by Ryan J. Downey

Nina Dobrev had two specific words to sum up "The Vampire Diaries" season three's finale: "Pretty epic."

Of course, before we get there, there's going to be plenty of action.

Tonight's long-awaited return of "The Vampire Diaries" will contain a lot of juicy flashbacks. "1912," which executive-producer Julie Plec recently admitted to us was at least partly inspired by her marathon viewing of the hipster-hot British soap "Downtown Abbey," takes a look at a pivotal moment in the relationship between the Salvatore brothers. Generally a flashback-heavy episode means plenty of opportunities to watch our favorite bad-girl Katherine Pierce in action.

However, on the red carpet shortly before the PaleyFest advance screening of the episode, Ms. Pierce's real-life counterpart kept it coy. "Um, I can't tell you whether or not we see Katherine. You're going to have to watch and see," Nina Dobrev told Hollywood Crush, with a big smile.

Julie politely asked the packed house of fans to avoid spoiling anything about "1912" so though we've seen it, we're going to honor her wishes, because we love her. But suffice it to say that in addition to the introduction of old-timey femme fatale Sage (played by "Smallville" alum Cassidy Freeman) in "1912," we'll have some sweet present-day revelations about the story with Alaric's doctor lady friend (played by Paul Wesley's real-life wife, Torrey DeVitto) by the episode's end.

"1912" is mostly Originals free, but Julie told the crowd we certainly haven't seen the last of them. There are plenty more revelations, romantic entanglements and flashbacks in store for the folks in Mystic Falls as season three marches toward its mid-May finale. Nina had yet to read the script for that sure-to-be-a-juggernaut-of-an-episode, but she told us: "There's a couple of really cool surprises happening in the finale that people [should] really look forward to."

We will laugh, we will cry, we will shriek in terror and we may possibly jump for joy. "I got a little synopsis from Julie," Nina revealed. "She gave me a couple of spoilers that I can't tell you about, but, people are going to be really happy, excited and scared. They're going to laugh and cry. It's going to be pretty epic."