Nina Dobrev has a couple of picks for her favorite episodes of The Vampire Diaries, where she starred as Elena for most of the series' run. While both are episodes of the long-running CW series, they are very different.
Nina Dobrev’s first pick was a Season 1 episode fans will undoubtedly recall. Dobrev said this on My Favorite Episode with Michael Schneider:
'Lost Girls' was one of them, in which we flash back into 1864 I believe. And we meet Katherine for the first time in the period piece times, and that was really fun to shoot and also a really fun character introduction to make. I loved playing that role, and I love doing period pieces, and going back in time. It was really a real treat.
That episode marked the first of many Vampire Diaries episodes wherein Nina Dobrev would play dual roles: the show’s lead character, Elena, and her distant ancestor, Katherine. It is also the episode that Elena asks Stefan what he is before he confirms he is a vampire. In “Lost Girls,” viewers learn how Katherine and Stefan met, among other things.
Katherine’s existence had been teased for a while and seeing Nina Dobrev bring her to life was a big deal. Dobrev’s second favorite episode pick was also a pivotal installment of the series. She selected The Vampire Diaries’ Season 3 finale, entitled “The Departed.” Explaining her reasons, Dobrev said:
[...]This is going to sound morbid. Favorite was a bad word to use when you're describing an episode in which your parents die. But we got to shoot that underwater in a tank, [in] this like giant facility, and made it look like a swamp.Our car had crashed over a bridge and shooting that scene was really beautiful and impactful and sad. But the experience of shooting underwater was[...]I love doing stunts, and I love doing that kind of stuff. It was emotional, having to be emotional and really like get that across underwater with all these circumstances was interesting and cool.
She did a great job in this Vampire Diaries viewer’s opinion. That episode ended up changing the show and Elena forever. The car crash occurred at the end of the season-ending installment. Alaric died as a result. It took a while before he ended up eventually coming back to life. Oh, the perks of working on a supernatural show.
Elena also died, having drowned in the aftermath of the crash... or so it seemed until the episode's final moments. It was revealed that she had come back to “life” in a far different form than she left it. Thanks to being given vampire blood for an unrelated injury earlier, Elena woke up as a vampire. Cue ominous music!
Given that she enjoyed filming the underwater scenes, I have to wonder: was the water warm? Usually, you think of water like that being cold, which you would think of as being miserable to shoot in. Whatever the temperature, the experience sounds like it was a positive one for Nina Dobrev.
Both of Nina Dobrev’s choices are strong ones. As someone who enjoyed whenever she played Katherine, it was nice for me to hear she enjoyed it too. Dobrev ended up exiting in The Vampire Diaries’ penultimate season. She returned for the series finale. The show’s legacy is currently continuing on the spinoff, aptly titled Legacies.
Will she reprise her role as Elena on the series? Dobrev has weighed in with an answer. Stay tuned! You can re-watch Nina Dobrev’s favorite episodes of The Vampire Diaries on Netflix, along with many other shows. The series’ spinoff will return for a second season, so more to expect from that universe.
