VIRGIN RIVER Season 8 Mel Gets The News She's Waited For

Virgin River Season 7 wrapped up with a bunch of storylines left hanging in the air, and there's a whole list of big questions that Season 8 is going to have to answer. Netflix's romantic drama came back for its seventh season, and the streaming service already renewed it for an eighth, with production expected to kick off in late April. The next season clearly has a ton of ground to cover, because Season 7 didn't exactly tie things up with a neat little bow. The same day Season 7 dropped, news broke that actors Marco Grazzini and Lauren Hammersley won't be returning for Season 8. That's particularly surprising because neither character got phased out at the end of Season 7. In fact, it really seemed like they had stories set up for both of them. Charmaine was supposed to recover from getting kidnapped and then have to testify in court against her boss, while Mike was just starting to date a new woman. Unless there's some kind of time jump, Charmaine and Mike's disappearance is going to feel pretty abrupt. Either way, the show is going to have to explain where those two went, because leaving them hanging like that would be a bunch of loose ends that nobody asked for. Back in Season 6, Denny and Lizzie agreed they would test their baby, Fumiko, for Huntington's after she was born. Season 7 focused on Lizzie giving birth and dealing with her postpartum anxiety, so the story never got around to answering the big looming question of whether Coco actually has Huntington's. The answer to that is bound to influence Lizzie and Denny's whole storyline going forward. Lizzie already has this lingering fear that her boyfriend Denny will die young, and it's going to hit her pretty hard if they test Coco and find out she has Huntington's disease. What's more, Denny and Lizzie will have to figure out how to explain all of this to their child, either because she has it or because her father does. It's a heavy situation, no matter how you slice it. Muriel got the tragic news back in Season 6 that she has breast cancer, And she starts treatment in Season 7. She goes through her first round of chemo, with all of her friends showing up to support her, and she deals with the side effects while Hope takes care of her. Later on, Muriel is shown happy and in love with Walt, but that doesn't necessarily tell us anything about whether her treatment is actually working. She can be happy and also still have cancer, Because those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Season 8 is going to need to update us on Muriel's cancer journey and honestly, I'm keeping my hopes up that she goes into remission. Preacher's desire to leave Jack's bar feels like it's been brewing for quite some time. Throughout the whole series, Preacher's cooking has been the backbone of the business, but he doesn't exactly get the appreciation or recognition he deserves. This really shows when Jack completely dismisses the idea of making Preacher a co-owner. Even after that, Preacher keeps doing everything to keep the bar running, and Jack still treats him like he's not actually an equal decision-maker. But at the end of Season 7, Preacher realizes his idea of opening a fancy restaurant wasn't what he wanted after all. In the last few minutes of the finale, we see him sitting in the office at the bar, looking at the buyout agreement Jack put together. He goes to sign it and hesitates, and we never actually see whether he signed the papers. Season 8 is going to have to answer whether Preacher leaves Jack's bar for good. Denny has a lot going on in Season 7. He's still interning at Doc's clinic, which takes a lot more time and energy during Doc's investigation, and he's also a brand new parent. He's actively involved in caring for Coco and being a good partner to Lizzie, two responsibilities he takes very seriously. But alongside all those daily obligations, Denny is also studying to get into medical school, spending all his spare time reading notes and practicing. He finally takes the test at the end of the season, so Season 8 needs to confirm whether Denny actually passed his MCAT. If he does, his storyline will have to explore how he balances being a new father with attending med school which sounds like an absolute nightmare of scheduling. Jack has the most random storyline of season seven, and frankly, I don't know how to feel about it. After going to a farm to buy butter lettuce, he decides he wants to open his own farm. He's never expressed any desire for this before, and it doesn't really fit his character. But he goes all in on the idea, getting a tractor and planting seeds. People can be to make a fresh start. I hope you stick around. With that in mind, Season 8 will need to show the difficulties of running a farm. If there's a time jump, which I suspect there might be, they'll also need to show whether the crops are actually growing. With how slowly the Virgin River timeline moves, we probably won't know for sure whether their farm succeeds for many seasons to come. After working toward the goal in Season 7, Hope successfully convinces the town to sign a petition to keep corporations out of Virgin River, California. They fully support stopping Grace Valley Hospital from expanding across town lines, especially after Doc gets his medical license back. This creates a massive issue because Doc and Mel have multiple experiences in Season 7 that show why it would actually be helpful to have Grace Valley Hospital in town. Wait. No you don't have to do this. Yes I do. Doc resists for quite some time, thinking Dr. Hayes is a terrible person, but by the end they come to understand that both of them are valuable. Dr. Hayes experienced the loss of a family member due to a lack of medical resources in a rural area, which is why he wanted to expand into Virgin River. And Doc understands the challenges of rural medicine. They decide to partner up, which is bound to ruffle some feathers in season 8, because the whole town just signed a petition against exactly that kind of thing. Season 7 also set up Brady's potential death by having him get into a motorcycle accident while traveling at full speed. They cut away rather than showing whether he's still breathing. On one hand, he was wearing a helmet, but on the other hand, that kind of trauma to his body could still kill him. The next season will have to tell us whether Brady survives or dies. This scene could very well be a fake-out, because the show has pulled that trick frequently, so it wouldn't be surprising if he's completely fine at the start of Season 8. I'm so sorry that I pushed you away. I just, I thought that by protecting my heart, I couldn't get hurt. Virgin River finally wraps up Mel and Jack's journey to parenthood, at least for now, but that doesn't mean their challenges are over. They found out their son has superior-inferior ventricles, meaning his heart ventricles are stacked. To repair this, he has to have open-heart surgery immediately after his birth. The season ends with Mel, Jack, and the baby leaving the children's hospital in an ambulance on the way to the Heart Institute, with everything prepped so they can start as soon as he arrives. Season 8 will need to reveal whether the baby survives. It would be cruel if he doesn't make it, but the show does like to put Mel through an inordinate amount of trauma, so you never really know what they're going to do. So there's a whole bunch of stuff hanging in the balance going into Season 8, from babies and cancer to farms and bar buyouts, and it's all sitting there, waiting to be dealt with. Every one of these questions is basically an easter egg for fans to obsess over until the new season finally arrives. And that's that for today's video. Thanks for watching and we will see you in the next one.