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Stefan Salvatore and Klaus Mikaelson have a long, complicated history.

fans learned that in season 3. But what happens when Stefan, who’s currently dating a woman for whom Klaus once proclaimed his love, shows up in Klaus’ hometown of New Orleans? Well, fans are about to find out in Friday’s

writers room as we were breaking stories for episode 13 and we were realizing that Stefan needed to go on the run and that Caroline needed to go someplace safe,”

showrunner Julie Plec says. “So we were trying to figure out what that would be and it came up that, ‘Where would Caroline go if she needed protection?’ And I just went, ‘Oh no,’” Plec says with a laugh.

Realizing that Caroline would go to New Orleans, Plec continues, “Who better to protect you in a bind than Klaus Mikaelson, for better or for worse.”

writers’ rooms — both because they’re complicated logistically and because the writers never want them to feel forced — they realized that this was something that, as Plec puts it, “feels right tonally.”

Once Caroline’s story checked out, they turned to Stefan. “Then it became obvious that if Stefan needed a place to go where Rayna couldn’t track him, he would need to go to a place that magic didn’t work and that is a location that we established in New Orleans last year for Dahlia,” Plec says. “And so all the pieces kept clicking together in a way that really could work without it feeling like we had forced anything and that felt really good.” 

But if it’s the magic-free zone that draws Stefan to New Orleans, will he be happy to see Klaus? “Unfortunately for Stefan, the last person he really wanted to run into while he was hiding out was Klaus, for obvious relational reasons,” Plec says, referencing the Caroline of it all. “[That] makes their first meeting a tiny bit awkward,” she says.

However, an awkward run-in with Klaus is better than a deadly one. Speaking to where Klaus and Stefan left their relationship, Plec says, “They’re not on horrifically evil terms. Once Klaus left for New Orleans and realized that he was having a baby, there weren’t a lot of hard feelings anymore. I think that Stefan especially has always been someone that, in spite of all of their conflict, also they had a deep friendship at one point and so there’s a root of a connection there that’s hard to break.” 

Plus, it’s hard to hate someone who arrives in town and ends up being helpful, which is the case when Stefan enters into the world of the Mikaelsons’ sire line war. “When we originally started this conversation, it was just meant to be Stefan going to New Orleans in the

episode and having a run-in with Klaus, and when I asked Joe [Joseph Morgan] if he’d be interested in participating, he said that he would love to but he would also love to carry that story forward into

so that both shows could be part of it,” Plec says. “And it turns out that where we were in the story was you had the villains trying to break the sire line link which completely impacts Stefan because, as we know from

, if you kill an Original, everyone that’s been sired by them in their line dies and that’s Stefan and Damon and Caroline.” 

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And if Stefan’s going to lend a hand in the war, that means he’s got to meet a few new faces. “You don’t have a lot of time to lay pipe for those relationships,” Plec says, “But it was fun to see Marcel and Lucien and Stefan all in a scene together as like the three dysfunctional sons of Klaus Mikaelson.”

Plec also promised a “little visual callout” to Klaus and Stefan’s time together in the 1920s during the

As for Caroline’s visit to New Orleans in the future, Plec wouldn’t say much about the phone call between Klaus and Caroline other than that it’s “very heartfelt.” An for

fans, expect Caroline’s appearance to hint at how the season will end. After all, if she’s showing up three years into the future, shouldn’t we know who survived the prophecy? “It will ask a lot of questions,” Plec says.

Outside of the Stefan-Caroline-Klaus drama, fans can also expect to find out where Tyler ran off to after Damon nearly killed him. And yes, this episode takes place during a full moon.

As for Damon, things aren’t looking good when it comes to his relationship with Stefan. “We’re watching him sadly begin to take responsibility for all the things he’s done to get Stefan into this mess and yet still struggle with the responsibility of how to fix it,” Plec says. “For every good thing he does, there’s a byproduct of misfortune that is going to continue to make the situation worse and really put a strain between these two. It all roots back to what we’ll come to find out, a decision that Damon made in present day to put himself down and to desiccate himself and when we see that, we’ll understand also why Stefan has a reason to be angry with him.”

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