‘Virgin River’ Showrunner Unpacks Season 6, Teases Season 7

SPOILER ALERT: The story contains particulars about Season 6 of Netflix‘s Virgin River.

Another Virgin River season ended on a Charmaine-related cliffhanger. She dropped the being pregnant bomb in Season 1 then admitted that Jack was not the daddy within the Season 4 finale, with Calvin revealed because the dad a yr later. Now, Season 6 ended with Jack stopping by to verify on her after she didn’t attend his and Mel’s marriage ceremony to seek out her home ransacked and her and the infants presumably lacking after she had taken a restraining order towards Calvin.

Season 6 adopted Mel (Alexandra Breckenridge) and Jack’s (Martin Henderson) journey to the altar, with each dealing with the ghosts from their previous earlier than the massive day. Trying to construct a relationship together with her organic father Everett (John Allen Nelson), Mel asks him as an alternative of Doc (Tim Matheson) to stroll her down the isle. Everett is overwhelmed, Doc is upset. The two males stay hostile till they bury the previous after Everett reveals he was making an attempt to finish his life on that fateful evening many years in the past, leading to one other affected person of Doc’s, a boy, dying.

Mel and Doc additionally reconcile by the rehearsal dinner. But then Everett suffers a coronary heart assault the evening earlier than the marriage. He survives however, considerably inexplicably, Mel and Jack proceed with the marriage, which Hope (Annette O’Toole) has changed into an elaborate manufacturing with flying doves and ice sculptures. It’s all an excessive amount of for Mel, and Jack whisks her away on their new horse to that spot by the river the place they first bonded in Season 1. His transferring “I’ve acquired you” speech works, and Mel is able to get married.

Doc walks Mel down the isle, and Everett comes out of the hospital to carry out a music on the reception, which he had began writing after assembly Mel’s late mother, Sarah. Everett and Sarah’s love story was charted by way of flashbacks with the thought to presumably flip that right into a prequel collection starring Callum Kerr and Jessica Rothe.

Star-crossed lovers Brie and Brady proved as soon as once more that they’ll’t steer clear of one another for lengthy and had intercourse whereas each had been in relationships, Brie with Mike and Brady with Lark who had tried to con him.

Things come to a head at Mel and Jack’s marriage ceremony, with Lark overhearing Brady telling Brie that she is going to all the time be the one, resulting in her someway draining Brady’s checking account by way of his telephone (that’s some actually poor financial institution safety) and disappearing together with her daughter. Meanwhile, Mike proposes to Brie, she admits that she slept with Brady and Mike tells her he is aware of.

Also on the marriage ceremony, Preacher and Kaia, who efficiently went by way of his trial, and expectant mother and father Lizzie and Denny, each focus on marriage. Doc’s clinic is below menace of being taken over by a big community, Muriel was identified with breast most cancers and Cameron visited a few instances earlier than jetting again to San Diego.

Meanwhile, newlyweds Mel and Jack might change into mother and father a lot prior to anticipated when Mel’s affected person Marley asks her within the finale to undertake her unborn child.

Season 7, which was ordered forward of Season 6’s debut, is now being written. Scripts are anticipated to be prepared in January, with filming scheduled to start within the spring, in keeping with showrunner Patrick Sean Smith.

In an interview with Deadline, Smith breaks down Season 6’s marriage ceremony storyline, teases Season 7’s overarching theme and divulges whether or not there will probably be a time bounce. He addresses whether or not scrapping the nuptials was thought-about, the cliffhangers involving Charmaine’s disappearance, Mike’s proposal and Lark’s revenge in addition to what number of weddings and infants we might count on subsequent season and whether or not it might be the collection’ final.

Smith discusses the proposed prequel and divulges which different Virgin River characters’ again tales will probably be explored subsequent season in addition to which Season 6 and Season 7 storylines had been impressed by the Robyn Carr books the collection is predicated on, and by his private experiences. He additionally reveals why Mel and Jack’s canine Pony was MIA for many of the season, hinting at a doable recasting, and whether or not Cameron and Everett will probably be again subsequent season.

