Heartland 1.10: Born to Run

Heartland
1.10: Born to Run

So I overdosed on Heartland, meaning that I finished season one and then splurged on season two...finishing all twenty-two episodes in a matter of days without posting one recap.

What does this mean? Countless hours rewatching episodes and actually having thoughts on them other than mindless consumption, that's what.

So what's going on here? Let's break this down by character.

Amy is starting to grow out of her storming out on hard conversations phase, but naturally the next stage is acting righteous all the time. I actually like this Amy, since she is a) the voice of reason in the first five minutes of the episode, b) doesn't completely freak out when Lou tells her that Nick Harwell wants to buy Spartan, c) has completely lost patience with Ben in a way that is awesome, and d) saves mustangs from certain doom. +4 for Amy! Bonus of +5 for pointing out to Ben that he sucks as a rider, and as a human being.

But actually this episode provides all the proof I need that Lou is the most awesome character on the show. Okay, admittedly this proof is wrapped up in my love of her plaid coat and her quick thinking at the end of the episode. What does Lou do when all the men have lost their senses and resorted to fisticuffs? She finds Jack's shotgun, fires into the sky, and then pumps it for added effect. And yells confused threats.  +10!

Then we've got Ty, who is projecting his issues on the horses around him. When Wes, evil character for the foreseeable future, smacks mustangs with ropes, Ty comes at the guy and then he gets all emotional about not standing by while innocents are abused. Nice insight into your past family life, Ty. I'll give you +2 for that.

And then there's Jack and Tim, forever locked in a competitive battle over past slights and fairly large family problems. In a previous episode, they came to blows while Tim mocked Jack for being old. Great times were had by all. This time Jack threatens others while Tim checks up on his progress, indicating to me that they are in fact best friends. They just don't know it yet. You'll get there eventually, guys! +2!

Oh, and Mallory. Look, I like this kid. I like her random appearances when she shows up in the house wearing nothing but a bathrobe and a towel. I like her insistence that she's taking a mental health day when she decides to skip school. I don't like her middle grade horse book plot of assuming Lou is selling Copper, so she decides to steal the horse and trek out into the snowy wilderness with nothing but peanut butter, saltines, and two juice boxes. Good luck with that, Mallory. At least you took your cell phone so you'll be useful to the plot later. -3

In other developments, Ben decides to leave Heartland because Nick Harwell also points out that he is a horrible rider. And also he is a bad person. Ashley, insisting that Ben is the opposite of these things, convinces him to go ride at her barn, thus ridding me of Ben and his attitude. +2!

So that's 25-3.
1.10 Born to Run: 22
1.9 Ghost from the Past: 39.1

Heartland 1.9: Ghost from the Past

Heartland
1.9: Ghost from the Past

Psst. Did you know Ty knew actual people during his shady past full of group homes? Well, he did. And they are, shockingly, also shady. From this, I conclude that all orphans or otherwise abandoned youth are criminals in training.

But not to worry, Ty is a juvenile delinquent with a heart of gold, and isn't about to let some trashy memory with horrible taste in jewelry derail him from his goal of non-probation. This trashy memory is named Kerry-Anne, and she's working in the kitchen at Briar Ridge, home of resident antagonist, Ashley.

However, we're going to back up a second and witness Mrs. Bell have a heart attack, which I suppose is her graceful exit from the show. Mrs. Bell's pony, Sugarfoot, is transferred to Heartland, where he decides that he is above living in stalls and barges into the house to watch Lou shower. Lou, who has had a horse related epiphany thanks to her fond memories of Sugarfoot when she was a child, decides that this is all just great. In fact, they should never give Sugarfoot back. And when Mrs. Bell's niece comes to collect the pony, Lou has a panic attack and comes up with a lame reason to keep the pony right where he is...in the bathroom, in the house.

Meanwhile, Kerry-Anne is planting the seeds of discontent, or trying to, by being super outgoing and horrible to all around her. Somehow she manages to get in on one of those group dinners I love so much, casually chatting about how much sex she and Ty were probably having back in that group home, and also that they are super awesome together, and Amy had better watch herself. No one is impressed, but she keeps talking, and is rudely shot down by Ty afterward. Just what is Kerry-Anne thinking? Ty is a responsible horsey teen now! These people don't steal cars, Kerry-Anne. Pick up a horse book and you'll understand.

