Kandyse McClure on Kaia’s Season 7 Slump and Why ‘Virgin River’ Season 8 Starts “With a Bang”

Picture Credit: Netflix

As Virgin River navigates its seventh season, the suppose has passed thru a refined but tonal shift. Whereas Mel and Jack dwell the sequence’ anchors, there is a sure freshness blowing thru the leisure of the ensemble. The emotional heavy lifting this 365 days has largely fallen to the “outsiders,” and chief among them is Kaia Bryant, performed with a simmering, restless energy by Kandyse McClure.

In a season outlined by the aftermath of the Yosemite wildfires and the creeping menace of domesticity, McClure’s Kaia has develop into the suppose’s most charming psychological request. We sat down with McClure to explain about Kaia’s “adrenaline addiction,” her surprising confidant in Brady, and why a stitching circle, not a romantic great gesture, used to be the turning point for the persona’s soul.

In particular person, McClure is a miles enlighten from the guarded “lone wolf” she portrays. Met with a literal rain of sunshine and infectious laughter, the actress is in all probability the most accommodating and easygoing interviewee in the replace. Whether or not she is joking a pair of creator’s cameo or candidly showing off a “boobies” mug talented by Richard Keith’s wife, her warmth is the engine that drives our deep dive into the “no-BS” friendship and identity disaster that outlined Season 7.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Kaia has spent her life being outlined by movement and urgency. Did you and the writers discuss what it scheme for somebody love that to manufacture an identity in “traditional time,” in Virgin River slowness?

That’s precisely the placement she has this season. There could be that this peace, this sense of attach, and this restful that she didn’t seek data from to search out in her relationship with Preacher and in the neighborhood. This is what she runs up in opposition to: a loss of self. Where attain I attach myself? As she sees Preacher rising and his world rising while her world feels uncover it irresistible’s shy, that’s the placement.

She spends so mighty of the season asking who she is when there are no fires to fight. Did you seek for that as a professional disaster, an emotional one, or even an existential one?

My first instinct is to claim existential. “Where am I in the arena?” She has this line she says to Brady: “If I wasn’t right here, who used to be I? If I wasn’t working true into a fireplace, what particular person am I?” But then there’s this various basically crucial 2d the attach she identifies that right here’s one thing she stale to realize with Jay (her ex-husband), that it used to be piece of her previous. That life-and-demise 2d basically locations things in point of view for her.

This season made me stammer so much about addiction, not in the same outdated sense, but an addiction to adrenaline and being wished in disaster. Develop into that piece of the reach you understood her?

Completely. An adrenaline flee is strictly that, a flee of chemical substances, and that sense of feeling alive. I feel it’s piece of the maturity we seek for Kaia struggle thru this season; she acknowledges that as a crutch, and it’s retaining her from basically incandescent herself more. I feel about there are components of you that you simply’ll most attention-grabbing be taught in a relationship. It’s straightforward when you’re by yourself. But when it be a must to barter somebody else’s feelings and dreams and moods, that’s a various muscle. I seek for her taking that intensity and refocusing it into her relationship.

Virgin River S7. Kandyse McClure as Kaia Bryant in Episode #706 of Virgin River S7. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

The friendship between Kaia and Brady is one thing we didn’t know we wished for Season 7. They’re both other folks with restless instincts. What did you acquire most revealing about Kaia thru her scenes with him?

I handle it. I handle the illustration of male-feminine relationships the attach we are in a position to even be pals, and there is mutual appreciate. I handle that they provide each various a vivid slate and basically no-BS interactions. You’ve got two characters who both feel deeply unsuitable and are searching out one thing, they veritably meet on the an identical stage.

Furthermore they’re both outsiders when compared to the leisure of the neighborhood.

