'Virgin River' and its residents are put to the test when a wildfire threatens the town in season 5. Read our recap.
Sacramento may be free of wildfires, but the mood's tense at Mama Sheridan's house. Brie and Mike anxiously watch the news and wait to hear from Jack while Amelia goes on and on about Brie's absent boyfriend.
Mike kindly says Brady would be there if he could. At lunch, Amelia raves about Jack's strength until Mike points out that Brie's tremendously strong too. When her mother fails to acknowledge that, Brie gets upset, and Amelia calls her selfish. Can you blame Brie for storming outside to cool off? Mike follows her and is so charming and kind and patient that yes, okay, I see that these two would be a great couple. FINE. Back inside, Brie and her mother apologize to each other, and Amelia says it was always hard to see how much closer Brie was to her father. But if she could do it over, she'd tell Brie every day how much she loves and admires her. That's nice, I guess, but geez, that sounds like an unhappy childhood . By the end of Mike's visit, Amelia's all "Brady who?" and Brie tells Mike she's glad she had someone there she could trust. Then there's a hug and maybe some light sniffing of Mike's neck and a moment that almost turns into a kiss but doesn't. Back to Virgin River! Jack and Hope convince Charlie to let them use his crop duster. All it takes is Jack earnestly dramatically reciting, "We few, we happy few, can make the difference" and listening as Charlie complains about Hope never dating him. The scared, exhausted residents of the town are huddled together when a plane soars overhead and drops 1,900 liters of water on the flames threatening the town. That plane's also to blame for dropping a few liters of tears in my eyes. Jack's flying the plane, and Hope reports that they called in Charlie's crop duster buddies to keep making drops all night. With that, Nick promises to give Hope back the mayorship. All it took was a massively destructive fire! The episode ends on a devastating note when Jack and Mel reunite and she collapses in his arms, sobbing as she shares the burden she's been carrying all day.Virgin River is full of ash, soot, burned trees, and scorched houses. But it's also full of people who'll rebuild.Hope, backed up by Nick, talks to the town about their plans to set things right. Preacher welcomes a displaced Brady to the apartment above the bar, and Brady and Brie finally sit down to talk. He's pleased that she's wearing his dog tags, but she says she doesn't feel safe with him anymore. Although he swears he's doing everything he can to get out of the fentanyl mess, he refuses to offer up any details — remember, Mike made him swear not to tell her a thing — so she walks away. As she goes, he begs her to find someone to talk to about what she's going through since she can't talk to him anymore. Doc and Cameron also hash things out. Doc thought he had more time before his eyesight affected his work and stepped back immediately when it did. In light of that, he asks Cameron to take over the practice and is displeased when Cam asks for time to think about it. That's a huge commitment, Doc! Let the man sleep on it! Cameron then does an amazing double-take at Muriel's cheesy cat sweatshirt. The fire ruined her house and clothes, so she's bunking with Connie and barely surviving all her friend's rules. Cam says he'd love to have Muriel stay in his guest room, and she eventually agrees. With their mother's farm gone and a development company offering to buy the land, Tara's taking a job in San Francisco, and Ava's ready to go back to Portland, where her failing music career and the ex-girlfriend who stole her cat are waiting for her. Tara and Chloe bid a bittersweet farewell to Mel, and Hope convinces Ava to stay until she finds a buyer who'll be a better caretaker for the farm. Speculation corner: where the heck was Tara this season? Was Farber busy with other projects, so the show created another daughter to carry this farm plot? Most of Ava's stories could've been given to Tara without complicating the family tree, is all I'm saying.Gwynyth Walsh, Sarah Dugdale, Annette O'Toole as Hope, Christina Jastrzembska, and Nicola Cavendish on 'Virgin River'Moving on! Hope and Lizzie pull together a food and clothing drive for people who lost their belongings in the fire, and Hope speaks to the crowd about their generosity and their strength to rebuild. Afterward, Kaia forces Preacher to stop ignoring her texts and talk to her. She and Jay are separated, and this thing with Preacher was supposed to be easy, but now she wants to give their relationship a shot. Preacher wants that too, and they get to kissin'. Hey, there's Jay on crutches! I'm already wondering which Virgin River lady he'll pair up with once he's divorced. Orrrr maybe not. After Kaia leaves, Jay's friendly smile drops, and he warns Preacher that Kaia will always put her job first, and he will always be part of her job. Sorry to the single women of Virgin River! This man thinks he's still taken. After Lizzie informs her mom she's not going back to college, she's delighted when Hope offers her the position as her chief of staff.mayoral chief of staff? Isn't this a town of like 600? That can't