Additionally, Smith explains that “maintain house” line in Mike’s proposal and its impeccable timing on the heels of the viral Wicked meme and the way ‘This Heart of Mine’ music happened with The Lumineers star.

DEADLINE: Let’s begin with the very finish of the finale, the Charmaine cliffhanger. What are you able to tease about what Jack sees in that nursery, and whether or not she and/or the infants are secure?

SMITH: I wish to say the infants are secure for certain. As far because the circumstances surrounding what Jack sees, I feel you’ll have to attend and see subsequent season. But it got here out of one thing that felt attention-grabbing for us to discover in Season 7, so we sort of knew the place we had been leaping on this cliffhanger earlier than we jumped.

DEADLINE: Will we see extra of Charmaine? She has been a cliffhanger machine on the present however, outdoors of the restraining order, we barely noticed her this season.

SMITH: In Season 5, I used to be glad that we had been in a position to around her out slightly bit extra, to humanize her slightly bit. I feel since we already had the variety of characters that we have now, we’ll see her be the same quantity. But I feel in Season 7, it’s extra about characters which are reacting to the circumstances that consequence from the cliffhanger which are introduced again into our story.

DEADLINE: Onto the principle storyline, the lead-up to Mel and Jack’s marriage ceremony. We acquired some traditional romantic film tropes, together with a runaway bride (and groom). Talk about the truth that they nearly didn’t get married after we had been constructing in the direction of that the whole season and them going again to the place of their first date. You weren’t on the present when that scene was filmed in Season 1, how did you determine to try this throwback?

SMITH: I seemed on the marriage ceremony because the occasion that has been six seasons within the making so needed to offer a nod to as many pivotal moments for Mel and Jack all through the episode with out it turning into a clips episode. It felt like an attention-grabbing place for them to return, particularly for his or her characters, simply the truth that Jack intuitively knew that it could be a spot that Mel might emotionally reply to, given the trauma that she was bringing to her new life in Virgin River.

With it cropping up by way of Everett’s well being scare, I feel he knew that it could have the identical impact on her. And it simply proved, in a method, the magic of Jack to Mel, to have the ability to assist her and be there for these moments the place she doesn’t have the religion and confidence that she’s going to have the ability to have the energy for what life and us are throwing at her at that second.

DEADLINE: Jack’s speech on the riverbank served as his vows. Did you think about not having an actual ceremony in any respect? Or did you assume followers could be too upset? It would’ve been comprehensible, Mel’s father nearly died; it felt nearly too rushed to have a marriage the identical day.

SMITH: Given the surprising nature of Season 5, I felt there was already an inherent query mark whether or not this marriage ceremony goes to really occur or not however I knew from the start that I did wish to ship on the marriage. It nearly felt just like the pleased final result was the extra surprising final result, given the historical past of the present — and likewise tv normally. And it felt very a lot within the spirit of the present that the massive twist of this marriage ceremony season is that the marriage really occurs they usually cross the end line collectively and simply as a lot in love as after they had been first on these riverbanks collectively, as to after they return there for that non-public second of sharing their vows.

I actually had no intention of depriving the followers of 1 second of marriage ceremony bliss that we might discover. I discovered, traditionally, for me, that I’ve seen some marriage ceremony episodes that I simply needed to dwell in it extra, and I needed the viewers to be as satiated as doable with the marriage.

DEADLINE: With Jack carrying his Marine uniform and Mel within the white gown, the marriage had nearly a fairy story really feel to it. Was that intentional?

SMITH: It wasn’t intentional to be that literal with the fairy story imagery. I knew that I needed him to put on his gown blues in the long run, which simply felt like a strategy to honor his service, which, by way of a lot of the collection, had been a supply of ache, however I like that it turned a supply of satisfaction over the course of the season, that manifested in him carrying his gown blues. But no, I feel these fairy story parts did pop in there in a method that felt enjoyable and candy and appropriate for a way particular this relationship has been between them.

DEADLINE: Will there be a time bounce? Approximately when is the following season selecting up?

SMITH: Currently, the following season picks up like two hours later, there may be not a time bounce this time.

