Julie Plec On Mid-Season Finale For TV Guide

What are the major consequences of killing Carol Lockwood (Susan Walters)?The first repercussion is that the town is short a mayor. When we come back we'll meet the man who's been chosen to be the interim mayor of Mystic Falls, Rudy Hopkins, who we'll quickly learn is Bonnie's dad. He's been caught up to speed and filling in the blanks of information that he knew or didn't know over the years so now he's playing both the role of concerned mayor for the town and concerned father for his daughter.

How will Bonnie react to him coming to town?Like any teenager would handle a parent coming back into her life and trying to boss her around.

Is Tyler now screwed since Klaus found out he was trying to kill him?Tyler has definitely been marked by Klaus, and that's something that will play out over the next few episodes -- the repercussions of Tyler's move against Klaus.

For a minute I thought Klaus couldn't be that evil and perhaps didn't want to be.The thing that has always defined Klaus and how he acts and what he does is three things. No. 1 is that he's a survivalist; when you betray him, you get beat down. No. 2 is power, which originates from his unstable upbringing and childhood in which his own parents wanted him dead. [And No. 3] he was a guy who frankly was not loved by his parents and hates himself for still wanting the life where he can trust people and love people. You see glimpses of that in how he deals with Caroline and how he deals with his siblings, but as we've also seen when he feels backed up against a wall or mistreated or abused he lashes out in the most dramatic way possible.

Where is Stefan's head at when the show returns?When we come back, he has not been handling it well and the episode that we return to definitely draws the dagger in deeper, so to speak. He's got a lot to deal with emotionally and he has a lot of decisions to make about how he's going to deal with what he feels is a terrible, terrible betrayal from his brother, a profound disappointment and the loss of his girl.

Damon told Elena to leave, so is the sire bond over?It's not that she lost her sire bond, it's that he used the sire bond to tell her to go away so if you're not around someone you can't exactly be sired by them. In the next episode we'll get to see what life is like for both of them when they're apart, how difficult it is for each of them and how strong their resolve is to stay away from each other.

And is Jeremy's hatred towards Elena really gone?It's not done and over with. It's just easier for him. They've reconnected on an emotional level and he's found coping mechanisms that he can use. His curse in life is that he's hard-wired to want people like her dead so that's not just going to go away, but it's going to allow them to stand together as brother and sister and try to fight it.

Does this mean there will be more Jeremy and bulging biceps scenes?They've only just begun.

What will we learn about Shane and Silas in the new episodes?When we get back there's a run of five episodes that is our Silas chapter and it brings everything to a head as far as those things are concerned.

Could Silas perhaps be the next big villain on the show should he be unburied?
He's definitely someone who is going to be representing a lot of fear and tension for the rest of the season.

Looking back at the first part of Season 4, what's been your favorite story to tell?I enjoyed being able to take Damon's character to the next level. This is a guy who short of after not being chosen said, "Screw it. I am who I am," and then out of that came this discovery that Elena loves him for who he is without him trying to be somebody different. The relief that came attached to that and the beauty was so short-lived when he realized he couldn't 100 percent trust that it was real. It's really good stuff for this character who has been rejected and denied so many times to taste this happiness, but we'll see if it turns into infallible happiness, if it's real and can stay real.