S1E7: Come what may (2007)
Jumps arrive for Ben Stillman from his aunt, Lisa Stillman. But none of the jumps or set up when they arrive Ben, who has decided he can act essentially as a dictator, orders the ranch’s permanent residence to set up the jumps in a course exactly to his specifications. Later on, this will have proved to have been a colossal mistake on Ben’s part.
But none of the jumps are set up when they arrive. Ben, who has decided he can act essentially as a dictator orders the ranch's permanent residence to set up the jumps in a course exactly to his specifications. This will prove to be a disastrous mistake as revealed later in the episode. The owner of Big River ranch, Ray Phillips, arrives at Heartland with a pregnant mare. Anyone who has been around horses for any length of time has surely heard that mares are prone to especially "marish" behavior caused by hormonal cycles very similar to human hormonal cycles, and these behaviors are especially exacerbated when mares are pregnant or have just given birth when the relevant hormones are at their highest levels. It is for this reason that Melody behaves as she does when she exits Ray Phillips' trailer-- Melody is very visibly pregnant and due very soon. While exiting the trailer, melody spooks and destroys or severely damages most of Ben's jumps. This is not an act of ordinary equine aggression-- nothing like the case of Alcatraz, whom we will meet much later in the series-- but merely a symptom of the fact that she is very close to foaling.
Still reeling from her break up with Carl, Lou interprets Scott's behavior toward her as a romantic advance come too soon, but Scott attempts to rebuff this notion while secretly holding on to the past and wishing that he could have made a romantic advance toward Lou. This pairing, between Lou and scott, is the first of three major relationships Lou will enter in the show. For these purposes we discount Carl, and we discount any of the one-off flings she may have had, leaving us only with the relationships with Scott, Peter, and Mitch. To each of these three, we will assign them a ship name which is simply the names of both people in the couple presented as a single word, i.e., without any spaces between the two names. Thus, we will have Louscott, we will have Loupeter, and we will have Loumitch. For the record, Rachel, my closest friend in this fandom and I both consider ourselves Loupeter ship stans, that is, for both of us the still forthcoming relationship with Peter will be the best written relationship Lou has ever gotten into, and the one we most enjoy watching.
Caring for Melody, who is pregnant and was hurt by her running over the jumps a few hours prior, is a key turning point in the budding romance between Amy and Ty. As the two of them are left alone in a dark barn in a single stall overnight, the two of them together have ample time to become ever more familiar with each other, although we do not see any of this character development on screen, since the next shot is already the next morning.
The morning after Melody arrives at Heartland from Big River, we meet Sally Bell, a retired rodeo queen and integral member of the Hudson community who has been very close with the Flemings for years. Mrs. Bell is never seen without her trusty Appaloosa pony Sugarfoot, on which at least Lou and Amy, and likely many other residents of Hudson around their ages, first learned to ride. It is from Mrs. Bell that Marion, and thus also Amy, acquired a penchant for herbal remedies whenever possible. Especially in the early seasons, as demonstrated in this initial scene, Mrs. Bell frequently carries a variety of plants that she has either grown herself or she has picked from the surrounding area, and she readily gives these plants to anyone who might need an herbal remedy for any reason. In these early seasons, Mrs. Bell appears very knowledgeable about which herbs work particularly well to solve certain problems. It is worth noting that Mrs. Bell's approach to alternative medicine rather than traditional veterinary practice does come under some scrutiny throughout the course of the show, though there is never real opposition because Mrs. Bell is so well-liked.
Later that day, once it has been determined that Melody is okay and the mess has been cleared from the jumping ring, Ben began to practice and Soraya, Amy's best friend and the daughter of the current owner of Maggie's Diner spends time at Heartland and thus develops a crush on Ben Stillman. For reasons we will discuss later, this crush will be rather short-lived. When Soraya's mother Maggie discovers that she wants to go with Ben to an overnight show, Soraya demands that the two return to Heartland in order to fulfill her mother's wishes, and any prospects she may have had with Ben come to a screeching halt. Tension grows in the house between its residents and Ben as Melody gets closer to falling, and Ty clearly demonstrates his ineptitude as an equestrian, having only begun lessons with Mallory, herself also a relative beginner, since the beginning of the series.
Ty has been taking riding lessons from Mallory because he has been invited on a cattle drive with Jack, and riding is an integral part of these activities, which involve moving a large number of cattle a large distance, a task that would be nearly impossible without horses' help. As a rank beginner, Ty certainly benefits from the fact that he will be riding Western rather than English, since long hours spent in the saddle are much more doable in a Western saddle than an English one, since Western saddles were built explicitly for this kind of use.
Ty is given a hat by Jack when the two arrive at the site of the cattle drive. Whenever you see ty, especially when he interacts with amy, remember this hat. It will become an important symbol of their relationship, and who possesses the hat will become an important indicator later on.
