Paging Uncle Kai. Or, really, paging Chris Wood. Your Malachai Parker is requested on Legacies. Kai Parker had a huge presence on The Vampire Diaries and his story would fit perfectly into the spinoff. Legacies showrunner Julie Plec just teased that she has "big plans" for Kai's return ... in her head:
Even if they never make it to the screen, I have massive plans.
OK, but so do we! Honestly, though, it's good to hear that Julie Plec knows what she would do with the whole Gemini Coven storyline if Chris Woods agreed to return -- either sometime in the 16-episode first season, or if The CW renews the series for Season 2.
Julie Plec didn't reveal more of her plans to TV Guide, and emphasized that there were no current plans for Kai to return.
Kaylee Bryant, who plays Josie Saltzman, recently told CinemaBlend Kai is the #1 Vampire Diaries character she wants to see on Legacies:
The amount of times that I say in live streams, on social media, in the writers room that I want Kai to come on to the show -- I think that the writers might kill me, because they're so over me talking about it. But I think that having Kai on the show would be so amazing to see, with the twins and everything, and I'm just obsessed with the actor that plays him. I think it would be fun to have that evil storyline to tell in reference to the twins and the Gemini Coven and all of that.
Yes! Kai is also on my list of top 5 Vampire Diaries and Originals characters I'd like to see on Legacies, along with the twins' other mother Caroline Forbes-Salvatore, among others.
Legacies Season 1, Episode 6 just gave fans an update on Caroline that was directly related to the Merge. That's the Gemini Coven tradition where twins have to face off against each other when they turn 22. The stronger twin absorbs the power of the weaker twin and becomes coven leader, while the weaker twin dies.
Josie and Lizzie Saltzman of Legacies are currently unaware of the Merge, or that Caroline is out there following a lead to try and help them avoid that fate.
This isn't even the first time Julie Plec has name-dropped Kai Parker. Last month, before the recent hint about Caroline's whereabouts, Plec told HollywoodLife how the show would address her absence:
Caroline gets mentioned quite a lot. Her absence gets mentioned a bit as well, in that she's been such a good mother, so why isn't she here? And there's a little bit of a long-term mystery attached to that we will slowly unravel. But the girls take after their mom. She's a good person, who as a teenager, wasn't always a nice person. So we get the ying and the yang of Caroline and Alaric and, of course, Jo, their biological mother. Whatever DNA she left them with is twirling around. Let's not forget these girls are related to Kai Parker by blood, so there's danger there, too.
So Julie Plec was already teasing the danger of the Gemini Coven, and the darkness of their Uncle Kai, who would probably still love to see the twins dead.
The twins' biological mother Jo just turned up on Legacies, despite having been murdered on her wedding night to Alaric Saltzman (Matt Davis). She is Kai Parker's twin sister, and he's the one who killed her. In the process, he tried to kill the twins Jo was pregnant with, to wipe out the coven competition. But they survived via a transfer to Caroline's womb.
It's complicated, but that's The Vampire Diaries. Damon Salvatore did decapitate Kai at the end of Season 6, but when has that ever kept anyone down? He returned to try and kill his nieces, and when he failed he was banished to the 2018 Prison World.
So Kai is currently still in that Prison World, but free to move around the Legacies chess board, should Chris Wood decide to make time in his schedule. Same goes for Candice King, though, as Caroline. She's probably sick of being dragged into this discussion, but so much of Legacies is tied to the Vampire Diaries world, especially when it comes to the twins. And when it comes to the twins, you have to include both their mother Caroline and their evil (but charismatic) uncle Kai.
Witch Bonnie Bennett is also tied up in all of this history, and she's also on my list of top 5 requested Vampire Diaries returnees. (One of the Bennett witches made a cameo in the Legacies midseason finale.) But I know it's not likely that she'll return.
It's about as likely as Nina Dobrev bringing back Dr. Elena Salvatore, who has a practice set up in Mystic Falls in the same timeline of Legacies. But Dobrev has a new sitcom starting in January, and CBS gave it a timeslot that directly competes with Legacies.
Ian Somerhalder is also unlikely to return as Damon Salvatore, thanks to his upcoming Netflix show (and also because he's ready to move on from this world too). Paul Wesley did return to Mystic Falls recently, but not as Stefan Salvatore. He directed an upcoming episode of Legacies, and apparently had a blast doing it. Legacies has a Stefan Salvatore Memorial Library, in honor of Caroline's late husband.
Legacies is deeply tied to the worlds of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, even if not all of the original stars are ready to show up on screen. Julie Plec recently revealed that Vincent was The Originals character Landon went to see in New Orleans, but it happened off-screen and we're not going to see Vincent. That appears to be the case with several alumni at this point, but we'll have to wait to see what the future holds.
In the meantime, here's what IS going to happen when Legacies continues Season 1 on Thursday, January 24 at 9 p.m. ET on The CW. And here are more shows to look forward to in midseason 2019.