DEADLINE: In addition to Mel and Jack’s marriage ceremony, the finale teased three extra probably, with Danny and Lizzie beginning to speak about marriage in a extra severe method, Preacher and Kaia attending to that place. and Mike proposing to Brie. How many extra weddings might we count on subsequent season?

SMITH: I can’t promise any extra weddings. We are slightly weddinged-out after Season 6, but it surely felt like, at weddings, generally the thought finds its method into {couples}, so exploring it felt like much more of a method of bringing our supporting characters into the occasion itself by them evaluating or reevaluating their very own particular person or couple relationship to marriage.

DEADLINE: Mike’s proposal. I watched a pair instances that scene with the blokes by the hearth that preceded it, and I’m nonetheless unsure what precisely in that dialog prompted him to do it. Why did he determine to suggest and, extra importantly, how did he learn about Brie and Brady and the way lengthy has he recognized?

SMITH: We will unpack all of that in Season 7, for certain. We dropped hints In the sooner episodes, particularly in 608 when Mike has the speculation that Brie and Jack’s mother and father are sleeping collectively, and at one level he says, ‘I’m a detective, I detect issues’. So the thought was that we felt like by career, let’s make him a extremely good cop, and let’s have him choose up on these breadcrumbs and clues alongside the best way.

At the hearth with the boys, it’s off Jack understanding that Brady and Brie slept collectively when it’s referenced that Brady might be a household man on this relationship with Lark, Jack shoots a glance to Brady that’s considerably accusatory, so it was tremendous tremendous refined. But once more, it’s one thing that we’ll unpack extra in Season 7.

DEADLINE: Assume you possibly can’t tease what Brie’s reply is to the proposal?

SMITH: She says both sure or no.

DEADLINE: There’s a line in Mike’s proposal that had me howling. He says, ‘All I’ve needed to do is to care for you and maintain house.’ You wrote this months earlier than “holding house” took social media by storm after a Wicked press interview with Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. I nonetheless don’t fairly perceive what that phrase means. What does it imply for Mike? And what do you consider the loopy coincidence and timing?

SMITH: It’s definitely a coincidence. It’s a phrase that I’ve heard in my peer teams and we use within the author’s room so far as the thought of supporting anyone whereas they’re going by way of one thing I feel is my interpretation of it. If it’s incorrect, I stand corrected and I defer to Ariana and Cynthia respectfully.

I feel the thought of Mike is all the time that he’s there supporting her and being a secure place for her, in comparison with Brady, the place she’s endured disappointment and heartbreak, however she’s additionally nonetheless carrying this torch and nonetheless has very passionate emotions For Brady.

DEADLINE: Brady and Lark’s tumultuous relationship got here to an abrupt finish after she swindled him and took off. Did she all the time plan to take his cash or was {that a} response to her overhearing Brady profess his like to Brie?

SMITH: Our intention was in seeing her emotional response to the dialog when she was in tears. That’s when she form of indifferent. What we’re exploring in Season 7 is what she sees as how Brady emotionally conned her, that whereas it felt like they had been stable, he was all the time in love with Brie, and when she acquired that info, she retaliated in an enormous method.

DEADLINE: Will Brie and Brady’s star-crossed lovers arc proceed? They each had been in dedicated relationships with different individuals this season, however in the long run, they discover themselves the place they had been a season in the past.

SMITH: Yeah, we’ll proceed to discover that relationship with Brie and Brady in addition to Mike, and searching on the three of them as extra of a right away love triangle, versus this previous season, which is slightly bit like a love rectangle.

DEADLINE: We talked about weddings, what about infants? Obviously one is on the best way with Lizzie and Denny. But we additionally acquired an anticipated doable on the spot household with Jack and Mel when Marley requested Mel to undertake her unborn child. For me, it got here out of the blue as a result of sure, the adoptive mother and father had been slightly overbearing, however that gave the impression to be coming from place. How did this twist happened?

SMITH: Well, there’s a nod to the e-book collection the place Marley and Phil and Darla had been characters in the same scenario as Mel was, the physician to Marley who was trying to give her child up for adoption. So that’s what impressed the storyline. And then carrying that by way of, I can assure no less than one child in Season 7, probably two.