possibly be an actual position, let alone a paid one. Heck, I assumed the mayorship was basically a volunteer thing as well.Cameron's also making career moves, accepting Doc's offer after deciding that small-town life makes him happy. Well sure, now that Muriel's his roommate… Although Mel asks Jack to keep the news of the miscarriage to themselves for now, she does give her blessing to tell Preacher. Jack does and reflects on the loss of the father-daughter dances and Little League games that never were. He was angry with Charmaine about the twins, but there's nobody he can blame for this. The next day, Jack's dumb truck takes up two spaces outside the clinic where Mel's dreading her scheduled D&C, the painful post-miscarriage procedure to prevent infection by scraping her uterus. Jack's supportive when she doesn't want to sit in the waiting room with all those happy, pregnant people, and he promises to put Hope on the phone tree when Mel says she could use a little more support. Back on the crime plot, Brady and Mike meet in front of another picturesque body of water, where Mike asks Brady to wear a wire. He agrees for Brie's sake. Mike then brings Brie the news that her ex was found guilty on all counts. She's glad, although it doesn't wipe away the trauma she experienced. Still, how great that she found somebody to talk to. *side eye* Earlier, Brie told Mel that Brady seems to think that if he's honest with her, she'll stop loving him, which is horribly sad. Brady's made eleven million bad choices, but he's growing into someone who wants to be trusted and valued by the people he cares about. Yet he keeps getting pulled down by the ghosts of the decisions he made when he was at his lowest. His past is costing him the relationships he's fighting desperately to keep. Jack's still willing to give him a chance and asks if his crew wants to work on the glamping site. It's exactly what Melissa wants, so Brady accepts. He then watches from a distance as Mike and Brie smile and flirt and make plans, and his jealousy gets the better of him when he realizes Mike's the person Brie found to talk to. "Mike's a good cop, dependable, honest," Brie argues, and Brady loses his damn mind at hearing the woman he loves praise the man who insisted he lie to her — and who's lying to her himself.Episode 8: "Full Moon" Beware that Virgin River full moon. It'll put ideas in your head and might even make you run a little wild. Mel, for example, begins the day with an energetic solo dance party to Lizzo. Then she's off to fish with Doc, hit a sewing circle lunch, and have a girls' night with Brie. Know what she doesn't want to do? Follow Jack's suggestion that she make an appointment to see when they can start trying for another baby. Uhhh, pardon me? How much time has passed since her miscarriage, a couple of days? A week or two? Take a seat, Jack. The woman needs time. Fishing with Doc helps. It's quiet and there are no expectations on her. She catches a fish and agrees to come back to the clinic as part of the Cameron take-over plan. At lunch, the gossip is all about Muriel moving in with Cameron. "I am roommates with his Peloton," she insists, but over a moonlight dinner that night, the two drift closer and closer as they discuss their strong and unexpected connection. And then they kiss. IT HAPPENED!!! THEY KISS!! When I tell you I shrieked and did a Muppet flail alone on my couch at 2 a.m. and then looked around for somebody to celebrate with, I am not exaggerating one tiny bit. Sadly, Cameron remembers he's promised Doc that he'll be more professional, so they slam on the brakes. Boo, professionalism! Muriel gives him a soft parting kiss, then leaves him to clean up their dinner dishes, which I applaud.Preacher and Kaia are also facing a work dilemma. Although they're crazy for each other, they both know she's going to be called away to her next job eventually. She also shares that Jay belittled her hopes for a promotion and expected her to stay home with their eventual kids, which is why they split up. Lizzie's living her professional dreams in tweed dress shorts on her first day as mayoral chief of staff. Wait, her first day's gotta be close on the heels of the clothing drive, right? If so, that's even more evidence that Jack's pushing Mel about getting pregnant again MERE MOMENTS after her D&C. Y'all, I CANNOT. Denny's created a slogan for their partnership: "Hope and Liz mean biz." It's cute even if it does display a fundamental misunderstanding of the role chiefs of staff play in elections and campaigns and public life in general. Denny's search for a job in Virgin River isn't going well. Despite him researching the 40 different types of wrenches — who knew? — his interview at Bert's auto shop is not a success. The bigger news from Denny is that Grandma Rose wants to come and visit. You know, the woman who disappeared to have Doc's child and never breathed a word about it for half a century?Despite Hope being ready to fight this woman in the streets, it looks like the visit is happening the following day. Time for another cop/CI lakeside meeting! Brady takes the wire from Mike and says he's not going to keep lying to Brie and Jack forever. Mike, in turn, swears he didn't engineer that courthouse run-in