Vampire Diaries writers and Candice King discuss the 'most bananas' season 7 twist

Over the course of its eight seasons, The Vampire Diaries' mythology changed every now and then to fit a certain story. But in its seventh season, the show delivered its biggest change from its established mythology when, suddenly, Caroline (Candice King) became pregnant via a magical transfer. Even though she was a vampire, she was somehow carrying Alaric (Matthew Davis) and Jo's (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe) twins.

The twist was something the writers thought up as a way to soften the tragedy at the end of season 6 when Kai (Chris Wood) killed Jo and her unborn children—on her wedding day, no less. "We had always left that [story thread] hanging on instinct," writer Neil Reynolds says during episode 7 of EW's Binge: The Vampire Diaries.

Executive producer Julie Plec adds, "Because of the tragedy of the twins and Jo dying and looking for story for Alaric for the season, we had separately come up with the story of the woman who knocks on his door and is like, 'I think I'm pregnant with your babies.'" But the writers weren't sure if that twist was too crazy, so they didn't originally plan to go there. Until star Candice King called to let them know she was pregnant. "I was very nervous to make that call," King says on the podcast.

Ultimately, the writers decided to work in King's pregnancy and use the aforementioned story, only instead of a random woman showing up pregnant, Caroline would carry Ric's kids. Plec remembers warning CW president Mark Pedowitz about "the most bananas thing" she was ever going to pitch him at the time, but surprisingly, he wasn't fazed. And thus Caroline's pregnancy became part of the series and will always go down as one of the show's most unexpected turns.

For more about season 7, listen to the full episode of the podcast below:

To listen, subscribe to EW's Binge: The Vampire Diaries feed via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also subscribe to EW's YouTube page to catch all the video interviews, and stay tuned to EW.com.

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