‘Virgin River’ still holds the record for TV’s longest pregnancy thanks to Charmaine’s twins

If you, like me, spent your weekend binge-watching season five of Netflix’s big hit, “Virgin River,” then this is the place for you.

Raise your hand if, after watching “Virgin River” season 5, you asked yourself, “Wait, has Charmaine really been pregnant since season one?” The answer to that would be yes. Yes, she has. And if you thought shew as giving birth in season 5, well, think again!

Related: ‘Virgin River’ is everyone’s favorite cozy binge

But first, let’s back up a bit and get our bearings.

The series is based on the expansive romance book series by author Robyn Carr, which also tracks as to why we love it so much: romance. Today’s entertainment is seriously lacking in the rom-com charm of yesteryear, and, frankly, audiences are starved for it.

“Virgin River” mostly follows the story of Mel Monroe (Alexandra Breckenridge), a nurse practitioner and midwife who leaves life in the big city after the death of her husband. She decides to start over in a charming, idyllic small town (big Hallmark vibes, right?) in a small practice in Virgin River. Her new boss, Doc Mullins, is reluctant toward her at first, but eventually, the two have a really sweet friendship (as Mel does with many other very memorable supporting characters).

But it’s Mel’s relationship with Jack (Martin Henderson)—the owner of Jack’s, natch—that will keep you pressing “Next Episode” over and over again. He’s handsome, a little broody, very into Mel, and has the best head of hair a man has had since Patrick Dempsey’s “Grey’s Anatomy” days. (You just want to run your fingers through it, sorry not sorry.)

Related: Alexandra Breckenridge says she felt “lied to” about water births

What separates it from the vanilla plots of the Hallmark Channel: it’s sexy and there’s a little dash of crime and violence. And relationship drama, drama, drama. Cue: Charmaine. Jack and Charmaine had a little situationship going on before Mel came into town, and it ended with Charmaine being single and pregnant with (or so we thought) Jack’s twins.

That little cliffhanger of information happened in season one. IT IS NOW SEASON FOUR. AND CHARMAINE IS STILL PREGNANT. And even crazier still—she’s apparently only five months pregnant at the end of season four!

Here’s what that means: everything that’s taken place in the four seasons of the show has taken place within four or five months. As in, Jack broke things off with Charmaine, began seeing Mel, got shot, recovered from getting shot, broke up with Mel, Mel somehow completed a round of IVF and had her embryos with Mark implanted, Jack reunited with Mel, she’s eight weeks pregnant in season four, and now Jack and Mel are engaged.

In the span of maybe five months, tops. And that doesn’t even include the side plots—Lilly’s death, Paige and Christopher and Preacher and all the murder and kidnapping, Brady and Brie falling in love, Brady getting arrested, indicted, convicted, sentenced, and then released, Hope and Doc rekindling their marriage, etc. And all the depressing disease diagnoses, because it seems like the water there in Virgin River is toxic enough to give almost every member of the entire town a horrible medical fate.

Virgin River is wild, y’all. And the fans are here for it—hilariously here for it.

Last year, Alexandra Breckenridge recently admitted to “Glamour” that the show moves at a snail’s pace. (And yet somehow so many things keep happening).

“Things move slowly in Virgin River,” she said. “I think Mel’s only been in Virgin River for maybe four months. “It’s a hundred and some odd days; there’s a chart for it. She’s only nine weeks pregnant at this point, and Charmaine is like five months, apparently.”

There are still two more episodes of season 5 (both special holiday episodes) to come this year, so perhaps time will speed up a bit? I mean, at least we know who the father of the twins is (spoiler alert: it’s definitely not Jack, as we learned at the end of season four). So that’s…something?

“It’s going to be complicated,” Virgin River director Gail Harvey tells EW. “That’s probably something that we’ll get into more in season 6. That’s what I love about Virgin River. It’s all the twists and turns.”