The Vampire Diaries

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when The Vampire Diaries’ Aunt Jenna (Sara Canning) met her untimely demise in Klaus’ (Joseph Morgan) creepy sacrifice. But Matt Davis, who plays Jenna’s former boyfriend Alaric, recently revealed he was more than ready for their strained relationship to be over.

"I felt that it was ultimately forced and never really fully developed in a way that I thought I could really bring a lot of life to it," Davis tells AOL TV.

While he loved working alongside the lovely and talented Sara Canning, Davis says he “creatively was relieved to be free of that relationship” because of all the lies Alaric had to tell Jenna. He’s “glad that [Alaric] is moving beyond that and he's coming into a state where he's much more open.”

Davis says his character isn’t “looking back.” With Jenna dead and gone, Alaric “wants to find his purpose again” by being “the best mentor he can be” to the Gilbert kids.

But watching out for Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) and Elena (Nina Dobrev) won’t be an easy task, and it will cause the vampire hunter to clash with Damon (Ian Somerhalder), “who [Alaric] feels is moving in on Elena and almost preying off of her emotional vulnerability” now that her boyfriend’s the Ripper, Davis says.

Mentoring may not be Alaric’s only challenge this season. Klaus infiltrated the history teacher’s body for a few (creepy) days in Season 2, and based on some discussions Davis had with executive producer Julie Plec, that possession may have repercussions in the future.

“We're going to try and bring a new darkness into Alaric, to really break him free from his self-doubt and break him free from any of his concerns he has about not living up to expectations and get into a dark side again,” Davis says.

As for whether Alaric will have a new romantic interest this season, Davis says he hopes so. We don’t know about you, but we still think it’s too soon. Viva la Jenna!

Source: AOL TV