‘Virgin River’ Boss on Pulling Off the “Best Wedding Season in TV” and What’s Next
[This story contains major spoilers from Virgin River season six.]
Did you hear wedding bells? Well, there were a few moments when it seemed like Mel and Jack maybe weren’t going to hear them in season six. Fortunately, the pair, played by Alexandra Breckenridge and Martin Henderson, made it down the aisle in the end.
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However, what’s wedding planning without at least a little bit of drama… or a lot, as seen in Virgin River? While Mel and Jack appeared to be the most stable in the sixth season of the hit Netflix series (now streaming), everyone around them didn’t slack at the drama. There was a love rectangle between Brady, Brie, Mike and Lark; Preacher’s trial; Mel’s father’s past with Vernon; Hope’s meddling and more.
“Sometimes people turn on each other [during a wedding experience], but I’ve always found satisfying opportunity to have Mel and Jack support each other,” Virgin River showrunner Patrick Sean Smith tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It was really one of the first things when I came on to the show that I wrote down: ‘I want to watch these two support each other.’ Because that feels fresh and optimistic and I think suits the spirit of the show.”
Below, Smith opens up to THR about finally getting Mel and Jack down the aisle amid all the season six drama, what it was like introducing a new timeline with young Everett and Sarah, all those finale cliffhangers and what fans can expect in the already renewed season seven.
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We waited six seasons to see Mel and Jack get married. How excited were you to finally give that to fans?
I was very excited, also, incredibly daunted. But it felt like the opportunity to really pull off the best wedding season of television, which nowadays you don’t get that very often. It would have been like a two-part wedding event and this, we kind of lived in it from the first frame of season six until the very end, which was an incredible opportunity. I took in all the responsibility that went with it to make sure that the fans felt like they experienced it as much as the anticipation built up to it.
With all the chaos this season, was there a storyline that was your favorite to bring to life?
A lot of them I’m really proud of, to be honest. I think realizing the love rectangle was fun, and twisty and exciting and sexy. This being, season six, my second season on the show, getting to lean in and realize Mel and Jack’s romance further in the midst of the wedding season was exciting as well. And I was really also proud of the Lizzie (Sarah Dugdale), Denny (Kai Bradbury) storyline and how it played out. It was small but mighty. And I thought that Kai and Sarah really knocked it out of the park and I was so proud of their performances and their commitment to it. Across the board, I was really proud of this, of all the storylines to all the performances this season.
This season, it seemed like Mel and Jack seemed the most stable out of all the characters. Was that your goal to make their relationship the center point this season while chaos ensues around them?
I think that tends to bond people during a wedding experience. Sometimes people turn on each other, but I’ve always found satisfying opportunity to have Mel and Jack support each other. It was really one of the first things when I came on to the show that I wrote down: “I want to watch these two support each other.” Because that feels fresh and optimistic and I think suits the spirit of the show.
Another major storyline was Mel and Everett’s (John Allen Nelson) developing father-daughter relationship, as well as Vernon’s (Tim Matheson) role. What made you want to have so much mystery surrounding Everett and his past?
It’s a little bit in the DNA of the show. Tthe series started with an emotional mystery on Mel and not sure what she was going through and revealing through flashbacks. I wanted to revisit that vibe, but with Mel being on the other side of it and not completely understanding where Everett was coming from, but trying to play their relationship as realistic as possible — that this man for mysterious reasons removed himself from the world. Now she’s pulling him out of the woods and saying, “And now you’re the father of the bride,” and being realistic about how crippling that could be for a lot of people but giving them the opportunity to rise to the occasion, which I love that he did for his daughter.
It’s also nice that Mel and Everett’s struggles got resolved within this season.
I definitely wanted to feel it confined to this season, just to give it some closure. The cardiac event was not something that we had planned initially. But when we started to get towards the latter part of the season, it felt like we needed something dramatic that could throw Mel into this emotional tailspin just before her wedding. And it felt like we had the opportunity there with Everett, which, I think kind of also married the two storylines together, unintended, well.
With Preacher, was the idea of him being found guilty ever thrown around?
No, Preacher is just an MVP of the series. He’s a beloved character. So there was no chance, but it did feel like it gave an opportunity for some of his relationships to deepen in crisis, especially, Jack and Kaia (Kandyse McClure). I was excited to have Brie (Zibby Allen) play an obvious utilitarian part in that as a lawyer, but I feel like also we saw more connection between them. So it felt like it was worth the price of admission for the episodes that we did. But I knew that I didn’t want it to drag out over the season or make it our big trial of the century, kind of thing. It has been sort of a loose thread that’s been hanging since a few seasons back, so I just felt like it was time to pull it and close it out and move them on.
You’ve spoken about a redemption arc for Brady (Benjamin Hollingsworth) throughout the show, but we saw he was still going through it this season with Lark’s scheme and his feelings for Brie. Will he finally get justice for himself potentially in the future?
