Justice for Cameron, the good doctor who recognized trouble, on “Virgin River”
It’s hard being the new kid. Just ask Mel Monroe. When she shows up for her new job as nurse practitioner in the small, Northern California town of Virgin River, she’s greeted with a shotgun. Her greeter, Dr. Vernon Mullins (Tim Matheson) is her boss, although he doesn’t know it or want it yet, but as the fourth season of “Virgin River” has arrived on Netflix, Mel (Alexandra Breckenridge) and Doc have made peace with working together and have been friends for a long time.
Maybe that’s why the next new kid on the medical block has an easier time of it. Dr. Cameron Hayek (Mark Ghanimé) has been hired by Doc to give him and Mel a bit of a break. Doc is getting older and his beloved wife Hope (Annette O’Toole) needs care after a brain injury. Meanwhile, Mel is quietly dealing with issues of her own. This wouldn’t be “Virgin River” if we didn’t have an ocean’s worth of secrets.
But even though his reception is warm, Cameron’s ending may not be. Steadfast romantic, supportive and in the unenviable position of being the possible new angle in a lopsided triangle, Cameron Hayek deserves better.
The latest season of the comforting and vaguely traumatizing Netflix soap finds Mel secretly pregnant, either by embryos conceived with her dead husband or through her longtime boyfriend, Jack. I’m a Luke Dane apologist (and before that, a Mr. Rochester one) so of course I have a soft spot for a manly bar and grill owner like Jack (Martin Henderson), an ex-Marine steadfast with his love and struggling with his feelings.
Enter the new guy. As Decider writes: “The entire purpose of his character is to be an openly hot, single doctor.” But in Ghanimé’s portrayal, Cameron is more than just a thorn in Jack’s rugged side. Cameron is earnest and hopeful. Despite coming from the city, he adapts to the slow pace of small Virgin River, quicker than Mel did to her rustic cabin. When he asked about computer software for scheduling medical appointments, and Mel told him: “You’re gonna need a pen,” he simply smiled and said, “Right.” No city boy protests here and no slicker pretensions.
Ghanimé’s face reveals a bittersweet openness that borders on pain: behind such kindness in Cameron you know lurks a history of being hurt (we’ll get into that). Cameron is easygoing and immediately friendly with Mel. Too friendly, according to some fans.
Ever positive, almost sickeningly so, Cameron says, “At the end of every shift, I like to ask whomever I’m with what the high point of their day was.” After Mel related a story about psoriasis, Cameron says his high point was when Mel said he was attractive. (This made my partner, who I had roped into a cold watch of this season’s premiere, having never seen the show before, gasp.) Mel backpedals: she was simply pointing out why the waiting room was full of the women of Virgin River, hoping to get a glimpse of the new, eligible doctor.
In Cameron’s defense, he doesn’t know Mel is incorporated at the time. Once he knows, he does back down from his pursuit of her but he doesn’t back down from being a good friend. He had dinner with Mel and Jack, spent a long time alone with Jack when Mel was late; Jack is not the most sparkling of conversationalists under the best of circumstances, so that can’t have been easy. But Cameron handles it all in stride. A people pleaser, he wants to be helpful.
That thoughtfulness continues when Cameron accidentally overhears that Mel is pregnant (she and Jack are not telling anybody yet due to a past stillbirth and the whole uncertain paternity thing). Cameron says nothing to Mel; he simply quietly and obsessively stocks the fridge at the medical practice with fruit, vegetables, juice, and easy, healthy snacks, and lines the cupboards with tea. He also purchased a expensive air purifier. Once Mel learns he knows, he offers to cover her shifts at work or drive her to appointments. Cameron, where were you when I was pregnant?
