‘Vampire Diaries’: Joseph Morgan talks tonight’s torture scene and the shot you weren’t allowed to see

Doesn’t it feel like we haven’t seen Klaus (Joseph Morgan) in forever? Well, he’s back in tonight’s episode of The Vampire Diaries, which finds Klaus trying to find a way to break the spell his mother did to link he and his Original vampire siblings so that if one of them is murdered they all die.

“He’s trying to get Bonnie to help him break the spell, and as we know from watching Klaus, people will often end up as collateral damage in his wake,” Morgan says. “So he’ll try to use someone Bonnie cares about in order to manipulate her into doing his will.” Is he talking about Abby? Jamie? Jeremy? “There’s a few people, isn’t there?” Morgan laughs. “This little Vampire Diaries Scooby-Doo hero squad is a very tight-knit group. He has a choice.” Klaus’ brother Finn is back in the picture, so we assume Klaus will also be using Sage, who we know has a history with Finn, to manipulate him as well? “Certainly, if it seems to Klaus that Sage is gonna be valuable in that way, he’s gonna take advantage of every tool in his box,” Morgan says. 

Speaking of tools, we’ve all seen the promo shots of Rebekah — who’s not happy that Damon slept with her while planning to use the white oak tree wood from the bridge to kill her — torturing Damon. (And presumably, she doesn’t even know that he still has some of that wood after she and Sage made themselves a bonfire.) “For Klaus, as we know, Rebekah is his favorite sibling, really,” Morgan says. “He feels he has the strongest bond with her. So the idea of her being wronged by someone, especially Damon Salvatore… he really embraces the idea of Rebekah taking this kind of revenge. You see how sociopathic he is with the whole situation, how kind of matter of fact it all is to him. Actually, if you’re going to drain him, maybe you should turn him upside down. I would have liked to have seen him hung upside down. I thought they should go for it.” Morgan laughs. “But the practicality of shooting something like that — Ian was a real trooper. It is incredibly uncomfortable to be hung up like he was, and he had more than one day of being in that position. It’s a really brutal scene. I know there was one shot that we weren’t allowed to use by Standards & Practices because it was too gory and too bloody. Ian is suspended from metal jaws that are closed on both of his wrists, and there’s a point where he pulls against them, and we see the skin peel back from his wrist, and that was a little too much for them, I think.”

Meanwhile, the battle between Stefan and Klaus heats up again, which Morgan says will make for “pretty exciting viewing towards the end of the episode.” He adds, “Stefan has become the thorn in his side, and that’s partly because Klaus still believes there’s hope for their friendship. He’s still not quite willing to give up his righthand man, the Ripper. So just as much as Klaus pushes Stefan into a dangerous confrontation, I think it’s also Stefan pushing him. Neither of them is willing to back down. More and more, Stefan is becoming the loose cannon that Damon was and the biggest threat to Klaus. We saw after episode 9, when he stole all of my family’s coffins, that Stefan is willing to go as far as it takes. So yeah, this episode takes it to a whole new level. It’s really ramping up toward the finale.”

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