To this point, Ty has met Jack and Tim separately, but Ty does not know Jack and Tim know each other, and Jack and Tim do not know the tie knows the other. Along the way on the cattle drive, this will change as Ty finds out crucial detail, namely that Jack is the father of the woman to whom Tim had previously been married, but that Tim and Jack's daughter had divorced.
On the drive, Jack and tie become a slightly separated from the rest of the group as they go after stray cattle. Jack, who is far more experienced than Ty, wants to deal with the situation on his own, so he instructs Ty to stay put. He does not, and this reinforces once again his inability or unwillingness to listen to Jack, which will certainly become a recurring theme in the relationship between these two characters as the show progresses. In this instance, however, Ty's disobedience is particularly significant because it causes a serious accident, the result of which is that Ty takes a serious fall.
Back on the ranch, complications with Melody's folding process arise, so word is sent to the kind but deaf Mrs. Bell to come to Heartland with more herbs. At the same time, Jack and Ty remain separated from the group and thus decide to set up camp where they are, in the woods.
A mere few moments after they set up camp, Jack encounters Tim, and a fight breaks out between them with Ty caught in the middle, presumably because ill will has been festering between the two of them for the better part of a decade.
Melody successfully delivers the foal, and Ty is relatively unhurt as he and Jack return from the cattle drive, just as Ben returns from the show to which he had tried to go at first with Soraya having managed to clinch third place. Ben seems distraught, and for my part, his unhappiness with third place demonstrates for me at least an overcompetitiveness to the degree that this could explain why Ben is motivated to be so abusive to Red. Let me reiterate that abuse toward animals is never acceptable under any circumstances, and then I am not making excuses for Ben, merely trying to understand what may have caused his behavior. No performance at a show or lack thereof is bad enough to justify the ill-treatment of an animal on the scale of Ben's ill-treatment of Red. As equestrians, we must pride ourselves on the fact that we see our horses as equal partners, not as tools. The way Ben treats his horse is no way to treat an equal partner at all. Amy's much more measured approach is far superior to his training method.
The crescendoing romantic tension between Jack and Lisa is now impossible to miss as she arrives at Heartland moments after he has come back from the cattle drive when bruises from his confrontation with Tim are still visible on his face and elsewhere on his body.
In the final moments of the episode, Amy fixes Ty's hat. This is for the two of them an important moment of physical closeness that further builds their relationship. That Amy is attentive to something as insignificant as the position of the hat on Ty's head will become a metaphor for their relationship at large: she will pay attention to everything, and no detail will go unnoticed, always receiving from her a genuinely empathetic response.
But none of the jumps are set up when they arrive. Ben, who has decided he can act essentially as a dictator orders the ranch's permanent residence to set up the jumps in a course exactly to his specifications. This will prove to be a disastrous mistake as revealed later in the episode. The owner of Big River ranch, Ray Phillips, arrives at Heartland with a pregnant mare. Anyone who has been around horses for any length of time has surely heard that mares are prone to especially "marish" behavior caused by hormonal cycles very similar to human hormonal cycles, and these behaviors are especially exacerbated when mares are pregnant or have just given birth when the relevant hormones are at their highest levels. It is for this reason that Melody behaves as she does when she exits Ray Phillips' trailer-- Melody is very visibly pregnant and due very soon. While exiting the trailer, melody spooks and destroys or severely damages most of Ben's jumps. This is not an act of ordinary equine aggression-- nothing like the case of Alcatraz, whom we will meet much later in the series-- but merely a symptom of the fact that she is very close to foaling.
Still reeling from her break up with Carl, Lou interprets Scott's behavior toward her as a romantic advance come too soon, but Scott attempts to rebuff this notion while secretly holding on to the past and wishing that he could have made a romantic advance toward Lou. This pairing, between Lou and scott, is the first of three major relationships Lou will enter in the show. For these purposes we discount Carl, and we discount any of the one-off flings she may have had, leaving us only with the relationships with Scott, Peter, and Mitch. To each of these three, we will assign them a ship name which is simply the names of both people in the couple presented as a single word, i.e., without any spaces between the two names. Thus, we will have Louscott, we will have Loupeter, and we will have Loumitch. For the record, Rachel, my closest friend in this fandom and I both consider ourselves Loupeter ship stans, that is, for both of us the still forthcoming relationship with Peter will be the best written relationship Lou has ever gotten into, and the one we most enjoy watching.
Caring for Melody, who is pregnant and was hurt by her running over the jumps a few hours prior, is a key turning point in the budding romance between Amy and Ty. As the two of them are left alone in a dark barn in a single stall overnight, the two of them together have ample time to become ever more familiar with each other, although we do not see any of this character development on screen, since the next shot is already the next morning.
