Things In Virgin River Season 3 That Make No Sense To Fans
Netflix's "Virgin River" has been a runaway hit for the streaming platform, but some things about the series' third season make absolutely no sense to fans. This confusion following the release of Season 3 means all of the latest plot twists, character choices, and storyline directions have been interrogated in subreddits via the show's Reddit page and the "Virgin River" Twitter hashtag.
For every fan that was pleased with the drama (be it romantic or melodramatic) the characters of "Virgin River" faced in Season 3, there were plenty of other fans voicing their confusion over things like the show's timeline and questionable character choices. To quote Twitter user @FUTURE_BUNNIE: "So, wait a minute...Preacher is missing, the kid and Connie may be killed, the cop set up Brady in front of Bri, Hope sounds like she's getting worse, and now Mel [is] pregnant, and Jack might not be the daddy?!?! That's how y'all wanna end Season 3 Virgin River?!?!"
Let's explore the major "Virgin River" Season 3 moments that have left fans scratching their heads.
Why does Mel decide to undergo IVF days after breaking up with Jack?
Fans are utterly confused as to why Mel (Alexandra Breckenridge) would react to her break-up with Jack (Martin Henderson) by immediately subjecting herself to a round of IVF in the hopes of becoming pregnant with her dead husband's (Daniel Gillies) child while on a trip to Los Angeles. One Redditor wrote about the issue at r/VirginRiverNetflix, noting that the Season 3 plot twist makes no sense. They cite "Mel just deciding to go for a FET [frozen embryo transfer] as soon as she had a fight and break up with Jack" as one of many twists on the Netflix show that make no sense.
While Mel has always wanted to be a mother, her rashness here — especially in light of her barely-healed wounds following the dramatic death of her late husband — makes no sense. It seems she is acting out after Jack puts his foot down about fathering another child with another woman. It's not as if Mel couldn't have waited for her relationship with Jack to settle in a little before she asked him to have a baby with her. That she doesn't know if the child she may be carrying is the result of unprotected sex with Jack or her IVF treatment makes Mel look messy, selfish, and irresponsible to fans.
Mel asking Jack to have a baby after a few months of dating is confusing
While we're on the topic of Mel and Jack's relationship, here's another thing that doesn't make sense: Mel asks Jack to have a baby less than a year after they become a couple. This particular "Virgin River" Season 3 plot development has ultimately proven to be a head-scratcher for fans, like Redditor u/awkwardsmalltalk4. Since Mel's request didn't spring from a relationship-cementing event, like a marriage proposal, it felt like a huge jaw-dropper. Sure, they're living together, but that was only because Jack's house had just burned down. The man is still recovering from the gunshot wound he sustained in Season 2, for pity's sake. Mel's question results in a fight, then a relationship meltdown, and then Jack breaking up with her.
After all of this, one would think Mel would back off and take things slowly instead of charging ahead with her IVF plan. One might also expect her to be sympathetic to Jack's current situation. At the end of Season 3, he is the expectant father of Charmaine's (Lauren Hammersley) twins, a situation about which he has mixed emotions. He is also worried about Charmaine's new husband forcing Jack to sign over his parental rights to his kids. Mel potentially adding another baby to the situation without even consulting him first not only doesn't make sense for her character, but it also adds unnecessary stress to her relationship with Jack.
Hope's extended absence on Virgin River Season 3 is puzzling
Missing from the majority of Season 3 was Virgin River mayor Hope McCrea (Annette O'Toole). In the most recent season, we learned Hope is in South Carolina taking care of a sick aunt. As such, she was only seen via occasional video calls with Doc (Tim Matheson). On Reddit, fans were incredulous that Hope would stay out of town for so long, especially with Doc's eyesight worsening and thus, becoming more of a health risk. Admittedly, some of those folks, like Redditor u/soneg, were also relieved that Hope was not a driving force on the show.
Hope's absence for Season 3 is easily explained by real-world production concerns. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, O'Toole couldn't make it over the Canadian border to film the most recent season, according to an Entertainment Weekly interview with showrunner Sue Tenney. Hope's arc in South Carolina was created as a workaround to this issue. At the end of Season 3, Hope gets into a violent car accident while driving back to town and has to undergo emergency lifesaving surgery, which serves as a storyline hook for the show's upcoming fourth season, according to an Us Magazine interview with Tenney. While Hope's absence made no in-universe sense, in the end, it was necessary due to real-life circumstances.
Connie's moral compass is a little off in Season 3
Lizzie (Sarah Dugdale), the niece of Connie (Nicola Cavendish), became a more prominent character in the third season of "Virgin River" after arriving in Season 2. Her puppy love story with Ricky (Grayson Gurnsey) grows steadily throughout the most recent season. As their relationship becomes more involved, Connie finds out and forbids Ricky from seeing Lizzie.
There's one problem with this arc: Unlike their "Virgin River" book counterparts, Lizzie and Ricky are both adults in Season 3, as fans like Redditor u/Eastwood8300 have pointed out. Not only does Connie have no right to ban Ricky from her 19-year-old niece's life, but her priorities seem off-kilter while she continues to help Preacher cover up the murder of Paige's (Lexa Doig) ex-husband, a crime Paige committed. When you're in that deep, morally speaking, preaching to someone else's sense of what's right comes off as outré behavior.
Connie's behavior doesn't add up, and this particular storyline makes no sense. It would have been wiser for "Virgin River" to focus on the issues between Lizzie and Ricky after Ricky secretly enlists in the Marines (what is it with the lack of communication between couples on this show?). This way, any Connie-related wrinkles would not appear in their relationship, and character decisions would make more sense.
The Virgin River Season 3 timeline is all over the place
Another problem fans of "Virgin River" have mentioned repeatedly on Reddit is that the show's timeline as of Season 3 makes absolutely no sense at all. It's been a mere four months since Mel moved to Virgin River — an event that occurred in Season 1 — according to various dialogue clues given in Season 3. However, this amount of time doesn't seem to match with the amount of time needed for certain (and huge) events to properly play out on the show. For other shows, it would be easy to fudge the passage time with some shortcuts. But, because the plotlines on "Virgin River" center themselves quite frequently around major life events, like a character's pregnancy or another character's battle with a life-threatening illness, it's much harder to gloss over the passage of time.
The biggest example of this, per fan discussion, involves Charmaine's pregnancy. She tells Jack she is pregnant at the end of Season 1. By the Season 3 finale, Charmaine is not even showing, which indicates she is likely in her first trimester (via Reddit). Other events that confuse the timeline include Jack's miraculous recovery from a life-threatening gunshot wound in a few weeks and Lilly's (Lynda Boyd) baby, born at the end of Season 1, still in infancy during Season 3.
Hopefully, the show will straighten each of these confusing plot points out, now that two more seasons are coming soon to Netflix.