Reflections from the Heart(land)

The harsh reality of mustang’s precarious lives—and indeed their very existence—is earth-shattering news to Ty, and probably also to many viewers in 2007 and even still today. There are certain true mustang bloodlines, and there are others that are simply escaped horses who have commingled into a wild herd, or their recent offspring. Genetically, these two populations (the ones that have been wild for hundreds of years and the ones who only recently became wild) are quite distinct. Lou opens the episode on the phone with a certain Ms. Wiley and strikes a deal with her to give her a horse for her daughter. Overhearing Lou’s end of the conversation, Mallory, who fits the character description of the woman’s daughter—though she isn’t her—is desperately worried and displays the constantly-overthinking, easy-to-panic side of her personality we see frequently brought to light in the early seasons of the show. At the mention of Copper’s name (Mallory’s horse), and Lou’s kicking her out of th...

The episode begins with Ms. Bell singing to Sugarfoot; remember the song she sings to him. It will become an important plot device later. A leisurely trail ride originally intended to deliver groceries as a courtesy to Ms. Bell ends when Amy arrives at her house and discovers something far worse than either she or Mallory (who was with her on the trail ride) could ever have imagined. Ms. Bell, alone at home were it not for Amy’s visit, has collapsed and has had a heart attack. Having already seen the trouble brewing between them in an earlier episode, Maggie once again rejects daughter Soraya’s attempts to spend time with Ben Stillman, nephew of the famed local breeder Lisa Stillman. A new arrival who claims to work for Briar Ridge, Kerry-Anne, as her first act in Hudson, steals money from Maggie’s. This theft is not an isolated incident and is in fact a symptom of kleptomania and a life of petty crime, perhaps a parallel exploration of what Ty might’ve made of his life if he had...

Gallant Prince was a racehorse at the top of his game before he was injured in a barn fire that started under mysterious circumstances and which also injured his trainer, Ryan Bailey. Under a cloud of allegations, Ryan is fired and becomes despondent. Prince, who has become aggressive, is brought to Heartland as a last resort. For the first time, Mallory notices and confronts Jack about possible romantic tension between Jack and Lisa Stillman, the famous breeder. Dan Hartfield, Lisa Stillman’s ex-husband and presently the owner of Brookland Stables, where Prince was bred and trained, and the rival operation to Lisa’s Fairfield Stables brings Prince to Heartland with videos of his past races. Prince is at imminent risk of being turned down because he is seen as too dangerous and damaged nearly beyond repair as the episode begins, but Amy’s profound compassion wins over even the stern Grandpa Jack, who agrees to have Prince brought for examination. Mallory, opinionated as ever, belie...

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 preg...

  Having just been fired from her job in New York only now does the permanence of her stay in Hudson become clearer to Lou as she is thrust into working on the range, forced to help Scott deworm geese. The horse Amy helps in this episode opens a plotline that won’t be touched on again at all until season 5, and which won’t really be explored at length until Georgie arrives in season 6. Carl, whose last name we never learn, arrives in Hudson to visit Lou for the first time since her return to Hudson after Marion’s death, and, presumably, for the first time in the year or so since their relationship began. Though Carl has almost no experience around horses, like Ty a few episodes prior, it was he who provided the crucial insight into how to solve Pirate’s case—albeit by an act of brazen disobedience. Carl, however, is not in Hudson just to spend a romantic week with his girlfriend, or to finally meet her family. Instead, he is presented as a rather devious boyfriend with...

  On an otherwise innocuous trip to Maggie’s Lou discovers Val has produced a promotional video to increase Briar Ridge’s reach. Almost in real-time, the end of the shot gives us viewers insight into Lou and the ingenuity that got her through a Columbia MBA, and as soon as she returns to Heartland, she attempts to convince the much older, less tech-savvy, and non-MBA-holder Jack of the merits of this new marketing strategy. After a quick elevator pitch to her grandfather, Lou drives headlong into this idea, completely oblivious to its effect on the other residents of the ranch, guided only by tunnel vision to grow the ranch’s business at any cost. Meeting later in the day with Marnie Gordon, Lou attempts to recruit Marnie’s husband Jerry to help shoot the video. Having gone to run an errand—or more likely to escape from Lou’s Type A mania—at Briar Ridge, Jack comes face-to-face with Ty for the first time since he left, and Jack must broach an uncomfortable subject: Ty’s...

Deciding what to keep and what to throw away—and where to put whatever is not thrown away— is always a long and difficult process after a loved one passes away, and this episode is the one during which Amy and Lou must work together to accomplish this task. Amy still has not reconnected with her father, Tim, in person, but the process is begun for her through Lou, as the two sisters look through their father’s old memorabilia left in their mother’s room. The sisters find a letter written from Fort St. John. The real place where Heartland is filmed is a town named High River. Assuming that the fictional Hudson is intended to be in the same place as the real High River, then the letter had come from almost 1000 kilometers (almost 620 miles) to the northwest of where the girls found it. Having now the understanding that his placement at Heartland will be for the long term, since Jack agreed to sign for his papers in Marion’s place, Ty, who admits to being much more comfortable on mo...