Will 'Vampire Diaries' end with a flashforward? 

Did 'The Vampire Diaries' just cast Matt Donovan's dad?

'The Vampire Diaries' team is 'bringing it all home' in final season

'The Vampire Diaries' will end with season 8

After seven years of Salvatore brother drama, love triangles, and supernatural enemies,

is heading into its eighth and final season. With one last year to live in this world, showrunner Julie Plec is hoping to pay tribute to all the people and events of years past, whether it’s the fact that episode titles are all lines from season 1 or that she’d love to get any and every character she can back on screen. 

“I will say that at some point over the course of this season, I would like to see everyone’s face that I can possibly see again, whether it be in the finale or in flashbacks or the characters who are still alive finding their way through Mystic Falls one last time,” Plec tells EW. “This year is about delivering on eight seasons worth of passion and enthusiasm for these characters and I would be really disappointed not to be able to show off all their faces one last time.”

Of course that includes Nina Dobrev, who left the show after season 6. Plec told EW at the time of Dobrev’s departure: “Nina has always said that if there’s something for her to do in the series finale that she will be there to do it. When she left, she said, ‘I want to see this character to its end at the end of the show, so I can’t wait to come back and put her to bed again.’”

Furthermore, CW chief Mark Pedowitz recently expressed hope fans will get to see Dobrev’s character again. “We’d love to have her back,” he said at the Television Critics Association’s press tour on Thursday. “Hopefully she’ll be back, but should it not work out, Julie has planned a great series finale that will satisfy fans.”

But will Dobrev’s potential return mean the series finale will have to involve a flashforward? Fans will remember that Kai put Elena into a potential 60-plus year slumber by tying her life to Bonnie’s, so unless Bonnie were to suddenly die, the return of Dobrev could mean a time jump. According to Plec, “[Co-creator] Kevin [Williamson] and I have two very different points of view about flash forwards. He and I will be doing a lot of talking and emotionally battling, in a good way, [to decide] the right path to take this series to an end.”

CW Seed\'s new DC animated series will feature gay superhero lead

\'Rogue One\': Forest Whitaker on Darth Vader \'similarities\'

\'Ring\'/\'Grudge\' crossover horror film to be released later this year

Hugh Grant reveals why he turned down a role in \'Two and a Half Men\'

See The Voices Behind Your Favorite \'Doug\' Characters

See The Voices Behind Your Favorite \'Rugrats\' Characters

Rio Olympics: 10 of the Most Talked-About Moments From the 2016 Games