The screenwriters don’t really care about luck. In fact, the enactment of perfect love without obstacles is not very exciting, either for it to be written or for the audience. Drama, on the other hand, is the perfect material for series. Virgin River’s screenwriters are no exception to the rule. On the contrary: in every season they delight in their characters’ misfortune. While Mel, the heroine played by Alexandra Breckenridge, tried for several years to have a child with Mark, her late husband, the nurse became pregnant again, with her new companion Jack. Unfortunately, the young woman suffered a miscarriage during the fire that ravaged the entire town of Virgin River in this fifth season. This new drama shocked viewers, just like the actress in the Netflix romantic series.
“Not everyone gets their miracle baby”: How Alexandra Breckenridge dealt with Mel’s miscarriage
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“I felt like it was an important story to tell,” Alexandra Breckenridge told Netflix website Tudum on the set of “Virgin River” in 2022. “Not everyone gets their miracle baby. So I spoke to a friend of mine who was having fertility issues.” It felt like we were talking about it in an honest way that would be appreciated by the women who have experienced it. But it was very difficult for me. There were a lot of tears.” Viewers reacted very strongly to this storyline in the fifth season of Virgin River. Some of them didn’t like Jack’s reaction to his partner’s miscarriage. Others also expressed their anger towards the show’s writers.
Virgin River Season 5: “It gave them more depth and more love”
Patrick Sean Smith, showrunner and executive producer of Virgin River, defended this act in an interview with the American website Glamor. “Previous seasons were marked by Mel’s trauma and Jack’s trauma. This is a shared tragedy. We see the couple struggling to navigate this drama together because it is something that literally destroyed their previous marriage. Mel and Mark couldn’t survive that.” “Seeing Mel and Jack in the same situation but persevering and becoming stronger and closer to each other in the end seemed logical to me to write. I think it gave them even more depth and even more love,” he reasoned.
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Virgin River: This sensitive scene from Season 5 caused controversy
Patrick Sean Smith went into more detail about the scene where Mel realizes she’s just had a miscarriage and the camera shows her blood-stained underwear. “We talked about it,” he explained. “Netflix didn’t back down. When you direct something so traumatic, you’re always looking for a way to soften it, but at the same time, “We couldn’t find another way.” to show something that felt so important to us. We wanted to clearly show what was happening to him in that moment.” While Mel and Jack were completely devastated by the ordeal and each reacted in their own way, the couple continued to move forward at the end of the first aired part of season five. Will Mel and Jack ever become parents? The rest of the series will tell us, but Robyn Carr’s books, from which Virgin River was adapted, can already provide clues as to how the story may develop. Part 2 of Virgin River Season 5 will stream on Netflix from November 30th, with two special Christmas episodes.
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