DEADLINE: Like Charmaine, Mel and Jack’s canine Pony solely appeared sporadically in Season 6 regardless of the duo spending quite a lot of time of their cabin. Why was that?

SMITH: It turned out Pony wasn’t as ready for the position earlier than we forged Pony. And I say once more, respectfully to the animal wranglers, they’d the most effective of intentions. Pony, I feel, was perhaps borderline feral when he began on set, and we realized that the laborious method. Martin and Alex had been troopers, I really despatched an electronic mail to manufacturing with a topic line in a reference to an 80s music the place it mentioned,
“Pony, Pony, Pony has finished it once more.” Pony was utterly uncontrolled, so we pulled Pony from the scene. And I feel we had been feeling sort of much less our greatest of intentions and extra Pony’s acquired to return to appearing college.

DEADLINE: Will you recast the position or will Pony stay largely within the background?

SMITH: I’m hoping we’ll discover a lookalike that’s ready for what the position calls for. Alex and Martin had been simply — they’d the clickers, they had been appearing, we had been throwing infants at them and every thing, they signed up for lots. [Mel and Jack volunteered to babysit Charmaine’s babies at their cabin.]

DEADLINE: One extra character we barely noticed this season was Cameron, regardless of Mark Ghanimé, who performs him, being a collection common. His scene with Muriel within the finale felt like a goodbye. Is this the final we noticed of Cameron?

SMITH: Cameron will all the time be a part of our world, and I’d like to see his character come again once more. He sadly gained’t be a collection common in Season 7, however I like Mark, and I like the character, so when alternative presents itself, I’d like to have him again.

DEADLINE: Speaking of Muriel, who simply discovered a brand new love post-Cameron, will Season 7 comply with her most cancers battle?

SMITH: We’ll proceed to discover as she enters remedy and endures that with the assist of the brand new love curiosity, but additionally, and extra particularly, with the sawing circle and Hope.

DEADLINE: The Everett and Sarah flashbacks. Talk about crafting the Nineteen Seventies timeline, telling that backstory, and what the standing of the potential prequel is.

SMITH: it’s nonetheless in growth, so I’m engaged on that now. I personally see it slightly bit like Queen Charlotte to Bridgerton. I feel if there’s a chance to take what Virgin River as a e-book collection was, which was every e-book was specializing in one couple and increasing the world outdoors of it, to place Sarah and Everett within the foreground of their very own story, whereas populating, as Virgin River has, the world with supporting characters and different relationships — however all nonetheless working it by way of the romance lens — to me, is what defines quite a lot of what an enlargement of the present and the franchise could be.

So it’s nonetheless protecting issues romance-forward, character-based, stable story engines, the fantastic thing about the world, however then placing that in a time interval that may inform among the problems with the time, and that may nonetheless communicate and really feel related to problems with as we speak, which I feel is what Virgin River itself has finished superbly In its steadiness of not being so boxy, but additionally having one thing to say that also issues.

DEADLINE: I’d prefer to see Hope as a younger girl in Virgin River, and Doc, in flashbacks. Season 6 launched her ex, a rancher. We will see him once more?

SMITH: Roland, sure, her ex-husband will come again in Season 7. A variety of what we’re doing in Season 7 that marries itself considerably to the prequel is wanting extra in Hope’s historical past. From the start of the collection, it was acknowledged that the McCrea cabin was one thing that individuals knew inside 50 miles, and we’ve by no means actually explored her household legacy to that space.

DEADLINE: In addition to Hope, are there another characters whose backstory will probably be explored subsequent season?

SMITH: We are exploring slightly bit extra of Mel’s origins as a midwife, which we perceive led to her alternative of turning into a nurse, and a little bit of her calling got here from the emotional expertise she had together with her mom’s sickness and passing. It’s getting to grasp in a deeper method Mel’s relationships with infants, her relationships with beginning moms, and digging into that a part of her calling as effectively.

DEADLINE: Mel and Everett’s relationship was fairly bumpy, he pulled again at one level, she later saved his life. Talk in regards to the trajectory of that relationship, with the 2 finally accepting one another and Everett displaying his love for her with the music on the marriage ceremony.