with Brie. On purpose or not, the Mike-Brie ship's in the water and setting sail with Brady sadly watching from land. Then again, Brady finds Lark and Hazel squatting in one of Jack's Airstreams, having bailed on the shelter in the elementary school. This is clearly going to become A Thing, isn't it? Sigh. I guess Brady's boarding a new ship, too. When Jack discovers Lark and Hazel, he decides to let the displaced residents move into the empty trailers. Brady's quietly horrified that they'll be around Melissa's newest criminal enterprise, but he can't stop it. Melissa also tells Jack that Brady's handling the bookkeeping for the glamping project, although nobody bothers to tell Brady, and he barely hides his confusion when Jack brings it up. Friends, I'm starting to think that blackmailing a basically decent guy into playing multiple major roles in your criminal enterprise isn't the best plan. But hey, at least when the Bert-poisoning truck driver checks Brady for a wire, the only thing visible when he lifts his shirt are dem abs. We don't know when or why he decided to ditch the recording device, butWith Brie ignoring him, Brady pays a visit to Lark, and the two share beers and childhood trauma stories. Lark wants her daughter to grow up around good men. "They can't all be like you," she tells Brady admiringly. He can't handle her high opinion and bails. Brie's having more luck moving on with Mike over a Dodgers game at her place. The mood is flirty flirty, and he agrees to sub as the shortstop for her company's softball team. While he's in the kitchen freshening their beers, she ignores a text from Brady apologizing for overreacting about her and Mike. it an overreaction though? Violence is no bueno, but his hurt and anger come from a completely understandable place. At girls' night, Ava suggests they use the full moon to let go of what's not serving them. They write down what's in their hearts and take turns burning them in Brie's little fire pit. For Ava, it's her guilt over losing the farm and for letting her endo pain get so out of control that she passed out during the fire. For Brie, it's saying goodbye to Brady. And for Mel, it's her fear of getting pregnant and losing the baby again. But she can't bring herself to toss it into the fire because she can't let herself believe that the next time will be different. At home with Jack afterward, Mel tells him she won't survive having her heart ripped out of her chest again over one more lost pregnancy. "I think I'm done."Life advice: if a loved one is caught in a grief/fear/guilt/anger storm, don't force them on a hike. Yes, it worked out for Mel and Jack, but with a different couple, it could've ended in a shove over the edge of Angel's Peak. Wanting to understand why Mel's giving up on her dream of kids, Jack urges her not to go for a run but instead head into the woods with him. She agrees. Reluctantly. Things do not improve from there. He shares Denny's embrace of shinrin-yoku and suggests Mel might benefit from the therapy of being surrounded by the forest, which is stunning even after everything it's been through. She scoffs at his unsubtle metaphor. As Mel drags herself through the woods, Jack makes her explain her change of heart. She admits that she's always wanted a biological child who resembles the parents she lost, but four miscarriages and a stillbirth are too much to bear. So she's trying to get on board with the new plans fate has for her. It's really lovely that Jack wants to show her this place in nature that means so much to him, but in the middle of insisting she unpack all her emotions, he gets them lost. And then it opens up and pours. Mel snaps and screams at the heavens, demanding to know why she and Jack are magnets for all these bad things. But the rain breaks the tension, and soon they're laughing together. Jack navigates them to the summit of Angel's Peak, where Mel is suitably impressed by the view. He tells her that in the middle of his darkest moments, he decided to keep going. And so can she. Their family might look different or be on a different time frame, but it can happen. "I still want it," Mel agrees. Sooo… yay for hiking? Again, Jack's lucky it didn't end with a one-way trip over the summit courtesy of a pushed-too-far Mel. Once they're home, Mel settles on the porch to work on the baby dress, which she's planning to give to a fire victim and which I swear has been 98 percent finished for a few episodes now.plays. Was it a message from her mom? A symbol of her renewed hope? Nature telling her it'll all be okay? Mel has an answer to that in her heart, and I bet you do too. The visit from Grandma Rose is even rockier than the start of that hike. Hope threatens to serve her burned scones and makes snarky comments under her breath until she and Denny excuse themselves. I, meanwhile, am trying to figure out how much money Rose makes in book publishing if she was able to decide yesterday that she'd fly to Virgin River today. What did that ticket cost?? Doc's direct about wanting to know why Rose kept his family from him. She argues that she loved him too much to let him give up his med school dreams to be the father of a kid he didn't want. He argues back that she was the most important thing to him, and