'Vampire Diaries' Casting News: 'Dexter' Alum Joins Season 2 Sparking Romance Speculation

Big news "Vampire Diaries" fans! A new face is joining the series in season 2 and she's sure to cause some trouble (don't they all?).

"Dexter" alum Courtney Ford (who, by the way, is married to "Superman Returns" and "Scott Pilgrim" actor Brandon Routh) has signed on as Vanessa, a graduate student from Duke University, who will help Alaric, Elena and Damon dig through Isobel's old research, EW has confirmed.

Now, we're very excited because this casting gives us tons to speculate about. The biggest of course, is whether or not there's some love interest potential with Vanessa. After all, Mystic Fall has quite a few eligible bachelors and not enough single ladies.

While the details have been scant, Executive Producer Kevin Williamson did drop some hints at Comic-Con.

"We do know in the third episode Alaric (Matt Davis) and Damon (Ian Somerhalder) travel to Duke University to look at paranormal research and there is a grad student there who helps them dig into it and you know...she's not without her own intrigue," Kevin told Ausiello late last month.

We wouldn't be surprised if both Damon and Alaric were "intrigued," but we think Alaric has a better shot here. Sure, Damon's a ladies man and all, but we're guessing he's going to have his hands full with the whole Katherine coming back and breaking his heart thing (not to mention Elena) to take on yet another lady.

On the other-hand, Alaric could really use some lovin' and a distinct storyline of his own.

Of course, that's not the only thing that caught our attention with this new announcement. In fact, we found it very interesting that Stefan (Paul Wesley) isn't going on this research trip, leaving us to wonder where or what he'll be doing. Ideas anyone?

Of course, all this speculation could be for nothing. After all, we have no idea how long Vanessa's going to be sticking around Mystic Falls. Kevin himself said they might decide to "gut her like a fish" (eek!). Although in this case, we're not going to take the bait.

What do you think of this new casting? Should she be paired with Damon or Alaric?