Virgin River, Season 1 recap
SPOILER ALERT: don't read if you don't want to know who's dead, who's divorced or who's pregnant
Season 6 of Virgin River returns to Netflix 19 December. If you’d like to recap what happened in Seasons 1 to 5 or simply want to catch up on what happened so that you can jump straight in to Season 6 in December, let me fill you in:
Season 1, Episode 1
Virgin River is giving The Holiday. Mel is sad and leaves the big city for a rural cabin, looking for a change. She even looks like Kate Winslet.
If there’d been a quick voiceover at the start, announcing "Mel has a source of income outside of her nursing job in the ER", it would have saved us the many and varied ways they banged us over the head with this info:
Mel drives a red BMW.
Mel wears a Cartier watch (Jack points this out for the slow kids at the back).
Mel has a Celine handbag and in case the slow kids at the back don't know what that signifies, Paige tells us that she once saw one in Vogue and that she's the only person in the town to ever buy that magazine. This nugget kills two birds with one stone because it also lets us know that the inhabitants of Virgin River are simple and unsophisticated.
A man with more red flags than Jack has not existed before on TV. If a man I’d just met, took the liberty of telling my boss on my behalf, that I would not be in to work because we would be hanging out in a place with no phone coverage and nobody around, I’d be hightailing it back to the big city in my red BMW, tout de suite.
The episode closes out with Mel showing her worldliness by sharing that there is a Starbucks in Kuala Lumpur. When Jack looks confused, she shares with him (and us), simply: "Nurses without Borders". We already knew that Mel was a nurse but this lets us know that she is a particularly kind and well travelled nurse.
Episode 2
Connie, the local gossip, is introduced and when she comments that Mel is a looker, Jack negs her by saying that she is only mildly good looking. A flashback scene which reveals that Mel had a sister who died before Mel was born, contains acting from (God love them) two of the worst child actors I've seen since the days of my own Nativity play, aged 6.
Episode 3
Doc Mullins, a doctor with 40 years’ experience as the sole practitioner in a family practice, says in the first few minutes "I don't know the first thing about babies". In the previous episode, Mel used the word “postpartum” and he looked as though he was hearing it for the first time. He later goes full Cartman in his annoyance with new nurse, Mel, showing initiative, experience and professionalism: "She does not respect my authority!"
The scenes by the river make me want to go here. Where is this place? (It’s in British Columbia)
Episode 4
I love to see ordinary homes on TV that are not perfectly clean. The exercise bike, stuck into the spare room in Hope’s house, with a towel and dressing gown strewn on it, was a lovely detail.
Doc Mullins looks as shocked as we are that Hope is asking for a divorce because we didn’t even know that they were married.
Jack waves more red flags when Mel finds out not only that he has a girlfriend but that he doesn't class her as a girlfriend, even though they have been together for years. The hip flask in his boot is not a good look.
Mel’s sister Joey's house is all sleek and modern and hard surfaces in contrast to the wood and natural textures of Virgin River. She wears blazers and drinks red wine so that we know that she is a sophisticated city dweller.
The fuzzy updates from this episode included Mark’s proposal to Melanie which was so cringe I had to physically turn off the TV, so I'm not going to recount it here. It was bad.
Episode 5
Watching Doc apologise to Hope for sleeping with Charmaine’s mother, I couldn't help but wonder....does Barbour sponsor this show?
Episode 6
The “Mingle” is explained: changing dance partners ...oh I wonder where this will go.
Joey shows up and constantly refers to Mel as “sis” in case we forgot from the many flashbacks and phonecalls that Joey is her sister. She says that Mel has always been smarter and more successful so maybe my blazer theory from episode 4 was wrong.
The whole of Virgin River looks damp.
Episode 7
In this episode we find out that Mark isn't just some asshole but a dead asshole.
Episode 8
Mel gets caught in a rainstorm forcing her up to Jack's room to undress and change into his clothes. No, this is not the perfect segue for their first sex scene but it does show Mel the inside of Jack's room for the first time. She notices books scattered round and appears absolutely shocked that apparently Jack can read.
Preach, suspicious about Paige’s true identity after finding a driver's license with a different name in her car, does an online search for her name on some unknown search engine. There are no results. (A quick Google of “Paige Lassiter” yields lots of results so maybe he should have just stuck with the tried and tested).
Jack steps up to Doc to say he shouldn't treat a patient after drinking one whiskey. Multiple customers appear to be drinking with the intention of driving home but get no such warning.
I can't get my husband to put appointments in our shared online diary so I am just a little bit jealous that Jack did up an entire home for Mel right down to the decorative throws on her bed. He also says that he knows what it's like to “need a fresh start”, hinting at a dark past (which we had already kind of guessed just because he always looks so sad).
It turned out it was the decorative throws that sealed the deal on our first sex scene.
Episode 9
Preach confides in Jack that he thinks Paige has a different identity. Jack advises him to “just ask her” and confident that he's successfully dispensed decent advice, promptly leaves the room. Imagine a woman saying to her friend “I think the man I fancy actually has a different true identity”. We’d hold all our calls, call in sick to work, organise childcare. Whatever we had to do. The CIA would have nothing on us. We wouldn’t rest , first until we heard every single detail from our friend, second until we found out the true identity and thirdly until we had analysed the whole thing in detail from every possible angle.
Jack leaves the room to talk to a teenage employee who tells him that he is nervous about asking a girl out. Jack doles out more one-line advice, smacks him on the arm and again, immediately walks away.
Charmaine, Jack's non-girlfriend girlfriend, gives Hope a letter to deliver to Jack, even though she'd already tried that and Hope read the letter without delivering it to Jack. Why doesn't she take the letter from Hope, put a stamp on it and put it in the mail. Charmaine is not the brightest.
Jack takes Mel on their first date, two hours outside of Virgin River. TWO HOURS. Four hours of their first date is driving. He doesn't even disguise the fact that he “doesn't want anyone to see them”. This is also where the high schooler said he wanted to bring his crush. Good luck pal.
Preacher calls round to Paige's and she's ready to greet him with a revolver. When she realises it's only Preacher, she drops the revolver into a nearby magazine rack. Another terrifying reminder that guns are everywhere in this country. Nice continuity though: Paige buys Vogue. Paige has a magazine rack.
Jack drives Mel home and walks her to her door. They don't sleep together. Call me old-fashioned but why wouldn't you sleep together on your first date if you already slept together the day before your first date?
This, however, gives Jack a chance to go home and finally read Charmaine's letter that Hope did in fact deliver to him and we get confirmation that yes, Jack can read, as he looks up in shock at the words: I'm pregnant.
Episode 10
In the previous episode Mel entices Jack back to her cabin the following morning by saying “I make great pancakes”. The following morning, you can see a box of just-add-water pancake mix on the counter. Girl after my own heart.