The Vampire Diaries TV show on The CW. Photo: Annette Brown/The CW.

SPOILERS for The Vampire Diaries TV show tease a new female character that will recur in The CW‘s upcoming eighth season. Fans speculate the new character could be played by the familiar and much-missed face of Nina Dobrev, who starred as Elena Gilbert in the show’s first six seasons.

Season eight is likely to be the last season of The Vampire Diaries, starring Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley. To accommodate Dobrev’s exit from the series, Elena was put into a magical coma of sorts. With her life tied to best friend Bonnie Bennet (Kat Graham), Elena can only reclaim her life, upon Bonnie’s death. Vampire Diaries season eight spoilers after the jump.

It started in Michael Ausiello’s spoiler column at TV Line, in response to a request for TVD spoilers:

Question: Any Vampire Diaries scoop? Dying to know what we should be calling that thing that turned Damon and Enzo evil. –Jake

Ausiello: Wouldn’t we all, Jake? I can’t give you that information right now — it’s locked up in the vault, so to speak — but I can tell you about a new face we’ll be meeting in the first episode of Season 8. The show is currently casting the recurring role of Sybil, “an immortal who uses her immeasurable power and influence to control other people, manipulating them into twisted games and tests for her own amusement and glorification.” Time will tell whether she proves to be a friend or foe, but given this show’s penchant for sympathetic villains, it could also be fair to assume she’ll be a bit of both.

 

Movie News Guide‘s Sumeet Kaur took, and Dobrev’s season seven finale voice cameo (video below) and ran with it.

In “The Vampire Diaries” Season 8, Nina Dobrev is expected to make a come back in the role of Sybil. Hers is an interesting character in the upcoming season and it is speculated that she would make Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder) go crazy.

[…]

Spoilers
The speculations are high that in the new season, an enigmatic creature would come disguised as Elena. The creature would try to seduce Damon into becoming something evil. According to TV Line, Sybil will have a recurring role in the new season. She is immortal and is capable of using enough influence and power to control others. The character likes to manipulate people for fun and glory. In “The Vampire Diaries” Season 8, the character is shrouded by a lot of mystery and it is not known yet whether Sybil will be a friend or foe. It is suspected that she can be both because the show seems to be fond of “sympathetic villains.”

 

Buddy TV adds:

Since it wouldn’t really make sense to the story to bring back Elena right now without getting rid of Bonnie, bringing Nina Dobrev back as this new character could serve two purposes — appeasing fans by bringing back Dobrev, but also still serving the storyline that was created to discard her character. Also, given that season 8 will likely be the final run for the CW vampire drama, it would be fitting for Dobrev to return in some degree.

As shows age it is typical they will experience some drop in the ratings. Season six of The Vampire Diaries — Dobrev’s final — averaged 0.72 in the 18-49 viewer demographic and drew an average total audience of 1.54 million viewers.

In the seventh season, The Vampire Diaries‘ ratings averaged a 0.46 in the demo and drew an average total audience of 1.144 million viewers — quite a sharp drop.

Executive producer Julie Plec has always planned to bring Dobrev back for the series finale. The actress chose to leave the series after six years, to explore other career opportunities. Her IMDb profile has three films in the works: Flatliners, which is listed as “filming,” as well as xXx: The Return of Xander and Crash Pad, which are both listed as being in “post production.”

When she left TVD, rumors abounded that Dobrev was exiting the series because she and Somerhalder had broken up and he married Nikki Reed (after season six wrapped). Dobrev and Somerhalder broke up in 2013, though and she remained on the show for another two years.

The Vampire Diaries brought the former Degrassi: The Next Generation star to a new level of fame. She has shown loyalty to TVD. The season seven voice cameo in the clip above, is not from recycled audio. Dobrev flew to Atlanta to record it. It is not outside the realm of possibility that she would return in a recurring capacity, to help out her former show.

The Vampire Diaries TV show on The CW. Photo courtesy of Annette Brown/The CW.

Do you think it is likely Dobrev would recur as Sybil, or will Plec and Caroline Dries save her return to play Elena? What do you want to happen in the eight season of The Vampire Diaries TV series? Let us know, below.