‘The Vampire Diaries’ season 5 spoilers: Nina Dobrev, Ian Somerhalder, and a guessing game

Is it Katherine or Elena? One of the great things about Nina Dobrev playing two characters on “The Vampire Diaries,” and both of them having a prominent role so far in season 5, is that it really keeps you guessing about who is doing what, and with what other characters. When you see such things as promotional photos, you therefore have to start running all of the possible options in your head as to which character we are actually seeing.

These photos come from the sixth episode of the season “Handle with Care,” which is airing on The CW next month. They feature what appears to be a very chemistry heavy moment between Dobrev and Paul Welsey’s on-screen characters (even though he appears to be sleeping), and there’s another question that goes along with that: Is this Elena and Stefan, Katherine and Stefan, Katherine and Silas, or Elena and Silas? Basically, this is a version of the show that could make you learn math just to understand probabilities.

Meanwhile, you have the slightly more-straightforward issue of Damon with one of Nina’s characters, at least unless there is some sort of shocker that drops soon and Damon also has some doppelganger that we are about to meet. (If this is the case, someone just post a picture of an exploding head in the comments.) These two, regardless of who they are, seem fairly unhappy. Let’s hope for Damon and Elena, and that they are still together at this point.

Be sure to also keep one thing in mind as you see these photos: There is a major couple on the show that will be split by the time this airs. Damon and Elena are not the only candidates, but their relationship is complicated and we don’t know if they will ever really be all that stable.

Do you want to read some more scoop all about “The Vampire Diaries” season 5? Then just click here, which is where you can check out what Janina Gavakar had to say about the big reveal at the end of this past episode.

Photo: The CW