S1E1: Coming Home (2007)
Canada's longest-running 1-hour TV show begins in tremendous uncertainty. Two generations of Flemings, mother Marion and younger daughter Amy launch a secret nocturnal rescue mission to bring a black warmblood to safety, out of the abusive grip of the almost always drunk Mr. Mallen. Guided only by the moonlight of the clear Alberta sky, the pair make their way up the ridge toward Mallen's Farm, and there they find the jumper just as they had been tipped off. Filled with the hope that they can make his life infinitely better than it was with Mallen, the new trio begin to make their way back home. But tragedy strikes on the way as Marion loses control of the truck in a violent storm full of thunder, wind, and rain.
Having lost many people whom I love, I can have a true appreciation for the tragedy of the moment of the accident. I choose to interpret what follows the accident as essentially a prefigurement of things to come in later seasons-- that is, the premiere turns Amy into a sort of Phoenix, the mythical firebird which, consumed by the tragedy of Fire, defeats it and rises up stronger still.
That we do not get to see Amy and Marion's relationship develop in real time is certainly something that I think a lot of fans would have wanted. From this point on, any appearance of Marion will be as a flashback. The unfortunate truth of the accident is that Jack lost his daughter and that Amy lost her mother. But good certainly did come out of the accident, since it was because of the accident that Amy truly discovered her gift, one she shared with her mother.
Amy had been 15, almost 16, at the time of the rescue mission. Now missing her mother, and with only her mother's journals to help her, Amy must work quickly to save Spartan, the horse which they had rescued, from being put down because he was so traumatized by the accident which Amy didn't even remember. Scott Cardinal, the Heartland family vet, and Amy's grandfather Jack Bartlett struggle to see in Spartan what she sees in him. But as she will time and time again, Amy's love and tenacity wins over the opposition of even the family vet and of her grandfather, a legend on the local rodeo circuit.
In the almost 16 years in which they were together, the mother-daughter pair of Marion and Amy surely shared many experiences in the discipline of natural horsemanship. This technique, which is completely real and is not just an invention of the show for the drama, focuses on being gentle and loving and understanding with the animals, with the trainer's purpose essentially being to learn how to think like the animal, and then to communicate with the animal in a way that it understands, thus forming an unbreakable bond between horse and rider.
The cornerstone of natural horsemanship, of the episode, end of the show in general is a technique known as the "join up." Granted, there is some dramatic camera work and extra B-roll footage put into the show to not resolve the tension of the scene too early, but in general, the way to join up is executed in the show is exactly the way it would be done in the real world.
Horses are prey animals with a natural herd hierarchy and these or the two premises make the join-up work. The trainer in the center of the ring establishes themselves as the leader of the pack, which for the purpose of the join-up exercise only contains two members, the trainer and the horse. The trainer then sends the horse out to the edge of the ring out to a canter. Asking for the canter activates both the prey instincts and the hierarchical instincts. The goal of the join-up is to tire out the prey instincts which are naturally to flee from an aggressor or unknown leader, the position from which the trainer begins the exercise. But as the exercise continues, the animal in the ring becomes more and more familiar with the trainer in the center and more and more willing to accept that trainer as the leader of the herd. Herds naturally want to stay as close together as possible; not doing so dramatically increases the odds that any one animal will not survive. So, by being told where to go in this made up prey scenario with a newfound leader in the human, the horse gradually gains more and more trust in the human, since wherever the human is leading it (in the case of the exercise, in circles around a pen) is either no closer to or is actually farther away from the source of the danger.
In giving this new trust to its human over a few miles of cantering around a pen, the horse forms a lifelong bond. Trainers should look for several signs that the horse is ready to join up. The most obvious is that instead of keeping the radius of the circle constant, all the way to the outside of the pen, as the horse gains the trainer's trust, the radius will shrink, and the circles will gradually approach the trainer in the center. At the same time, the horse will lower its neck thus putting itself in a position of vulnerability to the world and trust in its leader, and it will begin to lick its lips, a common sign that they are relaxed.
Once all of these signs are present, the human trainer should remove any pressure applied to the horse to go forward, turn away, and put any aids that might have been used on the ground. The horse will understand this complete release of pressure as an invitation close this circle to its minimum, that is, to come as close as possible to the trainer, showing complete trust in the trainer and completing the moment of join up. Given how Spartan had been so thoroughly traumatized by Mr. Mallen and by the aftermath of the accident, it is nothing short of a miracle that without the assistance of her mother, Amy was able to form this unbreakable bond so quickly with Spartan.
