two individuals standing close together in a cozy indoor setting
Courtesy of Netflix

Two very familiar faces are saying goodbye to Virgin River.

According to Deadline, Lauren Hammersley, who has played Charmaine since the very beginning, and Marco Grazzini, who joined as Mike in season 2 and later became a series regular, will not return for season 8. Showrunner Patrick Sean Smith told the outlet that Mike is “not coming back for Season 8,” and also said there are currently “no plans for Charmaine to be back in Season 8,” though he left the door open for both characters to return later on.

This is definitely a big shift for longtime fans, especially because Virgin River doesn’t exactly cycle through cast members at a breakneck pace! One of the things people love about this show is that the town really does start to feel like a town. Everybody has history, everybody has baggage, and somehow everybody keeps winding up at Jack’s bar to talk about it. So when two characters who have been part of the fabric for this long step away at the same time, you feel it.

Netflix/Virgin River

Mike’s exit makes a certain amount of story sense, even if we are still a little sad about it. (Spoilers ahead!) Season 7 left him in a very different place after Brie turned down his proposal and found her way back to Brady. By the finale, Mike was reconnecting with Victoria, which gives his story a natural pause point for now. Charmaine’s situation feels a little more classic Virgin River: dramatic, messy, and never quite over until it is really over. She was missing through much of season 7 before being found and Smith told Deadline he would like to bring her back someday for something “other than more cliffhangers and more lies on pregnancies.” (Which, honestly, made us laugh because… fair enough!)

Virgin River/Netflix

The encouraging part is that this doesn’t sound like a hard goodbye forever. It sounds more like Virgin River doing what Virgin River always does: shifting the focus, making room for new stories, and leaving *just enough* of the door cracked open that someone could wander back through it later. And around here, people do have a way of coming back!

And, as we all know, Season 8 is already confirmed—so the town is carrying on. It just might look a little different when we get there!