Rebuffed, Kerry-Anne immediately runs into Ashley, who takes her under her wing so she can hear all the Ty gossip. Kerry-Anne provides, and then steals Ashley's ugly horseshoe pendant. Ashley immediately decides that Ty was in on the stealing, so Ty has to go hunt down Kerry-Anne on her way out of town, fix her car, and take back the necklace. He arrives back in time to sit down with his probation officer, reputation still intact.

This episode was dull. I think I will probably resort to random point giving in the next installments, and I will now randomly assign points to this episode as a whole. That number will be 39.1.

Heartland 1.8: Out of the Darkness

Heartland
1.8: Out of the Darkness

Yet another episode tied directly to a series book by the same name, Heartland gives us serious trauma in the form of Gallant Prince and his trainer. Gallant Prince was once famous, in that he won something. Amy likes to casually watch his race to find motivation, during which the race announcer says, "and Gallant Prince pulls away! He's going to win...the race!"

Oh, yeah? He's going to win "the race." I always find attempts to rewrite race announcing hilarious, if not completely maddening (Secretariat, anyone?)

Anyway, Lisa's ex-husband (shhh, we don't know she has an ex-husband yet) trailers Gallant Prince over to Heartland and Jack goes off about how the ranch isn't equipped to hold a stallion. Just what are they equipped to handle? I am exceedingly unimpressed with this operation. Nevertheless, their unequippedness doesn't keep Gallant Prince away. Amy takes him on, and the first night a storm rolls through and completely pushes the horse over the edge. Gallant Prince, you see, was once involved in a fire and his trainer was "on watch" that night, and was also severely burned. But not to worry, Amy is on the case!

Meanwhile, Mallory tells Ty that he needs to just come out and tell the object of his pining affection all about his turgid love. For, you see, Mallory loves Ty and seems to be very bad at taking her own advice. Why can't Ty understand her nonsensical girl crush on him? Damn Amy and her stupid, perfect hair and her stupid, perfect face! Ty doesn't get it at all, so Mallory walks off in a huff and yells at Jack that he and Lisa are equally annoying and they just need to come out and tell Lisa he wants to date her and not do this stupid dancing around each other and pretending that they're only going to a horse auction. YOU ARE OLD, Mallory proclaims. YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO BE STUPID, LIKE TY.

Jack does not listen, and consequently he winds up stranded on the side of the road with Lisa and a picnic involving turkey sandwiches. And it was beautiful. I wanted to be there and soak in the beauty, and I probably would have yelled at them to shut up or go make out in their truck or something so I could appreciate the beauty in peace.

Eventually they get the auction, and Lisa's ex-husband pops up to say, "Hey, you know my wife!" And Jack plows out of there faster than he could (probably) spit tobacco onto the ground, abandoning Lisa in the middle of nowhere.

While this is happening, Amy is trying to talk Gallant Prince's owner out of his man cave. His wife stands by, utterly useless, and in a huff, Amy gives up and is subjected to Ty's attempt to be open about his feelings, nearly kissing her before Amy tearfully proclaims that she doesn't want their relationship to be ruined because kissing ruins lives.

Eventually, the trainer guy shows up anyway and bonds with Gallant Prince, who is thrilled to see him. But then Lisa's ex-husband shows up to yell about how the trainer cannot be near the horse, since it's all the trainer's fault the horse is crazy. Amy is all SEE SENSE, to the guy, but Lisa's ex-husband is blind to sense and orders the horse into the trailer. Lisa tells her ex-husband he is a complete ass, and then yells at Jack for leaving her at the auction, because if he'd stayed around he would have clearly had a better shot with her. And now...well, yeah, he still has a pretty good shot. Maybe Lisa has low standards?

But then it comes out that his assistant trainer or whoever/pathetic excuse of the ex-husband's son set the fire, and Gallant Prince knows. Of course he does. So ex-husband offers the trainer his job back, and all is well.

Oh, and Amy and Tim go on a horseback ride together. It was also pretty.

Heartland 1.7

Heartland
1.7: Come What May

Out of nowhere I started watching Heartland again, because I am, sadly, just a little bit in love with it. It's just so pretty, you guys. And there's teen angst, and storming out of family dinners, and riding that looks halfway competent if done by people who aren't Ty. How can one resist temptations such as this?