During the same episode, we meet Amy's slightly older sister, the Ivy League-educated MBA-holder, Lou, who had left the quiet Canadian countryside several years before pursuing her big dreams in business on Wall Street. From the moment we are introduced to both sisters, they clash in part because of how Type A Lou is revealed to be. Having realized that her mother wasn’t too keen on paying bills—on time, or at all—Lou decides to put her business acumen to good use in the Western Canadian countryside by calling in a few favors from former classmates of hers who now happen to be the ones who will decide the fate of her family’s land and way of life. As we will see in future episodes and future seasons, Lou's relationship with her sister will change, but her Type A personality will not, and its permanence will bring her great success.
Lou meets her father, Tim, also a local legend of the rodeo like his ex-father-in-law Jack in this episode for the first time in at least a decade. Having suffered a terrible accident well before the beginning of the plot of the show, Tim turned to alcohol and drank away his marriage with Marion, which before the accident had been a very happy one, and thus had soured his relationship with Jack. In the wake of her mother's death, Lou attempts to rekindle a relationship with her father and attempts to reconcile her father and her grandfather, while attempting to judge whether her sister, who was very young when their father left and who is still technically a minor, is ready to see him again.
The local police department has a program for the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents, and Marion Fleming had previously agreed to sponsor one of those delinquents, an accomplice to several crimes by the name of Ty Borden. 17-year-old tie arrives at Heartland just as the Fleming family is reeling from Marion's death, and whether he can stay on the ranch or not comes into question, since Marion, and not another member of the family, had been his sponsor and had been the one who agreed to let him stay. After meeting Amy under rather unfortunate circumstances, almost causing a second accident, and after being told by Jack that any part of his body which comes any closer than 10 ft to Amy or Lou will be removed and that if it were Jack’s decision, Ty would be “kicked so far down the road, he’d be crapping in Montana,” Ty is finally welcomed into the fold, albeit cautiously.
We also meet for the first time two of Amy’s friends and two of her enemies—at least for a time. Soraya Duval is Amy’s best friend, and she works with her mother running Maggie’s, the historic diner-feed store established more than 100 years before the plot of the show begins. Mallory Wells is a slightly younger neighbor with a loving heart but also a well-deserved reputation as someone who, at least in her pre-teen and early teen years, is incessantly talkative.
The Stanton family is set up in direct opposition to the Flemings, although they are quite deeply interconnected. Val Stanton is a very rich former jumper herself, who now owns a boarding, breeding, and training operation, Briar Ridge, which is close to, but much larger than, Heartland. Jesse Stanton, Val’s son, though only for this episode, is dating Amy, while Jesse’s sister Ashley constantly bullies Amy and Soraya for their close friendship, and the Flemings for not being as well-off as her, deriding them and their way of life as living in the “Poverty Barn.”
Hope turns to tragedy and back again in this episode, and in that sense, this episode is representative of each other individual episodes and the series generally. Produced and aired originally in 2007, Coming Home is a wonderful beginning to Canada’s greatest TV hit.
Having lost many people whom I love, I can have a true appreciation for the tragedy of the moment of the accident. I choose to interpret what follows the accident as essentially a prefigurement of things to come in later seasons-- that is, the premiere turns Amy into a sort of Phoenix, the mythical firebird which, consumed by the tragedy of Fire, defeats it and rises up stronger still.
That we do not get to see Amy and Marion's relationship develop in real time is certainly something that I think a lot of fans would have wanted. From this point on, any appearance of Marion will be as a flashback. The unfortunate truth of the accident is that Jack lost his daughter and that Amy lost her mother. But good certainly did come out of the accident, since it was because of the accident that Amy truly discovered her gift, one she shared with her mother.
Amy had been 15, almost 16, at the time of the rescue mission. Now missing her mother, and with only her mother's journals to help her, Amy must work quickly to save Spartan, the horse which they had rescued, from being put down because he was so traumatized by the accident which Amy didn't even remember. Scott Cardinal, the Heartland family vet, and Amy's grandfather Jack Bartlett struggle to see in Spartan what she sees in him. But as she will time and time again, Amy's love and tenacity wins over the opposition of even the family vet and of her grandfather, a legend on the local rodeo circuit.
In the almost 16 years in which they were together, the mother-daughter pair of Marion and Amy surely shared many experiences in the discipline of natural horsemanship. This technique, which is completely real and is not just an invention of the show for the drama, focuses on being gentle and loving and understanding with the animals, with the trainer's purpose essentially being to learn how to think like the animal, and then to communicate with the animal in a way that it understands, thus forming an unbreakable bond between horse and rider.
The cornerstone of natural horsemanship, of the episode, end of the show in general is a technique known as the "join up." Granted, there is some dramatic camera work and extra B-roll footage put into the show to not resolve the tension of the scene too early, but in general, the way to join up is executed in the show is exactly the way it would be done in the real world.
