What to Remember About Virgin River Ahead of Its New Episodes

In the first episode of Virgin River, Alexandra Breckenridge’s Mel Monroe, a nurse practitioner from Los Angeles, arrives in the fictional North California enclave after signing a year-long contract to work at the town’s family medical clinic with Doc Mullins (Tim Matheson). Over the course of five seasons, Mel and her fellow residents of the cozy wooded community see plenty of drama: characters have survived stabbings, shootings, car crashes, and drug rings; houses have been intentionally burned down, and others destroyed in a ravenous wildfire. And yet, Mel’s first-year work anniversary has not even officially passed.

Despite there being five seasons of Virgin River since it debuted in 2019, with a total of 52 episodes, the actual timeline of the series is shockingly slow. Beyond Mel’s contract, it’s easy to know that not that much time has passed in what is essentially the West Coast version of Stars Hollow since one character, Charmaine (Lauren Hammersley), the ex-girlfriend of Mel’s fiancée Jack (Martin Henderson), has been pregnant with twins since the end of the first season.

But Virgin River is finally speeding things up—a little. The final episode of the first part of the fifth season followed the characters around on Labor Day, and, in its last moments, flashed forward to winter, with Christmas just around the corner. Now, two new episodes will drop on Netflix on November 30, and pick up where things left off. They’ll be packed with all the twists and turns that the series is known for, along with some quaint holiday fare. (And if you can’t wait until then, Netflix just released the first nine minutes of the new installment here).

Because so much happens on Virgin River—and in so little time—it can be hard to keep up. So, here’s a refresher on what went down the last time we saw Mel Monroe and all her friends, and what’s going on in their lives ahead of the new episodes.