it seems to still bother him that she didn't feel the same way. Also, this is a weak argument. Why not reach out to Doc after he's done with med school and has established his practice? There were literally decades of opportunities to introduce Doc to his son, who died before they had that chance. Despite these big feelings, when Doc and Hope are alone again, he tells her that his life unfolded exactly as it should because the two of them ended up together. And Hope reminds him that he's not obligated to forgive Rose. Fair! With Lizzie at Jack's bar, Denny talks about how good Rose has been to him, involving him in Japanese culture after his mom died and making sure he knew about Doc after his dad died. Rose then arrives to join them for lunch, and Denny declares that being in love with Lizzie is all he wants with the time he has left. Doc and Hope show up next to slide into the booth, and everyone apologizes and makes nice. Doc says that Denny is all the gift he needs, and everything's friendly until later that night, when Rose tells Denny that it's a mistake for him to stay in Virgin River. Unspoken is "with that dark-eyebrowed hussy," but the implication is there.Leaving Virgin River's also the elephant in the room for Preacher and Kaia. They're savoring their time together before she's shipped off to her next assignment, and he labors over his epic "just like Mama made it" meal as a send-off for her. Kaia takes approximately one and a half bites, tells Preacher his mother would be proud of him, then gets interrupted by Jay with the news that she can lead the team fighting a wildfire in Alaska. She scampers off to pack. Geez, lady, could you not take five more minutes to finish your meal? Preacher worked hard on that! After Kaia leaves, Jay smugly reminds him that he'll be on the job in Alaska with her, but Preacher's confident she'll come back to him when she's done. I wanted to love you, Jay. Why you gotta be like this?At the clinic, Cameron and Muriel seem to be in the middle of a sexy French farce, with Muriel brushing against him as they slide past each other and Cameron walking in while she's bent at the waist looking for files. Although Muriel's moved in with Liddy, they'd both still like to explore this relationship, especially since in a town this small, if they can't date people associated with the clinic, they won't be able to date anyone at all. The problem, of course, is Doc. "We're like Romeo and Juliet except with the same dad," Muriel laments, and this may be my favorite line of the season and possibly the entire show. Brie and Mike are also moving forward thanks to his performance at her company softball game. The man played varsity ball and shows up guns out in a tank top. What choice did Brie have but to kiss him when rain interrupts the game and he wraps her in a jacket to keep her warm? Brady's also moving forward, playing a princess board game with Lark and Hazel. He's a whole different guy, easy and laughing in the plastic jewelry and tiara he's wearing as part of the game. With hearts in her eyes, Lark tells Brady he's good at everything, and he mutters that he grew up lying to keep him and his sisters safe from their crappy dad, but his ex didn't appreciate how good he was atAnd again I ask, how much time has passed since the clothing drive and now? Weren't Brie and Brady exchanging "I love you's" just a few episodes ago? Take some time to be single, you two! Buy yourself flowers and hold your own hand and all that! Lark makes it clear that she appreciates all the parts of Brady, and before he bails yet again, she tells him not to doubt himself. Okay, it's great that Brady's got a potential love interest who genuinely likes the guy he's evolved into. But I beg you, show, make her more interesting than "Hazel's plucky mom" in. Lark is… fine. I should be way more uninterested in a character whose backstory includes "stabbed my abusive dad in the leg with a hunting knife," so I'm crossing my fingers that she grows into somebody great, for BradyAfter leaving game night, Brady does some CI work. While he was entering the receipts into a spreadsheet earlier — Brady's an Excel guy! Who knew? — he noticed an address for an auto shop that's retrofitting the Airstreams, and when he checked it out, he found Melissa and her goons creating hidden storage spaces in the seats. He takes the chance now to poke around one of the empty trailers — and that's where Jack finds him: creeping around in the dark pulling baggies of drugs out of the upholstery. Not a great look for someone trying to prove he's turning over a new leaf!Jack is reluctant to give Brady the benefit of the doubt, and it's not until Melissa's henchmen toss Brady into an SUV that Jack realizes that maybe heJack follows the vehicle, calling Mike en route to the auto body shop. Brady got caught on the security cameras sneaking around earlier, and Melissa promises him a quick death if he gives up the names of the people he's working with. He declines that offer, so she tells her goons to make it hurt. Nooo! Not my curly-haired boy! Jack creates a distraction so he and Brady can launch an attack until Mike and the cops arrive to arrest everyone. The truck driver who accidentally fentanyl'd Bert grabs a gun and tries