‘The Vampire Diaries’ Mikael: Meet Sebastian Roche’s vampire who hunts vampires

In the final moments of last week’s doozy of a “Vampire Diaries” episode, Katherine (Nina Dobrev) and Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) broke into a crypt and woke up a very cranky vampire.

This is actually our second time meeting Mikael, played by “Supernatural’s” Sebastian Roché — he’s the vampire hunter police chief with the wooden bullets who crashed Klaus and Stefan’s party in the 1920s.

First of all, his name is spelled Mikael, a fact that producers kept under-wraps initially, just as they kept the spelling of Rebekah’s name a secret. The old-world spellings certainly betray the ages of the vampires in question.

It remains to be seen for sure whether Mikael is an Original vampire. There’s a notable absence of a white-oak silver dagger in his chest when Katherine opens the tomb. However, he is wrapped in chains, and has clearly dessicated without being able to feed on blood, so it’s likely that he was never killed by a dagger or a stake — just stuck in the tomb, as the 1864 vampires were in Season 1.

The general consensus is that Mikael may be the Original father — that is, Rebekah and Elijah’s father. We know that the Original dad had quite a temper, since he killed the werewolf who fathered Klaus. But is his temper dangerous enough that he would hunt his own children? Remember, Klaus wasn’t the only one on the run from Mikael in the 1920s. Rebekah feared him as well.

We know that Mikael was entombed by a witch in the Pickett wing of the largest cemetery in Charlotte at some point in the 1990s. Given that this is “The Vampire Diaries,” we have to assume that there’s some significance to that time frame… and our first thought is that Elena, the first viable doppelganger in five centuries, was born right around then. And how convenient that at the time of his capture, Mikael was in the Southeast United States, the birthplace of the doppelganger.

Of all the gin joints…

This is pure speculation, but we’d guess that if Mikael’s grudge is truly against Klaus, and if he really wants to give Klaus a terrible, horrible, no-good very bad day, killing the doppelganger just might be on his checklist. After all, Elena hasn’t had any kids — unless she and Matt had a very exciting freshman year — so we can assume that the doppelganger bloodline ends with her.

The above photo is a close-up still of Mikael, still in his chains in the coffin, released by The CW from last week’s episode, “The Reckoning.” If you’ll notice, there’s fresh blood on his mouth. We’d guess that somewhere on the cutting room floor, there’s a scene where he gets a taste of a certain Gilbert kid. Wakey-wakey.

Leave us your Mikael speculation in the comments! We can’t wait to see what his motives are… and whether he’s a danger only to the Originals, or to Elena as well.

Photo/Video credit: The CW