Are you guys ready for this one?
If you’ve followed along with our coverage of Virgin River, you’d know how shocking it is to reach this conclusion, but one character may be the most slept on so far.
And yes, after dedicating a full list of times Charmaine Roberts tested all of my nerves, I am ahead of its seventh season, ready to discuss how she’s become the show’s most underrated character.
The thing is, with Charmaine, less is more. Fortunately, Charmaine has simmered down since having the twins and even taken a backseat.
But that shocking Virgin River Season 6 cliffhanger proves that maybe Charmaine took too much of a backseat.
Whether we love the woman or loathe her, she provides so much drama and conflict throughout the series that when you limit her screentime, there’s not always enough happening.
Interestingly, when we saw Charmaine in the last season, she was a frazzled single mother of twins trying to juggle her job and raising them, and she looked so overwhelmed that it was concerning.
But do you know what was more concerning? Virgin River, a small town that prides itself on being a community where everyone loves and supports each other through difficult times, seemingly forgot about Charmaine.
Part of it may have to do with her technically residing in the next town, just a stone’s throw away from the core community of Virgin River. Still, it doesn’t excuse the fact that after many promises from everyone, ranging from Doc to Mel herself, when Charmaine needed people to show up for her, they didn’t.
On the one hand, I get it. Charmaine was at the center of so much drama, and she got in the way of the golden couple, Jack and Mel. Any character who goes up against either of them falls from grace and gets the villain treatment by the narrative.
But we also saw where Charmaine evolved and grew. Once they finally broke away from her heartbreak and vindictive nature toward Jack, she was actually more tolerable than she had been for many seasons.
As a mother, Charmaine found her footing. She was able to turn inward and focus on who she wanted to be to be a better person for her children.
She extended the necessary apologies and scored forgiveness from the other parties as a result.
It seemed as if she was in a position where the rest of the community could officially embrace her, which is something that she had always longed for.
She recalled what it was like when her mother was treated poorly many years back, and she didn’t want the same fate and finally worked to avoid that.
It seemed promising, but when we learned that Calvin was the twins’ father and he’d taken to harassing Charmaine, what proved alarming was how little other characters seemed interested.
The community aspect of the series didn’t seem to exist when it came to Charmaine. If it were any other character, there would be more than one person in their “village” who would do whatever it took to protect Charmaine and ensure that she felt supported, and Calvin posed no risk to her.
But Virgin River Season 6 had all of this happening offscreen. We’d see her in passing coming from court after filing a restraining order or speaking briefly with Brie, a woman who knows what it’s like to fall prey to a predator.
However, the attention was never on Charmaine, not even a little bit. This set up a huge cliffhanger at the end of the season that left many of us, including those of us who weren’t even fans of hers, heartbroken and genuinely concerned about Charmaine.
Maybe this was intentional on Virgin River’s part as they took a character who was polarizing at best, downright unlikable at worst, and have now placed her in such a horrible position that everyone is genuinely upset and worried about her fate.
Because regardless of how you feel about Charmaine, no one deserves what Calvin may have done to her.
However, this also proves that Charmaine may be the series’ most underrated character.
Even after sidelining her for most of the season, not giving her a prominent arc, and having the others drop the ball and fail her, the series still needed to rely on this character to bring shocking drama and a buzzworthy cliffhanger.
At the very least, she’s integral to the series for drama.
Over to you, Virgin River Fanatics. How do you feel about Charmaine? Let’s hear it below!
Watch Virgin River Online
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