So I gave in.

I haven't read the book that corresponds with this episode, but having seen the back of the volume in question it looks like a mirror image. The ranch is taking on a pregnant mare, and they all freak because the ranch isn't equipped to have a pregnant mare. But take the mare they do, because they're all such adorable bleeding hearts. Meanwhile, Mallory -- the extraneous kid who is always there and seems to have no relation to anyone -- is teaching Ty how to ride and this results in galloping across the Canadian wilderness, hysterics, and falling. Only Ty loves it. He wants to gallop, be hysterical, and fall some more! For then he will be able to ride in the upcoming round up and be respected by Amy and finally, finally, he can put away the baseball cap and know the sweetness of the cowboy hat.

But because of this pregnant mare, Amy and Ty decide that she can't be trusted with her pregnancy and watch her like super parental hawks in four hour shifts. Meanwhile, Ben (who was previously seen in a domestic dispute with his horse) is attempting to avoid his aunt, and is put out that Amy decides the mare is more important than his show and he can just be an adult for once and go train himself. Except he's too busy being irate that his aunt sent him jumps from France and is acting out by storming out of the kitchen and throwing around half-peeled potatoes when Amy tries to persuade him to chat to the woman on the phone. Who will peel those potatoes now, Ben? You said you could cook and you are full of lies!

So Ty skips out on the pregnant mare, leaving Amy on double duty so he can go wave Jack's cowboy hat at cows. Jack is pissed that the lead on the round up is Tim, Amy and Lou's absent father, who points at Jack and informs him that he is old and one day soon he'll be asking good old Tim to help him onto his horse because Jack is too frail to mount by himself. Jack retaliates with physical violence, Ty falls down a ravine after doing something stupid with his horse and a cow, and then everyone doesn't chuckle later when Tim mends Ty's cracked ribs, because cracked ribs are not a joke, Ty. You are a horrible rider.

While the men of the story are off punching each other and taping up injuries in the dark of the Canadian wilds, the women are playing midwife to Melody, who decides she's going to give birth early and Scott, being a typical vet, is too busy and tells them to deal with it. They have all the shoulder length gloves they need. They'll be fine! *click* Lou, put out by this whole thing, shoves her hands up there with Amy and hauls that baby out of there to agonized squeals.

Eventually it all ends with Ben's aunt, Lisa, getting the side eye from Jack, Ben and Lisa bonding over his third place ribbon, and Amy deciding to name the foal Daybreak...although I'm pretty sure the foal isn't hers to name. So, for all of us just catching up on Heartland, Amy didn't storm out at dinner in this episode, Lou did something disgusting and lived through it without soiling her pristine tank top, and Ty earned his cowboy hat by falling off a cliff. This is probably not the best story for him to tell to his future children, actually. He should seriously consider lying.

Heartland: More moral lessons and some bile for me...

Every New Day
Heartland #9
by Lauren Brooke

Firstly, I actually fucking hate this series. I would say it's the worst horse series ever created, but sadly Chestnut Hill takes that title going away.

So in this book, Every New Day, our dear Amy Fleming is a busy girl. She's grappling with a relationship with Ty, the stable boy. Who dropped out of school to become a Super Horse Helper. There's a winner for you, right there! People in this book actually have the audacity to say that Amy and Ty are perfect for each other. Yeah... I'd take that one as an insult, Amy.

Anyway, Amy is all shy about telling people 'cause she thinks this will place pressure on her. Besides, she's all determined to go to this Okanumba place that's run by this Native American horse whisperer, Huten. Apparently, her mother made a promise that she would go back there one day. And that didn't happen... cause... well... you know. Bad stuff happened.

Amy starts working with Mercury, the featured troubled equine of this book. Mercury is owned by two guys and I just get the impression that they're gay. Two guys who ride? Who joint own a horse? Pardon me for stereotyping here, but years of reading these type of books have ingrained that tendency into me.

Back to Mercury. Ok, so this horse is a showstopper. But he's been badly treated in the past (big shocker there) and had his legs rapped to make him jump higher. Amy tries to fix him, and she and Ty disagree over some crap. Things don't go well. Mercury takes off with Amy, freaks out when he's even near fences.

