When Brie (Zibby Allen) hears the news, she declares, “I never liked her.” Same,

sis. And despite his assurances to Mel (Alexandra Breckinridge), Jack’s not handling

the news well. Mel’s dealing with her own stress and decides to step away from her

job at the clinic because of her high-risk pregnancy. Cameron (Mark Ghanimé) offers to leave — remember, he awkwardly hit on her last season — but she insists that she’s the one to go. This leaves Doc (Tim Matheson) alone with his failing eyesight and his concerns about how well Cameron fits into the practice. At least his grandson Denny’s (Kai Bradbury) fitting better into Doc’s home life after opening up about his terminal Huntington’s Disease diagnosis. Denny also apologizes to Lizzie (Sarah Dugdale) for being secretive about it for so long, and the two get back together. Lizzie’s working as Hope’s (Annette O’Toole) post-TBI home health aid and takes all of Hope’s prickly Hope-ness in stride, even when Hope learns that her alleged friend Muriel (Teryl Rothery) is helping prepare a no-confidence vote against her mayorship.

It’s the closest betrayals you never see coming. Speaking of keeping the people you love in the dark, Brie’s still seeing Brady (Benjamin Hollingsworth), and Brady’s still working for Melissa Montgomery (Barbara Pollard), who’s forcing him to help run fentanyl through the lumber yard after Calvin, her former CFO of drug smuggling, died in a boat explosion. Melissa keeps Brady under her thumb by reminding him that bad things will happen to Brie if he doesn’t obey, and she uses Jack’s friendship with her brother Nick (Keith MacKechnie) to invest in his new glamping business to launder all that money. But the fentanyl makes it onto the town radar when tow-truck driver Bert (Trevor Lerner) stops to help one of Melissa’s henchmen (Darcy Laurie) fix a flat and cuts himself trying to reach the spare tire where the fentanyl’s hidden.

Before long, Bert’s at the clinic with wooziness and pinpoint pupils, and Doc suggests accidental fentanyl exposure. Public health and safety message! While fentanyl can affect a person if it gets into an open wound like Bert’s, it can’t be absorbed through the skin, and inhaling it on accident generally won’t cause an overdose. Accidental fentanyl exposure’s just not as common as police reports and the news make it sound. Cameron, meanwhile, is right that you can’t ever really know if another person uses drugs. But he’s wrong to get snippy when Doc asks him to make coffee now that Mel’s gone. Next, we left Preacher (Colin Lawrence) last season fighting off Vince (Steve Bacic), who’s big mad that Paige (Lexa Doig) killed his brother in self-defense. Thankfully, Mike (Marco Grazzini) shows up to arrest Vince for getting all violent and kidnappy and for being the mystery man who shot Jack last season.

Better luck not having an abuser for a brother next time, Vince! Assuming he and Paige are headed for a happy ever after, Preacher ends things with the very nice Julia (Lawrence’s real-life wife, Lucia Walters). But Paige and her son want to leave the town and all its bad memories, so Preacher sadly bids them farewell. I bet he’s wishing he hadn’t ended things with Julia quiiiiite so quickly now. Wanting to learn how to hand-make baby clothes like her mom did, Mel joins the town sewing circle, where she’s introduced to the late Lilly’s daughter Ava (Libby Osler), who’s reluctantly back in town and coping by wearing an aggressively wide-brimmed fedora. By the end of the episode, Mel — who escaped to Virgin River — is having dinner with Ava — who escaped from Virgin River — when Ava dramatically collapses. Was it toxic hat exposure?

Brie also has a scary night when someone tosses a rock through the front door of her new apartment. She assumes it’s because she’s going to testify in her ex-boyfriend’s rape trial, but Brady has a different list of suspects. Jack, meanwhile, has been stewing about Charmaine’s duplicity for the whole episode and angrily shows up at her house to talk. If that woman turns up dead, we’ll all be forced to testify against him. I mean, did you see the murderous look on his face? Episode 2: “Songbird” To no one’s surprise, Charmaine survives her talk with Jack, although he refuses to accept her apology for humiliating him and breaking his heart. (Funny, that’s how she felt as she watched him fall in love with Mel.) She says the real father was a one-time thing and Jack was her best option to give the twins a good life. Ma’am. Setting all emotional and ethical considerations aside, it costs approximately $400,000 to raise a child to the age of 18 in California, and we’re talking about two of them here. And you’re all la la la forgive me??