Exactly that. I handle that they redeem each various because others seek for them in a different intention afterward. Love, “Oh yeah, Brady’s pals with Kaia… per chance she does belong right here.” I basically revel in working with Ben Hollingsworth. We’re both intense other folks; he’s continuously fascinated by the work and the scene. I do know once I possess scenes with him, he’s coming in with tips. And I handle that I acquire to tease him. I love to call him “cadet” the whole time. He hates it.

Kaia doesn’t reject neighborhood, but she almost looks suspicious of the necessity for it. Develop into that one thing you consciously performed?

She describes herself as this form of lone wolf, but that continuously comes from a attach of hysteria. Any individual who’s hyper-vigilant and hyper-neutral realized that somewhere; they realized they couldn’t count upon various other folks. Slightly a few her healing in Virgin River is about being ready to belief. Brady for sure does that for her. Preacher, too, but also the stitching circle.

That’s attention-grabbing because her emotional shift looks to advance not in a romantic scene but in hearing the voices of the stitching circle and realizing that other folks are expecting her befriend home. Why attain you concentrate on that 2d hits her so arduous?

It’s a job of family. She’s witnessed the stitching circle rally spherical various members, Muriel with her cancer, Mel with the diminutive one. They relish so mighty of Virgin River’s history and records. Being accredited by them feels love being accredited by all people.

What attain you concentrate on Kaia sees in Preacher that makes stillness feel imaginable for her?

He’s staunch so standard. He’s the look of the storm. It’s building that belief that nothing she can attain, be, or explain will knock him off that attach. Not that he doesn’t feel the leisure, but that he reaches for her first. I feel that’s a actually relatable dynamic in a relationship.

Virgin River S7.Kandyse McClure as Kaia Bryant in Episode #710 of Virgin River S7. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

Develop into there a 2d this season the attach you felt Kaia used to be basically the most emotionally uncovered, and it wasn’t basically a “loud” script 2d?

There possess been quieter moments. Even supposing the dinner with Jamie and that whole jealousy piece is comedic, there is that 2d the attach she asks them about their relationship, and you seek for this seen tumble of how infamous she bought it. I acknowledged to the writers early on: Kaia would not ask for forgiveness for the leisure. She’s not an particular person that will exercise that phrase offhandedly. So, when she apologizes, she basically scheme it. It used to be this mixture of embarrassment and a loss of one thing. Even that replace when she sees Brady and he checks on her… that’s when she realizes, “Yeah, per chance I don’t know Preacher along with I believed I did.”

Each time the sequence indirectly reaches its conclusion, what’s the “stop explain” you envision for Kaia?

I seek for her life in Virgin River. I seek for it rising, the fire department, working more carefully now with Grace Valley. There’s one thing about that depth and turning into an increasingly rooted piece of this neighborhood. But I feel we’ve to return first. I’d deserve to look more of the attach she came from to realize the attach she’s going. How attain you stop up in the Woodland Fireplace Service? You’ve got to be working away from one thing.

Everyone knows you birth Season 8 manufacturing quickly. What can you share about what’s subsequent for Kaia?

We did acquire the necessary two scripts. It begins off with a bang. I’m not basically sure how mighty the time jump is, then again it does keep us shimmering in the center of the movement. The starting of the season locations us smack bang in it, and things are taking place very, in a transient time. There’s different setup in these first two episodes.

Virgin River S7. (L to R) Kandyse McClure as Kaia Bryant and Alexandra Breckenridge as Melinda Monroe in Episode #702 of Virgin River S7. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

Beyond the suppose, you’ve been very packed with life on the befriend of the scenes in the film neighborhood. What are you engaged on for the time being?

Virgin River is totally my focal point for the time being, and of route, I’m going to Los Angeles on the stop of March to augment Zibby Allen’s Hollywood Flee. But most of the various work I’ve been doing has been moderately local. I sit on the board of a pair of film festivals, a South African one and my local neighborhood competition.

I’ve been doing more speaking and discovering ways of uplifting local movies, both right here in Vancouver and in South Africa. It’s been a season of learning, learning more about producing and getting basically, basically say about Kaia.