Virgin River season 8 gets early renewal from Netflix, and this season 6 cliffhanger could be a sneaky red herring
We don’t even have a release date for Virgin River season 7 yet, but Netflix has confirmed Virgin River season 8 has already been green lit. The news comes a week after season 7 wrapped shooting, officially making it the longest-running original series on the streaming service.
Though we won’t expect season 8 episodes to hit until 2026 at the earliest, season 7 is rumored to be released sometime in December 2025. That means we only have season 6 to speculate about where the show could go. The most recent season left us with five key cliffhangers to lead us into future episodes, and it’s unknown how many of these will go as far as season 8.
However, the early renewal news for the hit Netflix show now makes one of the cliffhangers from season 6 a lot less likely to be true, and that’s good news for anyone who hasn’t been a fan of the surrogate storyline.
Mel and Jack might not become parents until Virgin River season 8
Season 6 finally saw Mel (Alexandra Breckenridge) and Jack (Martin Henderson) get married, and Mel later approached by client Marley (Rachel Drance) with a proposition to be a surrogate mother for the couple. Marley’s prospective parents have pulled out of the adoption process at the last minute, with Marlely wanting Mel and Jack to have the baby instead. We haven’t seen Mel answer yet, but the news of season 8 means the plot could be less likely to stick.
Why? We’ve got two reasons. Firstly, Netflix loves to drag out the small-town storylines we’re desperate to see – not even a year has passed in Virgin River in the entire six seasons we’ve seen on screen. Secondly, the original book series tells us Mel and Jack ended up having two biological children, and making a family of four takes time.
Put our pessimistic hats on and we might think Marley’s proposition turns out to be nothing, or in a worst case scenario, a total scam. However, this very well might be the case. The dramatic u-turn happened in the last few moments of season 6 episode 10, with absolutely nothing earlier on in the series to indicate there were any problems. The expectant couple were overly protective of Marley during her clinic sessions with Mel, so this could easily be a moment of panic that gets resolved later down the line.
On top of this, we also want to see Mel win. She’s struggled with fertility issues since before she arrived in town, suffering yet another miscarriage in season 5. Fans will want to see Mel and Jack have children on their own terms (biologically or not) more than anything, and Netflix would be incredibly cruel to not deliver on that.
As Virgin River season 7 fast approaches (we hope), keep your eyes on the surrogacy storyline. My money is on it coming to nothing, making Virgin River season 8 the crowning moment of our romantic leads finally starting a family.
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