I am proud to announce the birth of Charmaine’s bouncing baby boys on “Virgin River.”
You’re welcome.
So cigars all around, but not for the unnamed twins’ father, sketchy Calvin (David Cubitt), tossed unceremoniously from Doc’s (Tim Matheson) clinic by Mel (Alexandra Breckeridge), who helped deliver the babies after four-plus years — the longest-gestating pregnancy in TV history that stretched the bounds of credulity, even in the life’s-too-perfect world of “Virgin River.”
“I feel like I’ve been pregnant for years,” Charmaine (Lauren Hammersley) said to Mel pre-delivery in a wink wink inside reference to her natal travails.
We understand, Charmaine, and you can now lose the ever-evolving prosthetic pregnancy belly you’ve been schlepping around Virgin River until the arrival of this two-part holiday episode on Netflix — so saccharine-sweet it could instantaneously rot one’s teeth. (“Silent Night” played on the soundtrack as Charmaine held her babies — are you kidding me?)
OK, so I was tipped off several months back that Charmaine (Lauren Hammersley) would finally give birth to her boys after she divulged that their father was not — as she led us to believe — the sainted Jack Sheridan (Martin Henderson) but Calvin, who ran afoul of the law and is a free man only because he sang like a bird vis-a-vis the lumberyard drug operation that also ensnared hapless Brady (Ben Hollingsworth).
Calvin was granted witness protection, which begs the question: why, then, did he show up to Doc’s clinic in plain sight?
Answers: such are the vagaries of “Virgin River” and Calvin isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
The two-part holiday arc also answered other burning questions, particularly one left over from the Season 5 finale: who is Mel’s biological father?
We learned in that finale that Mel’s mother had a years-long affair with a guy who lived in Virgin River (of course he did).
My guess was Doc, which wouldn’t have been too far-fetched given this show’s syrupy predilection.
I was dead-wrong: Mel’s long-lost dad turned out to be an everyday dude named Everett Reid (John Allen Nelson) who used the sobriquet “Champ” in his letters to Mel’s mom (for winning the 1976 Lumberjack Games).
Mel and Jack tracked Champ/Everett down to his pristine cabin in the woods and he was not pleased to see his daughter — leaving Mel crushed … but all of us knowing that, of course, he’d have a change of heart just in time for the first snowflakes to fall on Christmas Day. All together now: awwww!
In other “Virgin River” news: The romance between older Muriel and younger Dr. Cameron Hayek (Mark Ghanimé) is still hot-and-heavy — did you see the look she threw him onstage during the annual Virgin River Christmas show? — though Muriel made it clear that she does not want children.
But it’s fine; Cameron is OK with that (well, at least for now), and even told his recovering alcoholic ex-girlfriend, who showed up unexpectedly, to bug off.
Teen lovers Lizzie (Sarah Dugdale) and Denny (Kai Bradbury), Doc’s grandson, are expecting a child. It’s a girl, and Lizzie’s me-first mother finally bought into the pregnancy after a tearful heart-to-heart with her daughter.
And don’t forget, Denny has Huntington’s disease … time is not on his side.
Brady and his ex-Brie (Zibby Allen), came thisclose to kissing under the mistletoe, despite the other saying how they’re done with the relationship. Hmmm. Brie seems happy with Mike the cop (Marco Grazzini) and Brady with Lark (Elise Gatien) — but we learned that she’s up to no good and is secretly plotting against her feckless boyfriend with Calvin’s former co-worker, Jimmy, who’s behind bars.
The drama!
Preacher (Colin Lawrence) professed his love for Kaia (Kandyse McClure) after a frigid, Christmas-day plunge in Virgin River; she did not reciprocate but that’s OK because she’s staying in town as Virgin River’s new fire chief. (Insert heated romance trope here.)
And, last but not least, Doc and his annoying wife, Hope (Annette O’Toole), finally won the Virgin River Christmas tree decoration contest — just as Doc asked Hope to remarry him before he starts the clinical trial he hopes will save his eyesight. Oy.
Netflix has renewed “Virgin River” for a sixth season — and I, for one, can’t wait.
Bring it on.