Virgin River Season 7 landed on Netflix on March 12, and for those fans who’ve been binging the new batch of episodes, it’s already time to look ahead to what’s next for Mel (Alexandra Beckinridge), Jack (Martin Henderson), Preacher (Colin Lawrence), and the rest of the gang. In true Virgin River fashion, Season 7 ended with multiple intense cliffhangers that could lead to some interesting drama in Season 8 and beyond. Let’s take a way-too-early look at what’s next for Netflix’s longest running original drama.

Has Virgin River been renewed for Season 8?

Unlike on the series itself, there’s absolutely no drama about whether Virgin River will return for an eighth season, because Netflix renewed the series while Season 7 was filming last summer. This will be the very first time a Netflix original scripted series, not including children’s programming, made it to Season 8; Grace and Frankie and Orange Is the New Black both ran for seven seasons.

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Virgin River Season 8 release date prediction

Season 8 of Virgin River hasn’t been given any sort of projected release date just yet, but since Season 4 arrived in July 2021, each new season of Virgin River has come 15 months after the previous one. If Season 8 follows that same pattern, it’ll drop on Netflix in summer 2027.

With production starting in April, it’s possible that it could arrive a little faster, like in late spring.

Returning cast and crew for Virgin River Season 8

The Virgin River cast has been unusually stable for a long-running drama like this one. We’ve spent the past seven seasons with largely the same group of folks, with only a few additions and subtractions along the way so far. So the fact that two long-time characters — Mike (Marco Grazzini) and Charmaine (Lauren Hammersley) — are leaving the series ahead of Season 8, according to Deadline, is kind of big deal. Unlike Calvin, David Cubitt’s character who was killed at the start of Season 7, these folks could have come back for Season 8, but the powers-that-be decided otherwise.

Warning: This is the part where we’re going to start talking spoilers. If you haven’t yet watched Virgin River Season 7, you may want to bow out now.

But both of these exits do make sense from a story perspective. After Mike’s attempts to woo Jack’s sister Brie finally crashed and burned during Season 7, it tracks that he’d want some space. And it follows that Charmaine, who was kidnapped at the end of Season 6 and spent most of Season 7 in captivity with her young daughters, could very well be so traumatized by the experience that she needs some time away. So even though the events of Season 7 didn’t necessarily mandate that these characters exit the series, it gave them plenty of reasons to get away for a while. Showrunner Patrick Sean Smith, who is returning in that role in Season 8, says both Grazzini and Hammersley could show up again in future seasons.

In an interview with Deadline, Smith indicated that Marley and Eamon, the couple whose baby Mel and Jack adopt in the Season 7 finale, also probably won’t be around in Season 8 — if they do pop back up, their roles may be a bit smaller.

Beyond that, you can expect all the other significant folks who made it to the end of Season 7 to return — though one character’s fate remains up in the air, as Brady (Benjamin Hollingsworth) crashed his motorcycle in the closing moments of the season finale. The showrunner gave an extremely vague tease to Deadline about what’ll happen with him moving forward: “There could be survival, but there could be unsurvival on the other side.” I guess we’ll have to tune in next time to find out. While it would be surprising if he didn’t return, let’s not forget that Season 7 started by killing off a long-time recurring character.

Virgin River Season 8 expected cast

• Alexandra Breckenridge as Mel Monroe
• Martin Henderson as Jack Sheridan
• Colin Lawrence as Preacher
• Annette O’Toole as Hope McRae
• Tim Matheson as Vernon “Doc” Mullins
• Benjamin Hollingsworth as Dan Brady
• Zibby Allen as Brie Sheridan
• Sarah Dugdale as Lizzie
• Kai Bradbury as Denny Cutler
• Teryl Rothery as Muriel St. Claire
• Kandyse McClure as Kaia

Storylines for Virgin River Season 8

Being kind of a soap-ish melodrama, Virgin River is overflowing with interconnected storylines that will continue in Season 8. The two biggest ones, however, are the ones that ended on cliffhangers: Mel and Jack adopted a baby that needs surgery for a heart defect, and Brie and Brady finally got back together, just before Brady crashed his motorcycle and suffered unknown injuries. Smith says that Season 8 will begin with a four-month time jump, so it’s likely we’ll find out what happened with both of these plot threads right at the start — similar to how Season 7 didn’t belabor the point with Mike’s proposal to Brie.

As for the less immediately urgent ongoing storylines, we’ve got a major love triangle brewing among the older members of the cast. Doc and Hope had a major falling out after Doc agreed to a corporate takeover of his clinic, and Roland immediately cozied up to her. Expect that to be an ongoing thing in Season 8. Meanwhile, Muriel, who’s receiving treatment for cancer, will apparently start a new relationship in Season 8, with the showrunner indicating it’ll be with Everett — a potentially fascinating new wrinkle.

We’ve also got Clay’s mysterious situation — he’s trying to find the sister he was separated from when they were children in the foster care system. The showrunner says we’ll meet that sister in Season 8.

And finally, the dynamic between series-long BFFs Jack and Preacher is going to change in some kind of way in Season 8, after Preacher decided to give up his portion of the ownership in order to open a restaurant. They’ll almost certainly still be friends, but you can expect a lot more tension in that relationship than there used to be.

Where to watch Virgin River

Virgin River is a Netflix exclusive, so you’ll need to sign up to watch.