The thing that I loved about the storyline and the aftermath of it was, as much as we can play this battle for Brady’s soul, I think he will always be the character that has the edge that he has. I don’t think we ever want to lose that. I think him getting redemption or revenge plays in season seven. But I’m always curious about the true nature of people and that’s what we’re still trying to get to with Brady. There was a moment where he confronts Jimmy (Ian Tracey) about the con and telling him that Lark (Elise Gatien) is not a part of it. I think Jimmy said something like, “You’re a low-down dirty devil just like me.” I think Brady always knows that he has that capacity and it’s the question of how many life circumstances can push him to the place of falling off the pedestal that he’s worked so hard to get himself back up to.
While there’s still that strong romantic connection between Brady and Brie, I was surprised to see that Mike still wants to marry her, even after she cheated. Why do you think that is?
We’ll unpack it all in season seven in greater detail. But Mike (Marco Grazzini) really loves Brie and is dealing with kind of this uphill battle of competing with this man who always seems to have an advantage over him. He’s also a very black-and-white guy as a cop and I think in his mind, it’s like if it’s forgiven, we move on, but I think there’s more to dig into that, that sometimes certain types of men are easy to be like, nothing more to see here, Jedi mind trick and then let’s just move forward. So I think it was kind of, a lot of where we’re operating in season seven is that he still cares about Brie and wants to be able to move past this thing. And that’s the question of the season: can they move past it?
You also introduced a new timeline this season and gave fans a first look at young Everett (Callum Kerr) and Sarah (Jessica Rothe), with the prequel series currently in the works. What was it like bringing in those new characters?
It was exciting just from a storytelling perspective. When I came in, I was like, “I want the river to get deeper.” It was a lovely river and it was beautiful and it had some good movement to it, but I just wanted it to have more layers. So to be able to add a timeline to it and start to fill in some of the gaps of the history of the area and of the characters is really exciting. But finding Sarah and Everett, we cast for several months looking for the right duo, and Jess and Callum were it, so it was nice. We ended up holding all their scenes to shoot them all at once in Vancouver, so it was kind of fun. We sort of put the mothership aside and then played with the fun period of the cars and the wardrobe and the locations and everything and got to see them over a big time span of when we see them in the ‘70s, when we see them in the ‘80s. You could just feel it with everybody on the crew that it was a fun new thing to do and to explore in a series that they already know and love so well.
Following Mel and Jack’s wedding, this season left on several cliffhangers with Marley’s (Rachel Drance) baby and Charmaine (Lauren Hammersley). So will they be able to still have a honeymoon next season amid all the craziness?
I would say potentially, yes. It’s definitely on the forefront of our minds. It definitely feels like something that the audience would want to experience with them. In what form still remains to be seen, but it’s definitely on the radar. They might end up having to go to Vancouver for it. (Laughs) If they just travel up north from northern California to Vancouver, we’ll figure it out.
With all the cliffhangers, I know the biggest question I’m left with is: what happened to Charmaine? However, she only appeared in the season a handful of times, so was that strategic knowing you were going to be ending the season with her as the big shocker?
I think it’s demonstrative of a little bit of the struggle with the audience and the more crime-forward elements of the show, which when I came in, I definitely saw its purpose and its value in giving great stakes and everything. But at the heart of it, [Virgin River is] a romantic drama with a relationship show and kind of a medical engine in it too. And when you start to feed all of the bigger crime elements, you can start to lose the balance. So I think with season six, Charmaine was a little bit of a victim of that kind of pulling back on that.
Once we attached her to Calvin (David Cubitt), the it felt like with Calvin and Charmaine and with Jimmy and Brady and Lark that they can exist more in an emotional place as opposed to plot generators and twists and turns of a crime story. Just peppering it in throughout the season, to keep it alive. I wanted Calvin to feel like a shark; you know he’s in the water, but you don’t know where he is at all times. So when he comes up, you don’t know how he’s gonna come up. That was all by design and Lauren was a trooper. She travels from Nova Scotia to do the show and has made herself available, which is appreciated. But, yeah, it was always kind of part of the design to know that we would keep that alive just for that big bomb drop at the end. I think there was so much speculation about the twins and now Marley’s baby and now that we’ve checked the wedding box, it’s a question of: how is this next step going to unfold for Mel and Jack and their path to parenthood?
Since Virgin River has already been renewed for season seven, can you tease what fans can expect next season?
We raised the bar so we’re definitely wanting to deliver in season seven. I think we’re gonna play out the Marley cliffhanger and see what effect that has for Mel and Jack. We are getting into some of Hope’s (Annette O’Toole) back story a little bit more through the character of Roland, who we introduced last season [season six]. We’re gonna see more of Mel and Jack and finding their purpose on the farm and how that is going to become a part of their life, which again is just another opportunity to expand the series as we go and put them in this new world.
But what I’m excited about too, specifically with Mel and Jack, is getting to see them exist as newlyweds and see how, in the past of the series we’ve seen them going down their respective paths and helping each other, and now they really have to work together to build a life together. I want to show that marriage matters and that it’s not just a piece of paper and it’s not just name changes, but I want to find ways that their relationship dynamic can change in this new chapter for them.
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Virgin River season six is currently streaming on Netflix.
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