'TVD' Revealed Who's In 1994 With Them

It's starting to get crowded in 1994 Mystic Falls. The Vampire Diaries introduced the idea last Thursday that Bonnie and Damon weren't alone in 1994. And on the series' new episode, "Welcome to Paradise," Damon and Bonnie finally met their fellow inhabitant — TVD Season 6's new villain, Kai. So, who the hell is this guy and why did he try to kill Damon and then try to pass it off as an elaborate plan to motivate Bonnie's powers to return?

First, you probably recognized Kai or, at least, the actor who plays him, Chris Wood. The actor previously starred in the recently cancelled CW series The Carrie Diaries as Adam Weaver and appeared on Lena Dunham's Girls in 2012. But you definitely haven't recognized him from a prior appearance on TVD, because he's a totally new beast that we're dealing with in Season 6. Apparently, though, he has all of the answers that Damon and Bonnie have been searching for this they arrived in this parallel-universe version of their hometown.

On Thursday night, the Pearl Jam-loving, pork rind-eating new villain revealed himself to Damon and Bonnie during one of the pair's weekly grocery shopping trips. (Yes, you grocery shop in parallel universes — supernatural beings still need to eat, ya know.) And admitted to stalking them for the past four months to collect intel on their every move before striking — aka trying to kill Damon by poisoning all of the bourbon in the store with vervain and then attempting to stake him while he was down. (Such a cheap shot.) Which seemed like the worst, until it ultimately pushed Bonnie over the edge and got her to do magic again. So, basically, now we're cooking with gas on TVD.

Bonnie saved Damon because, duh, and then the pair questioned Kai, who was only able to give one useful piece of information before the episode ended — Bonnie's magic is the key to getting them all out. But how did Kai get there in the first place if TVD is making it seem like Bonnie's Grams sent her there to protect her from the fallout of The Other Side's collapse? And what exactly is he? He's clearly not a witch, otherwise he would've overpowered Bonnie or at least attempted to fight back, and he's probably not a vampire — so is he a vampire hunter? A traveler? Something else entirely?

So far, all that's been revealed about Kai is that he's a "charmingly unstable newcomer with the unsettling ability to seem normal as the situation demands." Normal compared to what? It's entirely possible that Kai's pulling the wool over Damon and Bonnie's eyes and he doesn't actually need their help. As if they really need another problem.

Image: Annette Brown/The CW