Amy gets a brainwave! Maybe Huten can help! Then she can fulfill her mother's promise too! Yay! It doesn't take much to convince her grampa and big sister, Lou. Ty gets all sulky because his opinion doesn't matter. Boo-hoo.

So, she ends up going there for a week. Skipping school and everything. But we all know school isn't a big deal in horse books, so moving along here.

Huten is all blase and shit. How dare he ignore her needs! He makes Amy just sit in the paddock with Mercury! And goes for a walk ON FOOT to some tourist village where people are weaving baskets... is it the reed or the basket that the people are thinking about? This is the powerful question he poses Amy. She's all like 'duh... the basket!' and Huten is 'yeah... no. Wrong answer.'

Then Amy goes for a hack with Mercury and gets lost and then Mercury finds the way back and she's freaked that no one cares...

Only, it turns out it's all been part of her training. She has to let Mercury just decide things for himself! Wow!

After that revelation, Amy is able to jump Mercury. And then she makes up with Ty, who concedes that she was right all along.

Tear.

You know, I find it bloody hard to believe that a horse can be fixed just like that. I have been working with an Arab mare now for two weeks just doing ground work. Yes, I admit that I am trying out Parelli. And that it's surprisingly getting results. However, fixing broken horses takes time! I haven't even attempted to get on Shakeelah yet! Heartland, you are messing up the perceptions of young readers worldwide that natural horsemanship is a quick fix! It's not. Parelli himself states that it is a lengthy process. And I don't buy the Monty Roberts way of doing stuff, either. I'm just saying...

Heartland: In which the folks at Heartland feel superior to yet another person.

Heartland
1.6: One Trick Pony


Oh, Heartland. Why do I love you so much? Is it because all of your characters are constantly at each other's throats, consistently act holier than thou, and routinely fail to comprehend human emotion? Is it because I ultimately find it extremely disappointing that Thoroughbred was never butchered in such a manner? (Although, Thoroughbred butchered itself, so honestly a tv show would have been an improvement.) Come on, Canadians...give me a Thoroughbred tv show. You know you want to.

Here we are, moving on to episode six. Amy has a new horse that doesn't appear to need much help because it is not a) out of its mind or b) wild. The only problem appears to be the fact that it follows no formal commands. It will not stop, it will not turn, it will not go. It just plods around in a circle, totally ignoring Amy. Later on, Amy comes to the accidental discovery that the horse was totally trained with vocal commands. Whoa equals halt, get along equals some sort of moving forward motion, giddy up equals canter or something, I don't know. This becomes important later, as Amy doesn't yet know the background on this horse and has sent Scott out to rummage up some info.

Speaking of Scott, he is all morose because Carl randomly shows up at Heartland to sweep Lou up with his romantic investment banking lingo. Scott keeps his distance from the ranch, despite Jack's attempt to tell Scott that he needs to act like a man and just tell Lou what's on his mind. Scott never does get a chance to do this, because Carl is constantly around acting like a dick with his Bluetooth device thing and his WiFi and his jogging. He is displeased with this country life that Lou has immersed herself in, and has secretly set plans in motion to get her a new job in Chicago, where he will soon be moving. Mallory overhears these plans and ferries them to Amy, who immediately suspects that Lou has been plotting to leave Heartland without telling anyone. And then Mallory inadvertently steals the engagement ring Carl wants to give Lou.

Meanwhile, Scott has discovered the identity of the horse. He is a trick horse, and conveniently enough Scott also finds a trick saddle to give to Amy, because apparently you can't teach a trick horse anything normal? None of this made much sense to me. But whatever, because Carl wants to go on a trail ride and Amy, deciding that she should stop being a bitch for about five seconds, sets this up. She insists that Carl wear a helmet, and Carl is offended by this piece of safety gear. He also deems the horse she wants him to ride a nag, and insists that he wants to ride her horse, who also happens to be the trick horse. Why does she have the trick horse there? Well, you guys, it's time for some plot device! Are we all excited?

