Paul Wesley
Actor Paul Wesley arrives at the Teen Choice 2010 Awards in Los Angeles August 8, 2010. Reuters/Jason Redmond

The CW has released a new promo clip combining the upcoming crossover episodes for “The Vampire Diaries” and “The Originals,” which showed the two series’ bad boys engaged in some biting and stabbing scenes. It also teased the anticipated reunion between two old friends, “The Vampire Diaries’” Stefan Salvatore and “The Originals” Klaus Mikaelson.

Klaus, played by Joseph Morgan, will serve as the welcome wagon to Stefan, played by Paul Wesley, when the latter arrives in New Orleans, TVLine reported. In the clip, Klaus and Stefan are sitting on a bar when Klaus slides a small shot glass filled with alcohol to Stefan. “Welcome to New Orleans, old friend,” Klaus said.

The promo clip was also shared on "The Vampire Diaries'" official Twitter account, with a message which read: "The bad boys of #TVD and @cworiginals bite back on a new night, starting Friday at 8/7c on @TheCW."

Stefan’s arrival in New Orleans was part of the crossover story plot hatched by the shows’ writers, along with showrunner Julie Plec. “The crossover was born out Stefan needing a place to escape. He’s on the run. He needs to go somewhere where magic can’t find him, and we realized he can go to New Orleans where there’s that bar where magic doesn’t work,” Plec explained in a TVLine interview.

Plec also shared that she initially planned to have Morgan’s Klaus do a special crossover appearance in “The Vampire Diaries” season 7, however, Morgan told Plec that he would like to have a similar crossover episode happen in “The Originals” season 3. Shortly after that Plec and her writing team realized that they have come up with a “perfect storyline” to make the crossovers possible.

“We realized we have the perfect storyline already happening: the sire line and the war [between] all the trinity, and the prophecy saying that one of these Originals will die or all of them will fall. The fear of that impacts Stefan directly, and so he sticks around for an Originals episode to participate in the latest dilemma to come out of that situation,” Plec said.

Meanwhile, an upcoming episode in the second half of “The Vampire Diaries” season 7 will feature an out of control Damon given his traumatic Phoenix Stone experience. In episode 12 titled “Postcards from the Edge,” Ian Somerhalder’s character Damon Salvatore will be doing something unthinkable, although his brother Stefan will help to pull him back from his dark descent.

“The Vampire Diaries” will return on Friday, Jan. 29, at 8 p.m. followed by “The Originals” at 9 p.m. on the CW.

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