'The Vampire Diaries' Season 7 spoilers: Damon fights for his life in torturous Civil War journey, showrunner teases ‘grueling’ episode

Fans of the CW series “The Vampire Diaries” are already looking forward to the winter premiere of the vampire show. The series’ showrunner revealed that the upcoming premiere episode will feature a Damon that many viewers have never seen before.

Before “The Vampire Diaries” took its midseason break, viewers of the hit CW series saw Damon and Stefan’s souls trapped in the Phoenix Stone and reliving their worst experiences. For Ian Somerhalder’s character Damon, this means going back to the Civil War. Showrunner Caroline Dries shared in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that the Phoenix Stone story plot has allowed the series’ team to explore a “concept episode” for the winter premiere of “The Vampire Diaries” Season 7.

“We’ve never really done anything like it in that it [is] very focused on Damon. I think he’s in every single scene. Maybe not every single scene but a lot of scenes,” Dries said of the upcoming “The Vampire Diaries” episode 10 titled “Hell is Other People.”

The upcoming episode will feature Somerhalder’s Damon fighting during the Civil War. Dries also told Entertainment Weekly that the “Hell is Other People” episode will provide viewers with a different kind of Damon.

“The episode plunges the audience head first into a not-so-typical Damon mess,” Dries explained. “It’s a grueling, frustrating, at times even a little hilarious examination of one of our favorite and most damaged characters. Turns out that in the murk of Damon Salvatore’s psyche, redemption isn’t easy to find.”

While Damon’s journey during his Phoenix Stone entrapment would be featured in the upcoming episode of “The Vampire Diaries” Season 7, his brother Stefan’s personal hell would not be unveiled in the series’ winter premiere episode.

In a previous interview, showrunner Julie Plec talked about the Salvatore’s new battles and hinted that Paul Wesley’s character Stefan’s Phoenix Stone journey would be unveiled in future episodes. Plec explained that they plan to share Stefan’s journey in a “completely different” way in the upcoming new chapter of “The Vampire Diaries.”

“The Vampire Diaries” Season 7 will return on Jan. 29 in the US on CW.