While Amy isn't looking, Carl climbs up on the trick horse and screams "yeehaw!" This happens to be one of the horse's commands, and it means BOLT. The horse gallops full tilt into the woods, and Amy has to go save him. We are then treated to an instance of Carl falling into a mud pit. Then he falls into the mud pit again. Afterward, Carl receives some medical attention and decides to propose to Lou during dinner. This is the absolute worst time for anyone to do something like this, because as we all know by now dinner is a particularly melodramatic time for everyone at Heartland. This time is no exception. Carl realizes in the midst of his proposal that the ring is missing, sending Mallory (who is always there...why is she always there?) running home so she can dig the ring out of the laundry. She arrives back to the ranch with the ring, only to find that everything has disintegrated over this Chicago job that Lou now knows about. Carl proposes, sticks the ring on her finger, tries to tell her how much he loves her and how happy they'll be in Chicago, but Lou decides that he's an asshole and replies, "I can't get this damn ring off my finger."

That is certainly not the answer Carl is looking for, but he accepts this and goes on his merry way to Chicago after Lou gets the ring off her finger. Then they all eat birthday cake to celebrate Jack's birthday. They are all laughing happily, totally amazing me because no one is suffering through a dramatic episode. Well, Amy probably was, but she was suppressing it.

We end the episode with some trick riding in slo-mo. Because Amy can trick ride, and she does it perfectly.

Heartland: Proving again that Lou has no people skills.

Heartland
1.5: Best Laid Plans

Oh, Heartland. How I've missed you. The last I watched Heartland, everything was busy imploding with the addition of Ben, the boy who had personal issues and was way too involved with his horse. Amy was paralyzed with not appearing to care very much, Ty got sick of Ben's attitude, and he eventually abandoned Heartland for the evil farm owned by Ashley's mom, Val. Okay, let's go.

While visiting the cafe owned by Soroya's mom, Amy and Lou run into Ashley and her group of constantly squeeing friends. They are busy celebrating the recently made commercial (or, as Lou puts it, "promotional video" that just happens to be a thirty second commercial) for the evil farm, and more squeeing happens as Ty, who also happens to be there because Ashley apparently hopes that if she drags him around with her enough he might give in to her sexual harassment, looks annoyed and/or disgusted with his decision. Amy stares longingly at Ty, who tries not to stare longingly back, while Lou stares in awe at the "promotional video" and Soroya bitches that Ashley and her friends have only ordered water. Although, really, it's bottled water. You have to pay for that, Soroya, so why don't you concentrate on your other customers and stop trying to find fault.

Because of this promotional video/commercial, Lou is suddenly struck with the urge to make her own commercial for Heartland. She's going to get Carl (this never seen boyfriend) to talk to his director friend, and they will have a commercial before they know it! Everyone is predictably unenthusiastic. Seriously, this is the most downcast group of people ever. Everyone complains and bitches and argues and, most importantly, Amy gets all threatened by Lou's sudden scary motivation. Lou might change how Heartland is being run so let's all freak out and stomp on her enthusiasm! Lou is not to be dissuaded, and she starts ordering everyone around. Ben, move that manure pile! Mallory, sand and paint that door! Amy, look less morose! Come on, people! No one takes this well.

Eventually, the director pulls out of the project before even starting and then Lou hears that she's lost her big New York City job, which she proceeds not to tell anyone about. Instead she prefers to mope and act passive aggressive during dinner, the time that everyone gets together to air their grievances, which usually results in Amy storming off and failing to eat. Instead this time everyone manages to get through the meal, although Lou keeps complaining about the commercial and the complete lack of support that her completely worthless family provides. She says that the commercial would have been great, and all you naysayers are little jackasses who don't realize true potential! That commercial would have run right after the local news! Suddenly everyone's all...oh, we could have been famous. And Lou just rolls her eyes, probably.

I'd just like to break in here and say that if she wanted a commercial space right after the local news, she would be paying for it. Considering Heartland isn't that well off, I doubt this is possible, because networks only air unpaid ads when they have no other paid ads to run. This is the reason why you see so many infomercials for things like the Ped Egg right now.