Jack cools off by hiking to Angel’s Peak with Brie, who finally tells him that she’s a rape survivor. He offers to be in court when she testifies, but she doesn’t want that big brother protectiveness. Besides, Brady’s coming with her. Jack doesn’t love it but agrees to give Brady another chance at dinner that night. When he blames Charmaine for keeping him too busy to realize what was happening with Brie, Mel gently suggests that he might actually owe Charmaine an apology for leading her on for years. After a pep talk from Doc, Charmaine swings by the cabin to apologize to Mel, and Jack asks for forgiveness too. Charmaine vows to build the life she always wanted and leaves with more optimism than we’ve ever seen from her. I entreat you, oh god of vexing side characters, please let this be the last we see of Charmaine. (The god of vexing side characters is, of course, Ellis.) Mel’s new friend Ava collapsed from endometriosis, which has been painful for so long that her doctor recommends a hysterectomy.

But Ava abruptly ends the conversation when Mel pushes her to make a treatment plan. Listen, I hate that Hope has a TBI, but it’s almost refreshing to have a woman in Virgin River dealing with a medical issue that isn’t unique to people with uteruses. The CDC might want to investigate why the area’s per capita incidence of pregnancy/fertility/reproductive system issues is the highest in the known universe. Mel eventually apologizes for overstepping, and she and Ava share emotional stories about losing their mothers to cancer and how hard it is to face the thought of motherhood without them. In fact, her mom’s been on Mel’s mind a lot and gives the episode its name; Songbird, about loving someone after they’re gone, was her mother’s favorite song. Mel tells Jack that her mother miscarried a child named Chloe, which is why she gave Lilly’s daughter that name in season 1.

Further, her mother’s death sparked Mel’s desire to work in the medical field, and she’s worried that stepping away from the clinic will weaken that connection. No surprise, the clinic’s struggling a bit in Mel’s absence. Cameron doesn’t know how to file insurance claims online, and Doc barks at him to figure it out. (Fellow educators, did you groan and nod vigorously at that familiar advice?) Muriel finds Cameron moping and urges him to show Doc a little backbone. Um, how ’bout you show Doc a little initiative and step it up around the office now that you’re down a person? Although I didn’t think Doc’s been particularly patronizing, Cameron asks to be treated like the grown-up professional man that he is, and Doc agrees. Hopefully this gets them on a better path. It helps that Muriel comes on board part-time to take care of the filing, make the coffee — and engage in surprisingly playful banter with Cameron.

Now that Paige is gone, Preacher’s putting all his focus on making elevated comfort food using his mom’s recipes the way he used to in Iraq. (I would pay so much money to DoorDash for a serving of his blue-crab mac and cheese right now.) While he cooks, the radio mentions a wildfire that’s spreading nearby, but I’m sure there’s no reason to be concerned about that. *nervous laugh* Hope’s solely focused on stopping the “ludicrous power grab” no-confidence vote and plans to deliver a speech affirming her governing abilities. She tells Lizzie and Denny that she’s the town’s first and only mayor, and it’s the one part of her identity that her TBI didn’t touch. The teenagers agree that this should be her speech, and she delivers it with passion at the opening of Lilly’s memorial garden, talking about what makes the town special and how much she still has to give. Alas, it’s not enough; she’s voted out by everyone but Muriel. At the lumber yard, Melissa forces Brady to add his friend Jeb (Sandy Robson) to the secret fentanyl crew. Brady tries to warn him off, but Jeb wants the extra money for his family. When Brie texts to ask about having dinner with Jack that night, Jeb offers to cover the lumber/drug shift. Brady gladly accepts.