This post contains spoilers for Virgin River season 5 episode 10, Labor Day.
It’s Labor Day and the carnival is ready to welcome the people of Virgin River for some much-deserved fun.
But before Mel, Jack and co can go up the Ferris wheel, there is still some drama to face on the Netflix series.
What does the show have in store for its characters? Let’s recap this last episode of Virgin River season 5, part 1 and explain the end of this part of the series...
Bad things come in threes
Jack is not sure he believes Brady when the latter tells him Melissa is a criminal mastermind, until he sees her and her goons toss Brady in the back of a van. He has no other choice but to follow them and call Mike for reinforcement.
Arriving at the auto-shop, Melissa shows Brady a video of him sneaking around earlier, and she demands to know who he is spying for. Brady would rather die than speak though, and Melissa gets ready to grant his wish. That’s when Jack intervenes, taking down Gene while his boss tries to escape and Brady takes out her other minion. Mike and the cops arrive to arrest Melissa but life in Virgin River is a rollercoaster. On the same day you can be playing softball with the girl you have been crushing on for weeks, and then get shot by a drug dealer. That’s what happens to Mike when Gene pulls a gun at him and they have a dramatic face off that sends him to the hospital.
From then on, it’s a waiting game for Mike, who is in critical condition but has Brie by his bedside. When Brady gets to the hospital after being questioned by the FBI (who aren’t sure they believe he wasn’t really an associate of Melissa since Mike didn’t tell a soul he was his CI), he sees Brie holding Mike’s hand and feels a gut punch. They catch up in the hallway where they hash things out but also break up, for real this time. Brie tells Brady she will always love him but that things have now changed for her.
Meanwhile, Jack is baffled he did not notice anything was off about Melissa, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it as Brady comes to inform him the FBI is seizing everything at the glamping site. Once there, Jack finds out the land and everything on it is now tied up in the case against Melissa, and that he might never have it back. All he can do is make a plan with Nick to put up the displaced evacuees at his B&B and wonder what that means for his and Mel’s future. In the meantime, Brady helps Lark pack her things up and makes plans with her for a date that evening at the Labor Day carnival. What can I say, people move on very quickly on Virgin River.
Good things come to those who wait
As all of this drama is going down, Kaia is preparing to leave Virgin River but ends up changing her mind. She swaps assignments with another firefighter and informs Preacher she will be sticking around for a while longer to work with the clean-up brigade in the valley. She also informs him that her decision made Jay livid and that’s a plus in her book.
Over at the clinic, it’s Mel’s first day back. At least there, things are going well. A team meeting leads to new projects in the works, including the creation of a birthing center. Doc is thrilled to see the future of the clinic is bright, but he is then slightly less enthusiastic when Muriel comes to tell him she and Cameron have feelings for each other. Before she can make the case for their relationship, however, Doc cuts her off and tells her he is fine with it as long as they remain professional at work. Yay for Cameron and Muriel!
Some more good news arrives as Mike wakes up and clears things up with the FBI. He then hangs out with Brie and tells her Brady is the real hero of this story as he volunteered to take down the drug ring out of love for her. But when Mike asks her if that changes anything for them, Brie pretty much says “nope”. What she wants now is to see where dating him will go.
Meanwhile, Jack is sad he lost his land and surprised he didn’t see the Brie and Mike pairing coming. Mel tells him they will figure something out and that as long as they are together, they are home. Aww. Everyone is doing well so they all head to the Labor Day carnival that Hope and Lizzie worked very hard to put together. As Jack takes a shift at the beer garden, Mel hangs out with Ava who informs her she has decided to freeze her eggs and get a hysterectomy. She also tells Mel that she found a buyer who wants to turn Lilly’s farmland into a golf course and when she mentions the tree swing at the farm survived the fire, Mel’s ears perk up.
Drama awaits
The carnival is in full swing and Doc is happy to inform Hope that a spot has opened up for him on a clinical trial that will either save his eyesight or make him go blind quicker. Either way, it starts after the New Year and all he wants to do until then is to be with her.
Lizzie also has something to say to Hope and thanks her for believing in her, but Hope notices something might be off between Lizzie and Denny. The young couple indeed needs to talk. Denny has been mulling over what Grandma Rose told him and he wonders if maybe he should leave Virgin River. But when he asks Lizzie if she might consider going with him, his girlfriend drops a bombshell on him: she might be pregnant. Gasp!
Other people are gasping, like Jo Ellen when she sees Cameron and Muriel kissing when she tells him Doc has greenlit their relationship. The look on Jo Ellen’s face is priceless and she wastes no time to hit up the phone tree.
Then there is Preacher. He is with Kaia when she receives a phone call about the cleanup brigade finding a body in the woods. A flashback reminds us that it is Paige’s husband, whom Preach buried at the end of season 2. Uh-oh, more gasp!
But that’s not all! Charmaine is back and she is doing well, but she runs into the real father of her twins. Hold on to your canes because it turns out it is none other than CALVIN, who is back from the dead with a limp and ready to be a daddy.
Enough with the drama. After the carnival, Mel takes Jack to Lilly’s farmland and shows him the tree swing that survived the fire, reminding him of the first time they were here together. She has an idea: this is the place where they should start the next chapter of their life. It’s perfect to build a home, raise the kids they will manage to have somehow, someday, and even to get married. Jack does not need much convincing and is immediately on board with this new plan.
So are we done yet? Not so fast because Virgin River has one more thing in store for us. We cut to a few months later, as bells are jingling and Christmas is right around the corner. Mel is on the phone with Joey to prepare her visit for the holidays, when her sister tells her she has found a stack of love letters written from someone in Virgin River to their mother. And guess what, she thinks the mysterious sender might very well be Mel’s father! MORE GASP!
The first part of Virgin River season 5 then ends on this cliffhanger but fret not, all will hopefully be resolved when the show returns to Netflix for part 2, a pair for Christmas-themed episodes, on November 30.
