It has been too long since a dirty, disheveled Damon Salvatore stared intently into your eyes. Ian Somerhalder corrected the problem with a new -- but not new to him -- photo from The Vampire Diaries set. The CW series went off the air with Season 8, but this particular photo is from just before the penultimate season started filming. Somerhalder got nostalgic about the 2009-2017 series, and previewed more good stuff ahead:
Even messy, Damon still looks good. The CW fans definitely miss Damon Salvatore/Ian Somerhalder, even with the name Salvatore still front-and-center on Legacies, the joint spinoff of both The Vampire Diaries and The Originals.
This Instagram photo is from the start of filming for The Vampire Diaries Season 7, which premiered in October 2015 as the first (and, it turns out, only) season without Nina Dobrev as Elena Gilbert. It has only been about three years since this moment, but it does seem like a lot has changed. At least Damon's story had a happy ending -- he ended the series finale newly human, living in Mystic Falls with Dr. Elena Salvatore. It's not the ending Ian Somerhalder thought Damon deserved, but that's the ending he got.
It's interesting that Ian Somerhalder took a self portrait like this every season, to document his own changes through the years, and that he tied it to the fans he met along the way. Somerhalder has always been generous with his fans -- from Lost fans who still know him as Boone, to Vampire Diaries fans who will always call him Damon. We know Somerhalder has more to show fans in the coming years. He mentioned a few things in his new post, but there's also his upcoming Netflix show, V-Wars.
V-Wars also follows vampires, but this time Ian Somerhalder plays human Dr. Luther Swann in an adaptation of Jonathan Maberry's stories V-Wars: Chronicles of the Vampire Wars. Somerhalder posted updates on the series throughout filming for Season 1, which is currently in post-production. Netflix has yet to announce a Season 1 release date, but Somerhalder has already been pushing for Season 2.
That V-Wars premiere date is definitely something Ian Somerhalder will return to Instagram to tell fans about, and we can only hope he'll also bring back more Vampire Diaries nostalgia feels. We know he probably won't, but he could also theoretically pop by Legacies for a cameo as Damon Salvatore, since he and Elena should be living in Mystic Falls during the timeline of the new series.
Legacies airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on The CW. Here's what else is still on this year, and what you can look forward to (so far) in 2019.