Horses are prey animals with a natural herd hierarchy and these or the two premises make the join-up work. The trainer in the center of the ring establishes themselves as the leader of the pack, which for the purpose of the join-up exercise only contains two members, the trainer and the horse. The trainer then sends the horse out to the edge of the ring out to a canter. Asking for the canter activates both the prey instincts and the hierarchical instincts. The goal of the join-up is to tire out the prey instincts which are naturally to flee from an aggressor or unknown leader, the position from which the trainer begins the exercise. But as the exercise continues, the animal in the ring becomes more and more familiar with the trainer in the center and more and more willing to accept that trainer as the leader of the herd. Herds naturally want to stay as close together as possible; not doing so dramatically increases the odds that any one animal will not survive. So, by being told where to go in this made up prey scenario with a newfound leader in the human, the horse gradually gains more and more trust in the human, since wherever the human is leading it (in the case of the exercise, in circles around a pen) is either no closer to or is actually farther away from the source of the danger.
In giving this new trust to its human over a few miles of cantering around a pen, the horse forms a lifelong bond. Trainers should look for several signs that the horse is ready to join up. The most obvious is that instead of keeping the radius of the circle constant, all the way to the outside of the pen, as the horse gains the trainer's trust, the radius will shrink, and the circles will gradually approach the trainer in the center. At the same time, the horse will lower its neck thus putting itself in a position of vulnerability to the world and trust in its leader, and it will begin to lick its lips, a common sign that they are relaxed.
Once all of these signs are present, the human trainer should remove any pressure applied to the horse to go forward, turn away, and put any aids that might have been used on the ground. The horse will understand this complete release of pressure as an invitation close this circle to its minimum, that is, to come as close as possible to the trainer, showing complete trust in the trainer and completing the moment of join up. Given how Spartan had been so thoroughly traumatized by Mr. Mallen and by the aftermath of the accident, it is nothing short of a miracle that without the assistance of her mother, Amy was able to form this unbreakable bond so quickly with Spartan.
During the same episode, we meet Amy's slightly older sister, the Ivy League-educated MBA-holder, Lou, who had left the quiet Canadian countryside several years before pursuing her big dreams in business on Wall Street. From the moment we are introduced to both sisters, they clash in part because of how Type A Lou is revealed to be. Having realized that her mother wasn’t too keen on paying bills—on time, or at all—Lou decides to put her business acumen to good use in the Western Canadian countryside by calling in a few favors from former classmates of hers who now happen to be the ones who will decide the fate of her family’s land and way of life. As we will see in future episodes and future seasons, Lou's relationship with her sister will change, but her Type A personality will not, and its permanence will bring her great success.
Lou meets her father, Tim, also a local legend of the rodeo like his ex-father-in-law Jack in this episode for the first time in at least a decade. Having suffered a terrible accident well before the beginning of the plot of the show, Tim turned to alcohol and drank away his marriage with Marion, which before the accident had been a very happy one, and thus had soured his relationship with Jack. In the wake of her mother's death, Lou attempts to rekindle a relationship with her father and attempts to reconcile her father and her grandfather, while attempting to judge whether her sister, who was very young when their father left and who is still technically a minor, is ready to see him again.
The local police department has a program for the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents, and Marion Fleming had previously agreed to sponsor one of those delinquents, an accomplice to several crimes by the name of Ty Borden. 17-year-old tie arrives at Heartland just as the Fleming family is reeling from Marion's death, and whether he can stay on the ranch or not comes into question, since Marion, and not another member of the family, had been his sponsor and had been the one who agreed to let him stay. After meeting Amy under rather unfortunate circumstances, almost causing a second accident, and after being told by Jack that any part of his body which comes any closer than 10 ft to Amy or Lou will be removed and that if it were Jack’s decision, Ty would be “kicked so far down the road, he’d be crapping in Montana,” Ty is finally welcomed into the fold, albeit cautiously.
We also meet for the first time two of Amy’s friends and two of her enemies—at least for a time. Soraya Duval is Amy’s best friend, and she works with her mother running Maggie’s, the historic diner-feed store established more than 100 years before the plot of the show begins. Mallory Wells is a slightly younger neighbor with a loving heart but also a well-deserved reputation as someone who, at least in her pre-teen and early teen years, is incessantly talkative.
The Stanton family is set up in direct opposition to the Flemings, although they are quite deeply interconnected. Val Stanton is a very rich former jumper herself, who now owns a boarding, breeding, and training operation, Briar Ridge, which is close to, but much larger than, Heartland. Jesse Stanton, Val’s son, though only for this episode, is dating Amy, while Jesse’s sister Ashley constantly bullies Amy and Soraya for their close friendship, and the Flemings for not being as well-off as her, deriding them and their way of life as living in the “Poverty Barn.”
Hope turns to tragedy and back again in this episode, and in that sense, this episode is representative of each other individual episodes and the series generally. Produced and aired originally in 2007, Coming Home is a wonderful beginning to Canada’s greatest TV hit.
Comments
Post a Comment