The morning after Melody arrives at Heartland from Big River, we meet Sally Bell, a retired rodeo queen and integral member of the Hudson community who has been very close with the Flemings for years. Mrs. Bell is never seen without her trusty Appaloosa pony Sugarfoot, on which at least Lou and Amy, and likely many other residents of Hudson around their ages, first learned to ride. It is from Mrs. Bell that Marion, and thus also Amy, acquired a penchant for herbal remedies whenever possible. Especially in the early seasons, as demonstrated in this initial scene, Mrs. Bell frequently carries a variety of plants that she has either grown herself or she has picked from the surrounding area, and she readily gives these plants to anyone who might need an herbal remedy for any reason. In these early seasons, Mrs. Bell appears very knowledgeable about which herbs work particularly well to solve certain problems. It is worth noting that Mrs. Bell's approach to alternative medicine rather than traditional veterinary practice does come under some scrutiny throughout the course of the show, though there is never real opposition because Mrs. Bell is so well-liked.
Later that day, once it has been determined that Melody is okay and the mess has been cleared from the jumping ring, Ben began to practice and Soraya, Amy's best friend and the daughter of the current owner of Maggie's Diner spends time at Heartland and thus develops a crush on Ben Stillman. For reasons we will discuss later, this crush will be rather short-lived. When Soraya's mother Maggie discovers that she wants to go with Ben to an overnight show, Soraya demands that the two return to Heartland in order to fulfill her mother's wishes, and any prospects she may have had with Ben come to a screeching halt. Tension grows in the house between its residents and Ben as Melody gets closer to falling, and Ty clearly demonstrates his ineptitude as an equestrian, having only begun lessons with Mallory, herself also a relative beginner, since the beginning of the series.
Ty has been taking riding lessons from Mallory because he has been invited on a cattle drive with Jack, and riding is an integral part of these activities, which involve moving a large number of cattle a large distance, a task that would be nearly impossible without horses' help. As a rank beginner, Ty certainly benefits from the fact that he will be riding Western rather than English, since long hours spent in the saddle are much more doable in a Western saddle than an English one, since Western saddles were built explicitly for this kind of use.
Ty is given a hat by Jack when the two arrive at the site of the cattle drive. Whenever you see ty, especially when he interacts with amy, remember this hat. It will become an important symbol of their relationship, and who possesses the hat will become an important indicator later on.
To this point, Ty has met Jack and Tim separately, but Ty does not know Jack and Tim know each other, and Jack and Tim do not know the tie knows the other. Along the way on the cattle drive, this will change as Ty finds out crucial detail, namely that Jack is the father of the woman to whom Tim had previously been married, but that Tim and Jack's daughter had divorced.
On the drive, Jack and tie become a slightly separated from the rest of the group as they go after stray cattle. Jack, who is far more experienced than Ty, wants to deal with the situation on his own, so he instructs Ty to stay put. He does not, and this reinforces once again his inability or unwillingness to listen to Jack, which will certainly become a recurring theme in the relationship between these two characters as the show progresses. In this instance, however, Ty's disobedience is particularly significant because it causes a serious accident, the result of which is that Ty takes a serious fall.
Back on the ranch, complications with Melody's folding process arise, so word is sent to the kind but deaf Mrs. Bell to come to Heartland with more herbs. At the same time, Jack and Ty remain separated from the group and thus decide to set up camp where they are, in the woods.
A mere few moments after they set up camp, Jack encounters Tim, and a fight breaks out between them with Ty caught in the middle, presumably because ill will has been festering between the two of them for the better part of a decade.
Melody successfully delivers the foal, and Ty is relatively unhurt as he and Jack return from the cattle drive, just as Ben returns from the show to which he had tried to go at first with Soraya having managed to clinch third place. Ben seems distraught, and for my part, his unhappiness with third place demonstrates for me at least an overcompetitiveness to the degree that this could explain why Ben is motivated to be so abusive to Red. Let me reiterate that abuse toward animals is never acceptable under any circumstances, and then I am not making excuses for Ben, merely trying to understand what may have caused his behavior. No performance at a show or lack thereof is bad enough to justify the ill-treatment of an animal on the scale of Ben's ill-treatment of Red. As equestrians, we must pride ourselves on the fact that we see our horses as equal partners, not as tools. The way Ben treats his horse is no way to treat an equal partner at all. Amy's much more measured approach is far superior to his training method.
The crescendoing romantic tension between Jack and Lisa is now impossible to miss as she arrives at Heartland moments after he has come back from the cattle drive when bruises from his confrontation with Tim are still visible on his face and elsewhere on his body.
In the final moments of the episode, Amy fixes Ty's hat. This is for the two of them an important moment of physical closeness that further builds their relationship. That Amy is attentive to something as insignificant as the position of the hat on Ty's head will become a metaphor for their relationship at large: she will pay attention to everything, and no detail will go unnoticed, always receiving from her a genuinely empathetic response.
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