The Vampire Diaries is saying goodbye to leading lady Nina Dobrev and costar Michael Trevino in the season 6 finale, but the show will be a-okay moving forward. Star Chris Wood, who has terrorized the Mystic Falls gang throughout season 6 as the truly evil villainous witch Kai, said during a visit to Us Weekly‘s Los Angeles offices that both the actors and the show are poised for bigger and better things.
“At the end it was sad,” the actor, 27, said of the mood on set while filming the final episode. “For [Dobrev and Trevino], this is the end of six years together. It’s bittersweet because obviously they’re moving on to go pursue other things. Six years is a long time to play the same characters on the same show.”
But the cast overhaul was good for both the actors and the series, which is heading into its seventh season. “They’ll be just fine, and the show, I think, will also be more than fine. It’s a healthy shake-up,” he explained. “You get rid of the necessity of telling the Elena story as the main priority — that changing is automatically going to shift the way stories are told.”
The finale, “I’m Thinking of You All the While,” is a satisfying conclusion for both the characters and the story they’ve been telling all year. “The whole episode nicely caps the season and it nicely caps the arcs for those characters,” Wood said. “The set vibe was very much like losing a part of the family, but in a positive way because they’re not leaving us. The vibe was very excited and bittersweet. It was the next step.”
Wood plays a good guy in The CW’s new midseason drama about a fatal outbreak, Containment — from TVD co-creator Julie Plec — but told Us he knew all along his TVD character, Kai, would turn out to be truly evil. “I knew in the end he was going to be really bad. REALLY bad. He said he wanted to kill his family from the get-go; he’s still trying to do that. He said it up front! Now his hit list has grown, because he’s added everyone who’s wronged him in the process of getting what he wants.”
The fate of Dobrev’s character, Elena, is up in the air. In the penultimate episode, Kai slaughtered the guests gathered at a beloved character’s wedding, and newly human Elena was knocked unconscious.
“We pick up the next episode right where we left off, so you immediately see people coming to after getting knocked out and see the damage he’s caused, who’s alive and who’s not,” Wood said. “What’s the rest of his master plan? Because obviously it’s not to come in and blow up a room. So if he executes a plan it’s pretty well thought out.”
Ultimately, despite losing two beloved characters Wood said the episode will be a satisfying one for fans of TVD, despite all the tragedy. “The finale is epic and fantastic. The body count’s high. It’s not just what people are going to be expecting. We’re going to lose some people from the show. It’s dark and it’s mesmerizing and beautiful and all the things The Vampire Diaries is comprised of.”
The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.
