_{The almost-newlyweds in episode 610.}Ricardo Hubbs/Netflix

The Virgin River finale did not disappoint–if anything, it overachieved as far as cliff-hangers go—so consider this your spoiler warning now if you haven’t finished watching all 10 episodes of season six.

The episode starts off straight out of Runaway Bride, with Jack and Mel literally riding away on Sugar the horse. If the moment is supposed to be romantic—Jack whisks his anxious bride away from the hubbub of the wedding, on top of her father’s sudden heart attack—then is offset by a stressed-out Hope, Lizzie, and literally everyone else who has planned the big day down to the second. But this is Virgin River, so I digress. Of course there’s going to be a wedding; it’s just going to be slightly delayed.

Courtesy of Netflix
When will Virgin River’s long-awaited seventh season finally premiere on Netflix? It’s a very good question — just ask series star Alexandra Breckenridge.

The actress, aka Mel Sheridan, posted an Instagram story from the show’s Vancouver set on Thursday in which she theorized just how much longer fans will have to remain patient for their fix of small town drama.

“I feel like I’m on day 857 of filming Season 7,” Breckenridge said to her 1.3 million followers. “We’re almost done, can you believe it? I can’t even believe it. Almost to the finish line. I keep wondering if they’re going to put the show out this year. What do you guys think? Probably, right? If they have it, they’ll probably drop it … this year, 2025. I don’t know any information. I’m the last to know.”

Unfortunately, we have a feeling that when Breckenridge does receive that information, she’ll find out that Virgin River won’t be back until 2026. Though Netflix has neither confirmed nor denied a potential timeframe for Virgin River’s return, it’s worth noting that the show hasn’t been included in any of the streamer’s announcements about what’s still to come in 2025. Purely speculatively, it seems more likely that we’ll see Season 7 in early 2026 — perhaps just in time for Valentine’s Day? — than in late 2025.

Of course, Virgin River’s premiere date is just one of many questions we have ahead of Season 7. Others include: What happened to Charmaine? Will Mel and Jack really adopt Marley’s baby? And what trouble will be caused by the show’s two new additions — Victoria (The Vampire Diaries’ Sara Canning), who arrives to investigate Doc before reconnecting with an old friend, and Clay (Riverdale’s Cody Kearsley), who comes to town looking for his former foster sister?

There’s also the show’s potential spinoff to consider. Netflix was previously developing a prequel series about Mel’s parents’ early life in Virgin River, of which we got a taste during flashbacks in Season 6. Will that receive a full series order? Do we want it to? There’s just so much to think about.

When do you hope Virgin River returns for Season 7? And which shows are you watching in the meantime? Whatever’s on your mind, drop it in a comment below.

Read More: https://www.tvline.com/news/virgin-river-season-7-release-date-netflix-1235456761/

That delay allows for the rest of the characters—Brie, Brady, Lark, Kaia, Preacher—to sort out their love lives (or create more of a mess). Lark confronts Brady about seeing him talk to Brie (you know, where they basically admitted they’ll always be in love with each other), and he scrambles to figure out what to say, settling on, “You should give Brie the benefit of the doubt.” Lark is like, “Really? That’s it?” Brady poorly assures her that it is. Poor guy is stuck between a rock and a hard place, but oy, things are about to get worse. A lot worse. (Read our interview with Benjamin Hollingsworth for more on that.)

As for Muriel’s love life, she’s grappling—rather well, I might add—with her breast cancer diagnosis. It’s one of the most uplifting storylines this season, even though Muriel has a challenging journey ahead of her. She’s found romance with Walt, but it’s obvious that her spark with Cameron is always going to be there. Alas, Cameron is back with his ex, Michelle; he wishes he could be with Muriel to see her through her breast cancer treatment and assures her he’ll always be there to support her.

Meanwhile, Kaia and Preacher are happier than ever. She even seems willing to give marriage a shot after previously being reluctant to the idea. Preacher tells her they have “nothing but time,” so either something is going to happen in season seven that dispels that notion, or I’m completely overthinking things.

