Elena's Back on The Vampire Diaries: Ian Somerhalder and Julie Plec Tease the Big Finale Return

Exclusive! There will be tears, both on screen and off.

By Lauren Piester Mar 09, 2017 4:00 PMTags
Watch: Ian Somerhalder Teases Damon & Elena's "TVD" Reunion

We're just one day away from Elena Gilbert's return to Mystic Falls. 

Sure, we're also one day away from saying goodbye to Mystic Falls forever, but we're here today to focus on the positive. Elena will be back, and she and Damon (Ian Somerhalder) are finally going to have the big reunion fans have been waiting for since Nina Dobrev left the show at the end of season six. 

While they can't give us any details of Elena's actual return to the world of the living, Ian Somerhalder and executive producer Julie Plec both promised us that it's going to be worth the wait. 

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Behind the Scenes of The Vampire Diaries' Series Finale

"The great thing is that for the audience to see this character that they've loved for so long and that she went away and now she comes back, this sort of everyday girl who had really fallen into hard times in her life that the audience had grown to love and really identified with in so many ways, and to see that character back in Mystic Falls is going to be really powerful," Somerhalder says in the video above. 

In spite of the fact that Dobrev hadn't been on the show for two years, she came back to give the performance of a lifetime, according to Plec. 

The CW

"I can tell you that it was really great having Nina walk in the door," she told us over the phone. "She came to really give her best work. She was excited to see everybody. She wanted to play and have fun and be great and she delivered everything we could have ever asked from her. You know, the perfect tears, the perfect performance, and it was really nice to have her be there and be at the top of her game."

A lot of former stars and guest stars returned for the last few episodes of the series, and apparently nothing changed while anyone was away.

"Everyone was just like they always were, just acting like a bunch of kids running around on the sound stage," he tells E! News in the video above. "The Vampire Diaries soundstages are like a time warp. They're like a vacuum."

Watch the video above for more from Somerhalder, and stay tuned for more scoop on tomorrow night's finale!

The Vampire Diaries series finale airs tomorrow night at 9 p.m., following a retrospective of the series at 8 p.m. on the CW.