‘The Vampire Diaries’ season 5 spoilers: How Paul Wesley’s Silas will cause trouble

Yes, it still feels incredible strange for us to be doing a “Vampire Diaries” story talking about a Paul Wesley character, and to have this character be someone other than Stefan Salvatore. It’s unnatural, in a way; we’ve grown so used to seeing him as the troubled vampire, so to see him play someone almost even more troubling (especially for the other characters) in Silas is a very jarring feeling.

By now, you know what the score is when it comes to Silas and his doppelganger: While Stefan is trapped underwater being drowned effectively over and over again, Silas is going to have free reign over Mystic Falls to cause just about as much chaos as he so chooses. Is he really going to be afraid of being found out as someone other than Stefan? It sure doesn’t sound like it, at least based on what executive producer Julie Plec tells MTV:

“It won’t stop him from continuing to exploit the fact that he is Stefan’s doppelganger. And with Stefan locked at the bottom of the quarry floor for a little while, we’ll see Silas taking full advantage of that.”

The biggest challenges for Stefan on this coming season are going to be twofold: Getting out of his current predicament, and then finding a way to stop Silas once he does. There is also the danger that comes with possibly being mistaken for his doppelganger and attacked while out in the world again, which is a classic TV trope that we’ve seen cause a little bit of extra drama.

While Stefan’s struggle will be made very apparent during the premiere, he will not be the only one going through some issues: Bonnie will be figuring out what it really means to be a ghost, whereas Elena will be taking on her duties as a college student head-on.

Photo: The CW