Okay, so let's talk about Ty. Ashley keeps sexually harassing Ty, and he keeps taking it like sexual harassment doesn't exist in Canada. Eventually Jack comes along to tell Val about the paperwork she needs to sign for Ty's probation and she has a fit as Ashley never told her about his issues, and fires him on the spot. Ashley still invites him to her "field party" and he still goes, because I guess he likes the attention, although he really doesn't look it. Of course, Ben is going to the party in his Hummer, and he takes Soroya (who has a thing for Ben, despite Amy warning her that he has issues and is in a relationship with his horse) and Amy, who confronts Ty, blah blah blah. Teenage drinking ensues. I still can only hope that they're drinking wine coolers.

And then Lou's friend's wedding videographer husband shoots the commercial for them, suffering through Lou's completely freakish controlling behavior and eventually running them off the farm with only enough footage to piece together a completely unprofessional video (but somehow it is completely awesome, according to maybe three people, but because those three people are Amy, Jack, and Scott, I guess that means it is awesome because their opinion is the morally correct one always). Lou and Scott go out and drink, and Scott is so in love with her that there is an uncomfortable moment, and Lou deals with this by making it worse and telling him that she lost her job. Then they park in front of her house and she cries in his shirt.

In the morning, Amy is all frighteningly upbeat. Crap, she's weird when she's upbeat. Apparently everyone loves the commercial and they've gotten tons of phone calls and Lou is forced to agree that the commercial was good. Although it wasn't. I can't see how anyone would send a troubled horse to Heartland when the commercial involves Lou running from a horse and shrieking. Helpful training techniques indeed!

Then Ty comes back and tries to get a reason out of Amy for why he should work for Heartland. She just tells him she wants him to come back, ignoring any actual reason. This appears to be good enough, so Ty agrees to come back, and I'm sure some confrontations with Ben will come rolling down the pike immediately in our next episode.

• Ty's fancy work uniform at the evil stable involves breeches and tall riding boots. I am endlessly amused by this, because his only function at this place appears to be mucking out stalls and tacking up horses. And being sexually harassed by Ashley. Although, maybe Ashley's making him wear those breeches for her own amusement. I wouldn't be surprised.

• Val is being interviewed by someone from Canter & Gallop Magazine. Fantastic fictional magazine title! It's sort of like Horse & Rider, in a completely nonsensical way. I wonder if there's a Walk & Trot Magazine in their world?

Heartland: I just don't know about this one.

Heartland
1.4: Taking Chances

This is the synopsis for the book Taking Chances:

Amy's life has drastically changed. She's found herself taking on the huge responsibility of running Heartland, the horse refuge that was her mother's life work. The one constant for Amy has been her friendship with Ty, Heartland's 17-year-old stable hand. But the arrival of a new hand, Ben, throws everything off balance. By the time Amy realizes she's taken Ty for granted, it could be too late.

Well, that's just vague enough to hit the main plot of this episode right on the money. What the synopsis totally fails at is mentioning the other constants in Amy's life being her grandfather and Lou. And maybe even Mallory. Possibly even Scott. And Spartan. Come on, synopsis people, 17-year-old boys are not the be all and end all of horse crazy girls. I mean, did we not learn that lesson repeatedly from every other middle grade horse book ever? We're lucky that Amy even slightly recognizes the budding lust here, because typically these girls are all "why do I feel so weird when we accidentally and very briefly touch?" They're adorably innocent, and their one constant is never the boy, okay? Now get back in line and stop trying to break out of the horse story mold.

Mainly, this episode is all about the new kid, Ben. He's the nephew of the owner of the rich/non-evil horse stable, and because his rich parents are divorced and his rich aunt is in Italy or something, he's been sent to be of no use at Heartland. Ben has a horse, a pretty chestnut named Red, which he's going to board at Heartland while he's supposed to help out. He does not help out, pissing Ty off to no end.

Ty has been learning how to ride, and this show takes great strides in continuing the trend of depicting absolutely beyond bad riding instruction. Mallory has named herself Ty's instructor, and she basically sits on the fence and grimaces as she watches him ride around in a circle. That pretty much sums it up. Then you have Amy over there insisting that Ty ride with a helmet designed for the purpose of horseback riding, and I can't help but think that maybe she should take her own advice.

