Virgin River – Season 5 Episode 11 “The More The Merrier” Recap & Review

The More The Merrier

Episode 11 of Virgin River season 5 starts with us back for the holidays. Mel and Jack are out looking for a special Christmas tree together. Jack wants this to be a holiday to remember, and part of that comes from getting an extraordinary Sheridan Christmas family tree. And he’s found the perfect one!

Mel hasn’t had a big Christmas since her mum was around, and she’s still conflicted over the postcards she received at the end of the last chapter.

Brie receives bad news – Mary is snowed in at Boston and won’t make it in for the holidays. Without the kids here, Brie worries that her divorced parents will have to focus on each other instead… and that may cause big drama. Unfortunately, Mr Sheridan shows up frosty and prickly, unhappy that his ex-wife is at the B&B with her new fella, Javier.

Brie speaks to her mum about this in confidence over at Preacher’s Bar and tells her she needs to be careful this Christmas doesn’t implode. Brie’s mum shrugs it off, confident that he just needs a good woman that looks at him like Javi looks at her. Brie thinks that’s a good idea and inadvertently offers herself up to tell her dad as much. 

There’s also Christmas celebrations getting underway over at Vernon’s place too. Lizzie makes some eggnog for everyone, but as conversation turns to her pregnancy, Hope is shocked that Lizzie hasn’t told her. Hope tells her she needs to admit the truth and perhaps she may even take it as a “Christmas gift”.

Over at the Sheridan household, Mel and her sister catch up over the postcards outside. They deduce that this romance could well be when their mum lost Chloe and it drove the pair apart. However, her father has written a postcard asking about her. The only thing they have to go on is the guy’s nickname, “Champ” and his PO box address.

Mel definitely wants to find him and learn more about what happened in her life. Could finding her biological father be the perfect Christmas present? We’ll have to wait and see. Jack suggests that Mel join Brie over at the Christmas market and speaking to the postman there as he may have some clues.

At the market, Brie is on edge. And understandably so! She speaks to Jack and decides they need to keep their parents away from one another as far as possible. When Mel and Jack leave, they bump into Charmaine who is still very pregnant. Although I must say, there’s a great self-aware joke here where Char admits she feels like she’s been pregnant for years. Anyway, she’s been having contractions since the previous night – could it mean that she’s going to give birth soon?

Hope is the bastion of knowledge here though and she reveals to Mel that she knows the postmaster from the 80’s. She actually hired the guy, and he’s called Chip Cooper. Apparently Lydie and him were high-school sweethearts so off they go to ask her.

Lydie is pretty cagey but does admit that Chip is the Santa Claus at the community centre over in Clear River. She doesn’t want the sewing circle to know that they’ve been in touch a lot lately. It’s super cute seeing her face light up, and the scavenger hunt continues.

Chip remembers Champ, he used to come in every week to post these cards out and naturally, everyone at the post office was in on the romance and couldn’t get enough of this so they used to read all the letters. However, it all stopped so suddenly and he wasn’t seen again. All they know is that Mel’s father won the 1976 Lumberjack Games though. That’s where the name Champ came from. This brings them to a newspaper, which highlights a guy called Everett Reid.

The pair hire a PI on behalf of Preacher’s contact to figure out who this guy is. At the same time, Hope gives a rousing and encouraging speech to Lizzie about how good she’s going to be as a mum… and Lizzie’s mother happens to be standing right behind them. Woops!

Jack’s father makes it through the Christmas show that night, the one that Jo Ellen has been performing most of the episode, but he decides to head home as he can’t see his ex-wife so happy with Javier. Jack is not happy that he can’t just suck it up for a few more days to make a special Christmas and finds himself exasperated. It turns out there was a big fight between them. He saw Javi and her kissing under the mistletoe and he publicly berated them. She blurted out they’re moving in together, and there’s all kinds of unresolved drama there. Deary me.

As the episode closes out, Mel learns that her father is apparently still in Virgin River. Wow, who could it be?

The Episode Review

Virgin River is back and this lovely festive episode gets things off to a good start. Everyone is in the Christmas spirit, there’s lots to like and a few well-timed jokes too. The quip about Char still being pregnant is definitely a nice touch.

The drama involving Mel’s father is certainly intriguing though and it’ll be interesting to find out exactly who the real father is. I guess we’ll have to wait and see but hopefully the finale makes this big reveal!