Alexandra Breckenridge and Martin Henderson.
Courtesy of NetflixVirgin River Finally, let Mel and Jack walk down the aisle during the Season 6 finale — and stars Alexandra Breckenridge and Martin Henderson looking back on their best memories from the big day.
“Seeing Martin cry every time I walked down the aisle,” Breckenridge, 42, shared exclusively in the latest issue of Us Weekly. “I didn’t cry. I was like, ‘Oh no, where are my tears?’ You know, happy tears. I say, ‘Where are they?’ But every time I walked down the aisle, he got it all [misty eyed]. He was really sentimental and it was very sweet.”
After six seasons of breakups and make-ups, a fake paternity test and a heartbreaking pregnancy loss, Mel (Breckenridge) and Jack (Henderson) said “I do” surrounded by their friends and family in the Season 6 finale. It was an emotional moment for everyone involved in the series, and while Breckenridge was able to keep his eyes dry, Henderson explained why the moment resonated so deeply with him.
“Obviously I’ve invested a lot of energy and emotion into Jack’s character and his love for Mel, which is kind of the heart of the show,” he said. “So to finally get to that moment, and for Mel to walk up the aisle radiant and so beautiful, I felt the love that I think these characters have for each other. It was just really moving.”
How the wedding was shot, Henderson added, felt so “beautiful” and “tender” for the two characters, who have been through so much together. “I was pretty overwhelmed and very emotional about it. It was so moving,” Henderson continued. “It’s been six seasons leading up to it. … I poured my heart and soul into it [Mel and Jack] and I was so happy for Jack to have this woman to be his wife and what that means to him.”
Henderson noted how monumental the moment was for fans as well, who have known that Mel and Jack were fated soulmates from the pilot. “They belong together,” he said. “The audience knows it when she walks into the bar [in the pilot]. So it felt like the culmination of all the energy and romance and love and feelings that have existed between them for six seasons.”
Henderson certainly wasn’t the only person on set feeling the waves of emotion. Breckenridge said most people who attended the ceremony had tears in their eyes.
“I think there were a lot of people who were crying,” she shared Us. “Like with [Mel’s father-like figure] Dock [played by Tim Matheson] walked down the aisle … as I said my vows, I could hear the snuff behind me.”
While Henderson will likely remember Jack’s wedding day for the rest of his life, there was one particular moment in Season 6 he chose to forget: performing an intimate strip for Breckenridge to Big & Rich’s “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.”
“I literally completely blocked it out of my mind,” Henderson said of the moment, which saw Jack undress while donning a cowboy hat. “It was one of the most excruciating moments of my life, let alone my career.”
All jokes aside, Henderson wanted to ensure the scene felt authentic to who Jack was as a character – which is why he declined the option of having a professional block the dance and instead leaned into his own creative freedom.
‘They offered, ‘Do you want to choreograph it?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, yes, I do. I definitely need help.’ But then I was getting close to going to the first meeting and I thought about it. I thought, ‘Hang on, this is going to look really weird. Jack Sheridan, the Marine, bar owner from Virgin River has just come out in a sort Magic Mikeperfectly choreographed swinging? It’s just going to look comical. It will look silly.’ So I said, ‘You know what? No, forget it. Just play the song.”
What came out of that decision was an instant fan-favorite moment and highlight of the entire six seasons, which Henderson described as an attempt by Jack to “entertain his drunken fiance” after she stripped bare for her bachelorette party . Luckily for Henderson, Breckenridge was the perfect stage partner to help him feel comfortable being so vulnerable — especially when the production had to cut the music mid-take.
“There was a little bit of dialogue, unfortunately, kind of interlaced between the lines. So to get the sound for her lines and my lines, we couldn’t play music,” he shared Us. “It was so embarrassing. I was about to die. There is no music, there is no beat. I’m just doing this ridiculous dance. But I will say, Alexandra Breckenridge was so kind and present and she played it to me with just such joy and fun,” he said. “And that’s why I think ultimately I decided, ‘This should just be the two of them really enjoying each other.'”
The wedding (and bachelor/bachelorette mayhem) was undoubtedly the highlight of season 6, but Mel and Jack were also on their own respective journeys. Breckenridge was particularly invested in Mel’s history with her biological father, Everett (John Allen Nelson), with whom she reconnected at the end of season 5. The two spend Virgin River season 6 get to know each other while also bonding over their mutual love for Mel’s mother, Sarah, who died when she was 11 years old.
“I thought it was really touching, especially because I know what it’s like to lose your mother,” said Breckenridge, whose own mother died. Us. “So I was very quickly connected on that level. I have always been to [Mel]but what she goes through emotionally in finding her father and being able to get this insight into what her mother was like [was special].”
Although Mel and Everett experienced a few bumps in the road as they tried to find their new normal, their dynamic quickly developed throughout the season, and it’s something that Breckenridge looks forward to continuing with Season 7.
“‘I’m very curious to see where it goes,'” she told Us. “I love how Mel tries to open up about her relationship with her dad and he keeps trying to push her away because I think he doesn’t want to experience the loss again. You know, a lot of times people who lose people, afraid to love someone again because they’re afraid they’ll go through that pain. But you can’t live without it, you know? It’s not a life if you don’t love again.”
As Mel continued to navigate his new relationship with his father, Jack was also on his own personal journey, one that Henderson believes was about making “peace and coming to terms with what his military background meant to him at the time, but also what it means that him now.”
“We saw him struggle with that when he had to reconnect with his ex-wife. And the medal that’s given to him, he’s almost contemptuous of it and shying away from the idea that it was a good thing,” he explained. And he’s kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater because there’s so much pain and regret about some of the things that happened.”
Henderson noted that Jack was also forced to balance his own negative feelings about his time in the army while also supporting Ricky (Grayson Maxwell Gurnsey), which returned to Virgin River before being deployed. “Jack is trying to stay the course and stay supportive and not undermine this poor kid. [Ricky’s] already got his own insecurities and his fears, and Jack tries to say, ‘Hey, it’s okay. I was scared too.’ And there’s a gray area around that, and Jack, emotionally, and he doesn’t know how to feel.”
Both Mel and Jack’s individual storylines will likely continue into Season 7, but the duo will also face plenty of other obstacles together. In the final moments of Season 6, the duo were both entrenched in cliffhangers, with pregnant teenager Marley (Rachel Drance) announces that she wants Mel and Jack to adopt her unborn baby. Jack, meanwhile, went over to check on a missing Charmaine (Lauren Hammersley) and found her home ransacked before opening her twin children’s bedroom and discovering something shocking — a revelation that audiences have yet to see.
Mel and Jack have of course wanted a child together for a while, but after Mel experienced her second pregnancy loss in Virgin River season 5, their future as parents has been up in the air. However, season 7 could mean big changes for the newly married duo.
“Jack is still kind of holding on to this family that he wants and is pretty eager and eager to know where it’s going to go,” Henderson shared, while Breckenridge teased that there are a million thoughts going through Mel’s head – but that doesn’t mean. she is closed to the idea.
“She’s like in complete shock,” she explained. “I mean, she just got married. This is literally the morning after she wakes up and she’s in shock. And then there’s kind of that hope that starts to creep in. We’ll see. I don’t know. “
Virgin River now streaming on Netflix.