Virgin River Season 2 ends with a massive cliffhanger, as Jack (played by Martin Henderson) is shot just after he finally confesses his love to Mel (Alexandra Breckenridge). Per the show’s creator, the mystery of who shot Jack will be central to Season 3, which has not been officially confirmed by Netflix but is rumored to have already started filming. Though the new season is still a while away, this does not mean that fans have not been speculating about who the shooter is.
Leading the speculations is Henderson himself, who has some ideas about who it was who left his character bleeding out of the floor of his bar.
The actor told TVLine, “I always joke that it’s most likely Charmaine. It does pop into your mind!”
Charmaine (Lauren Hammersley) does have a motive. After all, she was last seen in Virgin River being rejected by Jack, and her impulsive behavior has given other characters cause for concern across the series. However, could she really be willing to kill the father of her children, in an act that might also send her to prison and her children into care?
Of course, as in any good murder mystery, there are plenty of suspects that will keep fans speculating throughout Season 3. Jimmy (Ian Tracey), for example, literally threatened to “put a bullet right between [Jack’s] eyes” earlier in the Netflix show.

Other suspects include Brady (Benjamin Hollingsworth), whose relationship with Jack has soured somewhat, or Calvin (David Cubitt), whose fentanyl business plan was ruined by the character who later ended up being shot, and may have already tried to poison him. Of course, if it was Calvin, he probably sent someone to do it instead of getting his own hands dirty, meaning we could be looking for a second person in the conspiracy.
Either way, showrunner Sue Tenney has told Virgin River fans to expect the unexpected. She told Parade, “the only thing I can say is that not everything is as it seems.”
One thing we do know, however, is that Jack is very likely to survive the shooting unless the show is about to take a massive departure from the books and end the Jack and Mel love story before it is really begun—something that is not likely to please fans of the Netflix series and the 30-plus books it is based on.
“If you have read the books, we all know that Jack and Mel are destined to be together,” Tenney told Parade. And since Mel is a nurse, she should be able to keep him alive until medics arrive—and by extension keep the love at the heart of Virgin River alive.
Virgin River Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming now on Netflix.