“The Vampire Diaries” is ending after eight seasons on The CW, and star Michael Malarkey promises it will revisit the vampire drama’s dark roots.
“What I love about this season is that it has thrown back a little to the original ‘Vampire Diaries,’ you know, that kind of edge and danger to it,” Malarkey (Enzo) told TheWrap’s Stuart Brazell. “For a while there, in the middle of the show, there was this kind of ‘oh, they died, but they’ll come back.’ We lost, kind of, that danger element.
“This season, we’re bringing that back in, and people are dying. There are some big deaths that are going to happen, and they’ll be final.”
The actor admits excitement was mixed with sadness and nostalgia when it came to filming the final episodes of the Julie Plec drama, which stars Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder.
“It’s bittersweet,” Malarkey said. “But we’re all sort of itching to go out and do other work. Some of the other guys who have been on the show for the entire run of eight seasons — whereas I started in Season 5 — I can only imagine doing one show for that long and how that must feel. But I think everyone’s savoring this last season, the moments and being together and also looking forward to the pastures coming up.”
Malarkey also gives fans plenty of reason to tune in to see how it all wraps up.
“It’s the end of an era,” he said. “It’s a big sendoff, a huge thank you to all the fans who’ve stuck with us for the past eight seasons. We’re bringing back some familiar faces, some epic deaths. There’s a lot of pageantry to it. We’re going to revisit some iconic moments from seasons past, and it’s going to be a pretty wild ride.”
“The Vampire Diaries” airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.