Yahoo Lifestyle 'Virgin River' Star Annette O'Toole Reveals What to Expect in "Beautiful" New Season
Virgin River fans can hardly contain their excitement for the much-anticipated sixth season, which premieres on Netflix on Thursday, December 19. Just over a year since the final episodes of season 5, viewers are itching to know the fate of Virgin River and its many beloved townspeople. After all, as you may remember, the 12-episode season was brimming with drama, including a tragic wildfire, Mel and Jack’s miscarriage, the discovery of the twins’ true father, Doc’s declining health, Hope’s TBI healing journey, and Mel’s scavenger hunt to find her father. Suffice to say, there’s a lot going on. To help unpack it in anticipation of the Season 6 premiere, we sat down with the actress who plays Virgin River’s most in-the-know resident. Ahead, Annette O’Toole (Hope McCrea) shares what to look forward to in the 10 upcoming episodes, and reveals what her biggest takeaways from filming have been.
“The wedding is the big thing,” Annette confirms to Country Living. “I think it's the thing everybody's been waiting for—desperate for [Mel and Jack] to get together—and I'm happy to say it's going to happen and it happens in a really beautiful way. It's beautifully done. Our costume designer, Candace [Cruikshank], did an incredible job with everyone.”
Another Season 6 highlight? A new filming location. As revealed in Season 5, Mel and Jack have chosen to purchase Lily’s property and set down roots in Virgin River. While we’ve seen Lily’s farm many times over, since it was affected by the wildfire, Annette says that we can expect a brand-new facade for Mel and Jack’s budding home.
Of course, fans can also expect plenty of drama as more details emerge surrounding Mel’s father, Charmaine and Calvin’s relationship, Lizzie and Denny’s pregnancy, Melissa’s drug operation, and Kaia’s investigation into Wes’s death.
It’s all this drama that keeps viewers so hooked on the show—and on the books that inspired it. Something that wasn’t super clear in the books, though? Hope McCrea.
According to Annette, she and showrunners Sue Tenney and Sean Smith created Hope’s character together because they didn’t have a ton to go off of from the books.
“We see so many older people [in TV] where they’re either ill or they have Alzheimer's, or just kindly grandma type, and you know those people, that's great, but people are still people and they still have issues and problems,” Annette says, explaining Hope’s character development in the opposite direction.
While many people think of Hope as the town gossip, Annette has a much more tender perspective of her.
“I don't see her that way, of course, because I'm inside her and I see what drives her and what is important to her and she's just… she's a stickler and she's got tremendous energy and intelligence, and I think she has more common sense than she has booksmarts, and she's kind of figured a lot of stuff out for herself. And she's very stubborn. And those qualities still exist [in older people in real life].”
In that way, Annette says Hope has reminded her of the importance of seeing the full picture instead of merely labeling a character or person in real life. It’s a lesson in empathy—something we could all serve to improve upon.
“Most writers now are a lot younger than I am and it's easier to write somebody who’s just, ‘Okay, she's got Alzheimer's and we'll put her in the attic’—which is what they do because they don't know how to write it, but it's like, you just put yourself in that place,” Annette says. “If you’re a writer, imagine how it would feel to have all your faculties but now you're in your ‘70s and physically you can't do quite as much and maybe you've had a heart attack like Hope has had and the brain injury like Hope, [but you’re still a person; you’re still capable.]”
As much as Annette adores Hope’s character, she doesn’t witness her in action.
“I don't watch the show, so I love it when people tell me that [they do; that they find comfort in it],” she admits. “My daughters, especially my older daughter, really love the show and she said the other day, ‘Mom, what you do is really important. The fact that the women on your show are so strong—they run that town; really they're the heart of everything.’ Doing a little TV show sometimes feels like ‘Oh God, why? What am I doing here? What is the purpose?’ But it helps people, it brings people together. It's a unifying thing; it's a positive force. So we have to keep doing that. That's all we can do.”
As popular as Virgin River is, it might be hard to believe that, in the beginning, the cast wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of the show. Annette, though, had a hunch.
“I remember the day my agent called and said Sue Tenney wants to talk to you about this new show Virgin River and I said ‘OK’ and I remember talking about it and her explaining to me that it was based on these books and I thought ‘What a smart thing for Netflix to do.’ This is the kind of show that you know people already love—the Lifetime and the Hallmark movies—and I thought for them to do it in a way that was just slightly more production value and more time taken as a series, and not as a series of movies, this is really smart,” Annette recalls. “I also remember in the first year, Alexandra [Breckenridge] and I were waiting to do a scene and she said ‘Do you think anybody's gonna watch this?’ and I said ‘Alex, I think you have to be prepared for this to be very successful.’ I just had a feeling about it.”
Virgin River Season 6 Premieres on Thursday, December 19, on Netflix.
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