_{Kaia and Preacher end season six on a high note.}

 Courtesy of Netflix

Oh, and Jack and Mel tie the knot, with Jack making a quick wardrobe change to surprise his bride by wearing his uniform from the Marines. It’s a beautiful touch, and other than me still being annoyed with how they delayed their own wedding by escaping on a horse, the nuptials are perfect.

So perfect in fact that Everett—who had to be airlifted earlier in the day after suffering a serious heart attack—is able to make a surprise appearance at the reception to sing the song he wrote for Mel’s mom. (Dr. Cameron is there as his escort, making this slightly more believable, but again, it’s Virgin River, so we’ll go with it.) By the way, I found out that the original song has a really cool backstory—more on that below.

At the reception, Mel and Jack comment that Charmaine is a no-show, but that mystery can wait until tomorrow.

A little while later, Mel finds Brie, who has been crying. Kaia comes over, too, and Brie admits she slept with Brady. She knows she’ll always be in love with Brady, but Mike’s a good guy so she doesn’t know what to do. Mel says the kindest thing she can do is let both of them go. (Of course, Mel says this without knowing Brady and Lark are about to be dunzo for good.)

Speaking of, when Brady goes looking for Lark—who had previously gone to find Hazel—he runs into JoEllen instead, who tells him they’ve left the reception and went back to the B&B. To make matters worse, JoEllen tells a stunned Brady that Lark has also given up her housekeeping job and left town. Brady is stunned, and then stunned even more when he looks at his phone and sees that his bank account balance is $0. Oh boy.

As if that wasn’t shocking enough, things are about to get more wild for Mike and Brie. As they’re sitting outside on the patio, he proposes to her. Not only does she respond by admitting that she slept with Brady, thereby making it easy for Mike to take back his proposal, but he responds by saying, “I know.” (I gotta admit, in all six seasons of Virgin River, nothing has shocked me more. Frankly, it was amazing.) Of course, we’ll have to wait until season seven to see how she responds.

The next day—their first as newlyweds—Mel tells Jack that she left Charmaine several voicemails, but never heard back from her. Mel is especially worried because Charmaine recently took out a restraining order against Calvin. Ever the dutiful husband, Jack says he’ll go check in on her while he’s out.

Meanwhile, Vernon tells Hope that the California State Medical Board has suspended him, pending an investigation. Vernon says it feels personal against him, but Hope thinks otherwise because earlier that morning she got a call from a woman on the Grace Valley Hospital Board of Directors who spoke as if she didn’t know Hope and Vernon are married. (They do have different last names, remember.) Hope says, “The woman was excited to share with me—the mayor—that Grace Valley is looking at expanding their network into Virgin River.” In other words, they’re planning on Vernon being out of the picture and want the clinic. Doc is adamant that neither he nor the clinic are going anywhere. “Not without one hell of a fight.

But the Virgin River finale doesn’t end there. Nope, we have two more cliff-hangers to get to.

Mel is sitting outside on her porch, taking in the scenery and drinking her coffee, when her patient Marley shows up out of the blue. She assures Mel that her unborn baby is fine, but Phil and Darla are backing out of the adoption. Mel says the four of them can find a solution, but Marley says she already knows the solution: “Mel, I want you to have my baby.”

But wait! We then cut to Jack walking into Charmaine’s house, as the door is suspiciously unlocked. Tables and decorative items are knocked over. Jack walks to the nursery, opens the door, and we cut to black. Is Charmaine there tied up? Where are the twins? Or is it empty?

We’ll have to wait until season seven drops to find out the answers to all those questions and more. But we got on a Zoom with showrunner, writer, and executive producer Patrick Sean Smith—who’s already hard at work on season seven—to get the scoop on what happened and more.