to make one last stand. He and Mike fire at the same time, and they both drop to the ground. It's a waiting game at the hospital, where Mike's lost a lot of blood and is unconscious. When Brady peers into Mike's room, he's hurt to see Brie holding his hand. She follows Brady into the hallway, and the two of them break upBrady feels guilty that he's the reason all of this happened, and Brie says she wishes he'd told her he was a CI. Woman! It was your new boyfriend! Who told him! Not! To! Tell! She says she'll love him forever, but everything's changed for her after this. Brady accepts her decision and leaves. But he's not off the hook with the FBI, because Mike truly didn't tell another soul that Brady's his CI. I dunno, shouldn't Mike have written Brady's name on a slip of paper and stuck it in an "in case of my death" envelope or something, just to be safe? Because this feels awfully haphazard.He and Jack jump into action when Lark tells him that the FBI's seizing the whole glamping park for their investigation. All the displaced people have to vacate, although Nick agrees to let them move into the least-damaged parts of his Airbnb. Unfortunately Jack's investment — and the land where he and Mel were going to build their forever home — will be tied up in bureaucratic red tape for years, or maybe forever. At least life at the clinic looks promising. New office manager Muriel brings cupcakes to the staff meeting where Cameron suggests expanding their telehealth for rural patients and Mel pitches a birthing center since every woman in the greater Virgin River area is legally required to experience some kind of reproductive health crisis at some point in her life. Doc's silence turns out to be excitement, which is such great growth for him. He also limits his eye roll to a few seconds when Muriel tells him that she and Cameron would like his blessing to date. As long as they're profesh at work, he says, they can go for it. Preacher gets a pleasant surprise when Kaia swaps assignments with a friend so she can spend the next few months in charge of the cleanup brigade in Virgin River. Apparently Jay went ballistic when she told him, which is satisfying to hear.Everybody but Brie, that is, who spends the evening in his hospital room, calling it their first date. Mike insists that Brady's the real hero for volunteering to go undercover to bust the drug ring. Brie's all "that's cool, but it changes nothing." Okay I guess! Brady looks like he's having a ball riding rides with Lark and Hazel. So that's great! Congrats to all the new happy couples! This is fine! The carnival's in full swing as Ava talks to Mel about hysterectomies and freezing her eggs and selling the farm to a golf course developer. Mel gets an odd look on her face when Ava mentions in passing that the farm's tree swing survived the fire. The look on Jo Ellen's face is even more than odd when Muriel and Cameron kiss right in front of her ticket booth, and she wastes no time lighting up the ol' phone tree. Excited for these two. Get after it, ya crazy kids! Doc's happy to sit on a bench and watch the town flow by, and he's even happier when Hope joins him. He tells her he took a spot in the macular degeneration clinical trial despite its risks of speeding up his blindness. Hope vows to stay by his side, declaring "Your life is my life. Your heart is my heart." Wishing nothing but the best for these crazy kids too!Denny and Lizzie's night goes in a different direction. He's made some decisions and is ready to grab her and travel the world, then settle in for college and med school. But Lizzie's got a bombshell of her own: she thinks she's pregnant. Wow is thatthe storyline I was wanting for them. Although it does support Mel's birthing center idea, I suppose. Preacher's happy ending also hits a snag when Kaia's boss calls to report that they found the body of the murder victim in the woods during fire cleanup. We all know it'll turn out to be Pagie's husband, whose body Preacher buried in season 2. The bigger question is how Kaia's going to react when she inevitably learns the truth. What's that? You want a little more truth? Well Charmaine's back and in a good place… until she's confronted by the real father of the twins. And are you ready for this? It's CALVIN. Yep, the criminal last seen dying in a boat explosion is alive and walking with a cane, ready to be a father to his boys.They haven't found Calvin's body, and I watch too much TV not to be aI was wrong. Calvin is alive, and it looks like Charmaine's coming back for season 6. After a spin on the Ferris wheel to watch the fireworks, Mel brings Jack to Lilly's farm, where they reminisce about the first time they visited the swing together. Mel then unfurls a big, romantic idea: this is where they should build their house and raise the children, however and whenever they come. Heck, they could even get married there too. But we're not done yet! We cut to a Christmastime phone call from Joey , who informs Mel that their mother had a love affair with someone in Virgin River, and that man just might be Mel's father. So the show leaves us with another paternity cliffhanger, to be resolved on Nov. 30, when Netflix drops a pair of
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