Virgin River is getting some fresh faces in Season 8—and one of them sounds like he could cause a little stir around town!
Deadline reports that Mitchell Slaggert is joining the Netflix drama in a major recurring role as Eddie, a new EMT headed for our favorite fictional locale. He’s described as charming and easygoing, with the kind of personality that might heal a heart just as easily as a scraped knee. (Which, around here, is a very useful skill. Everybody in this town could use a little emotional first aid now and then!)
And if you watched Landman, this is probably where you’ll start pointing at the screen. Slaggert plays Ryder Sampson, the football player who catches the eye of Tommy Norris’s daughter, Ainsley. He also starred opposite Sasha Pieterse in the Lifetime movie A Carpenter Christmas Romance, playing a woodworker who reconnects with a novelist while helping rebuild their small town after a fire. So between an oil-country drama and a good old-fashioned holiday romance, he should be plenty ready for whatever Virgin River throws his way!
And Eddie isn’t the only newcomer we’ll be meeting. According to TV Line, Natasha Calis is also joining season 8 as Astrid, a surgical resident who winds up at Doc’s clinic after being mysteriously placed on probation. She’s not exactly thrilled about her new assignment and would much rather be back in a surgical wing than making herself at home in Virgin River, which probably means Doc is about to have his hands full again.
Then again, when does he not?
The timing of these new characters is interesting because season 7 ended with plenty happening on the medical front. Doc had just been through a fight over his license, Grace Valley Hospital was making moves in town, and Mel and Jack’s adoption joy turned scary when Marley’s baby needed to be rushed to the NICU after birth. The final episode also left Brady in serious danger after a motorcycle crash, so it’s not hard to imagine a new EMT getting pulled into the drama right away.
All that said, nothing has been confirmed (yet!) about how Eddie or Astrid will fit into everyone’s story. Eddie could end up working near Mel, Doc, Kaia, or Brady if that crash carries into the new season. Astrid, meanwhile, sounds like she could bring a very different energy to Doc’s clinic. A young doctor who doesn’t want to be in Virgin River is basically begging for Doc to give her one of his patient (albeit grumbly) life lessons.
Netflix hasn’t announced a release date for season 8, but the show is officially filming again in Vancouver. And according to a few recent Instagram posts, Alexandra Breckenridge and Martin Henderson are back on set together—which means Mel and Jack are back where they belong!
After all the heartbreak and cliffhangers season 7 left behind, it makes sense that Virgin River would bring in a few people who know what to do in a crisis. Of course, this is still Virgin River, so they’ll probably bring a few problems of their own, too. Never a dull moment, right?!