_{They’re finally official!}

 Courtesy of Netflix

Glamour: We start episode 10 with Mel and Jack on the horse, Runaway Bride style. They could have texted Hope to say, “Hey, we’ll be back!” after she has planned this whole thing with swans. Just say you need an hour alone! Or am I being too hard on them?

Patrick Sean Smith: [Laughs.] They were caught up in the moment. Everything with weddings is big and emotional. In that moment, Mel’s emotions were getting the better of her, so Jack did the hottest thing in the world, which was, “Let’s go. Let me support you. Let me help you. Let’s take care of this together.”

We knew early on that we wanted the wedding to be two episodes, so we blocked that out as we were arcing the season. We knew we had to get to one final cliff-hanger before we actually got to the altar. It felt that the best way to do that is through an internal conflict as opposed to an external conflict. We kind of built back from that, and then the horseback getaway, so it all just started to fall into place. But yeah, if there’s a vow renewal at some point, they’ll have to hit Hope up.

Was there any consideration of having Mel ask both Everett and Doc to walk her down the aisle together?

I was open to the idea, but for me personally, it’s so much more effective just to stay as OG as possible. When you get to these moments, you gather people along the way, and it’s nice. But I think people have been dreaming of Mel and Jack’s wedding since she walked into the bar. So I feel like as much as you can keep it with those original players would be the most satisfying. And then the compromise in that was the surprise of having Everett show up to perform the song for her.

After having a heart attack, which was both great and hysterical given the serious of his condition.

Yes. Also, I want to mention that Wesley Schultz, who wrote “This Heart of Mind,” the song that Everett performed at the wedding, is available on Spotify. It was our first opportunity to feature a song in a season of Virgin River. He wrote it special [for us]. He’s from the Lumineers, and it’s a really beautiful song. Every time I listen to it, it takes me back to the season. It’s a great way to revisit it.

_{John Allen Nelson as Everett Reed in episode 610}

 Courtesy of Netflix

Good. I hope so. That was the intent behind it, so I’m glad it resonated.

I still do think Muriel has amazing chemistry with Cameron. For people like me who want to still see the two of them give this May-December romance a shot, is this done for good, or might we still see him next season?

I love Mark Ghanime, and I thought what he did with Cameron was incredible, but he won’t be returning as a series regular next season. I would love to see his character return when the right story presents itself, and I believe Mark is game. So I hope that we have not seen the last of Dr. Cameron.

_{Troy McLaughlin as Walt, Teryl Rothery as Muriel St. Claire, Mark Ghanimé as Dr. Cameron Hayek in episode 609}

 Courtesy of Netflix

No offense to Walt, he seems like a lovely guy, but I don’t see the chemistry there yet. So what about Muriel and Everett?

We’ve explored that. We have talked about that. That’s a never-say-never too. I do hope that John Nelson (Everett) will return. He really was such a highlight of the season. His relationship with Mel, and especially his chemistry with Alex Breckenridge, was just so easy and so winning that I feel like that was a gift that I don’t want to not continue to use.

He just has such an “old movie star” quality to him. And Muriel needs some spice in her life because she’s so much fun to watch.

Yeah, I think Walt is a bit of a nod for the fans of the book. Muriel and Walt Booth did have a relationship. So as we pivoted to this during her cancer storyline, sky’s the limit on Muriel. Who knows? She can steal Jack. [Pause.] Just kidding. Don’t come for me. That would never happen.

So let’s jump to Brady, Lark, Mike, and Brie. When Mike proposes to Brie, and she reveals that she slept with Brady, and he says, “I know.” I couldn’t believe he knew and was still willing to propose. When I talked to Benjamin Hollingsworth (Brady), he said it wasn’t originally in the scene that he saw. Tell me everything.

 Craig Minielly/Netflix

I told Benjamin Hollingsworth [Brady] that I have a theory Brie will find out she’s pregnant next season and not know if Brady or Mike is the father. How close am I?

I’m not seeing that in the crystal ball for season seven.