SMITH: The introduction of Everett was actually one thing to recontextualize Doc and Mel’s particular bond with him as a surrogate father. And I feel what we had been considering was making an attempt to discover it as authentically as doable: an estranged, organic baby dropping into your life 40 years later if you haven’t been a dad or mum, you remoted your self from most private relationships, and now you’re the daddy of the bride. It was placing quite a lot of the strain on Everett and seeing Mel navigate that, which felt recent and new since we hadn’t seen her coping with a residing dad or mum.

He had closed off his coronary heart due to all the previous loss, and it was Mel’s love that made him in a position to open his coronary heart once more was what we had been going for. And it felt, in a method, that it was much less concentrate on Mel’s heartbreak and her loss, which had been a lot in the beginning of the collection, seeing Mel carry among the experiences that she has had and beginning to use these in lifting Everett up in a method that I don’t assume she anticipated to have the ability to do in the beginning.

DEADLINE: I’ve to ask in regards to the music, “This Heart Of Mine”, it’s so easy however so catchy. Who wrote it? Are you releasing it? Did John Allen Nelson sing it on the present?

SMITH: Wesley Schultz from The Lumineers wrote the music. I needed to get some larger name-y individuals to have a featured music for the season, and he and I texted forwards and backwards just a few instances. The problem of it was capturing the inspiration for Everett, which was Sarah, however then additionally capturing Mel & Jack’s relationship on the similar time.

We’re completely releasing it in Wesley’s model. Callum, who performed younger Everett, who occurs to even be a recording artist in Nashville, has a model of it, after which the model of John Nelson, who did sing the music himself, will dwell within the present. So we have now a number of variations of it, however I feel it actually turned a season spotlight for me, and it’s one thing I used to be actually proud that it labored in addition to it did. And I’m so glad that it resonated for you too.

DEADLINE: With Doc and Everett additionally reconciling after Everett got here clear about that accident many years in the past, will Everett be again subsequent season? Are there extra tales to inform about him?

SMITH: He’ll proceed to be part of the present. I feel we’ve instructed a bulk of his story with Mel for now. But I feel one other factor that the present has all the time finished so superbly is hold secondary characters alive and pop up in locations the place you wouldn’t essentially all the time count on it. So I feel he’s a resident of Virgin River who’s right here to remain.

DEADLINE: Doc and Mel acquired into a fairly ugly struggle earlier than they mended fences simply in time for the marriage. Was Doc all the time going to stroll her down the aisle?

SMITH: I feel that was the thought. She requested him initially. Everett got here into her life, she made the change, which I feel damage Doc deeply, however in a method that he didn’t wish to disappoint her by letting her know that, which is what I feel culminated of their struggle. But then we noticed the chance in Everett’s well being scare to sideline him, to place Doc again in that rightful place, being the one which walks Mel down the aisle.

DEADLINE: The upcoming struggle for the clinic. You talked about how the present displays realities, and small-town medical practices being steamrolled by bigger networks is a actuality. Where are you taking that storyline?

SMITH: The present, whereas we’re not a medical procedural, we do have a medical story engine that I feel is particular by way of small-town medication. I had the good pleasure and privilege to begin out my profession engaged on Everwood, carrying the wish-fulfillment thought, and I feel what Virgin River has finished effectively so far as the way it displays on small city medication. I’m interested in seeing slightly of the present state of medical healthcare and our realities of it seeping into that world.

There’s an overarching theme for Season 7 of the skin encroaching into Virgin River. It all comes from a private place for me. I grew up in small city in Texas. Our small city hospital has been taken over by a community. I’ve seen the repercussions of that on the folks that dwell there. One of the city medical doctors who was 82 solely lately retired, and that’s been an inspiration for me, so far as Doc in his longevity, which I’d like to see go for so long as humanly doable, as a result of it feels actual. I really feel like we have now a chance to have a look at it in a method that different exhibits can’t.

DEADLINE: Last query. Are you contemplating Season 7 a possible ultimate season, and the way lengthy are you able to go together with the present?

SMITH: No plans to wrap up the collection anytime quickly, and so long as individuals hold coming again for it, we’re proud and pleased to maintain telling these tales.