera again.
Both Wesley and Somerhalder each directed hours of The CW drama last
season (Wesley's second time and Somerhalder's first), and Dries says
she'd be open to having them return this season. "We want to keep
nurturing them, so if Paul and Ian want to do it again, they did such a
good job [last time]," she says.
The Vampire Diaries returns on Thursday, Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. on The CW.