Ben drives up and immediately makes a disparaging comment about Ty's riding skills and is generally a douche. The Heartland crew tries to be accommodating to Ben, but he generally goes about burning his bridges as fast as humanly possible. First he nearly runs over Lou while she's jogging and basically tells her to run somewhere else because he's "hacking" at a dead gallop every morning and plans to use her favorite running route. Then he insults Ty a few more times, and Ty continues to refuse to clean up Red's stall, totally blurring Ben's concepts responsible horse ownership. Then Ben beats up Red to get him to ford a stream, upsetting Amy, who does little to nothing about it, which is frankly very unlike her or any other horse story main character.

Eventually Ty witnesses Ben having another major episode with Red during some jumping practice, and he puts a stop to Ben's hysterics long enough to get into a physical confrontation that Mallory has to break up. Soon after, Ashley shows up to announce that Ben's aunt is always gone to Italy for months at a time, and this is how it's going to be at Heartland. Maybe Ty would like to come work for Ashley's mother, at which point Amy has a minor attack of blurting out information she shouldn't about Ty's parole, pissing him off all the more. He goes to look at Ashley's barn and appears to seriously consider Ashley's offer.

At this point, there's a minor plot point of a letter the girls' dad sent their mom seven years ago. Apparently he wanted to get back together, but the letter went ignored and the girls want an explanation. Jack tells them some traumatizing story about the pills and alcohol that their father got into after his rodeo accident, tearing the family apart to the point that their mother didn't feel like she could trust him again blah blah blah. Everyone is shocked and appalled by this information, I guess.

Moving on, Ben has another episode with Red at jumping practice, flinging the crop around to the point that Red bails and runs off. Everyone runs up to Ben, and for an amused second I thought Mallory was going to haul off and kick him in the ribs while he was down, but no...people are all caring about his well being. Ben's all "I just don't get it! Why did he run away?" Right here I wanted someone to say, "He ran away because you're a douche." But such directness apparently isn't appreciated.

So everyone runs off to find Red. Eventually Amy and Mallory find him, and they muse briefly about not returning him before returning to reality and walking back with the horse. Only they have to ford the stream again and Red flips out, dragging Amy off of Spartan and onto the rocky river bed. Um, Amy, here's where you should have taken your own advice about the helmets. Remember when you said that?

Red runs off, Mallory's horse bolts all the way back to the stable, and she rouses the troops and they go off to get Amy, who is unconscious by the river. Only then dear Dad (name: Tim) ambles along on his horse, because he works at the neighboring ranch, and sees what has happened. He rushes to cross the stream on foot, only to slip and start floating down the stream. Jack and Lou appear to save Amy, totally ignoring Tim, who shouts out Amy's location before saving himself, because no one really gives a damn about his life, I guess.

Ty finds Red and rides him back to the ranch. Amy goes to the hospital, comes back to find Ben all forlorn and willing to change for the good of his horse and everyone who has to put up with him, and when Ty points out the healed welts on Red to Ben he delivers the most fantastic line: "What? Do you have personal issues to work out with your horse?" Awesome.

So Amy agrees to help Ben with his personal issues, but Ty has had it and decides to leave for Ashley's rich/evil stable. End episode.

• I watch these on YouTube, so occasionally I read the comments and the vast majority of them were "Ben is a douche, but he's so hot." Only in YouTube speak which is something like: "Beni s hott but soooo a asshole!!!" The second most popular comment was to the effect of "Whips and horses do not mix." This is great if you live in the land of Thoroughbred, but not so much if you don't.

• I think I will also point out that Heartland Ranch has a website.

I think I have some McCleod's Daughters arriving today, so look out for that a little later this week.

Heartland: It's starting to grow on me, frighteningly enough.

Heartland
1.3: Breaking Free

I finally found an image that I can use for my Heartland posts. So for those of us who don't want to watch the show on YouTube (or waste our time downloading torrents, which I would avoid with this one), we now have a handy reference allowing you to place faces to names. From left to right we have: Scott (the vet who is probably in love with Lou), Mallory (the annoying 12-year-old), Jack (whom I call Grandpa Fletcher, but does have a name, and it is Jack), Lou (who is the most awesome character on the show by leaps and bounds), Spartan (the horse, so that should be easy to figure out), Amy (the main character), Ty (whiny but hot!) and Flighty Dad (he probably has a name, but I don't recall it right now). That is the cast. Now let's move on with the show.

This episode revolves around an open house. Lou insists on the open house to get their name out there and show people what they do at Heartland. Amy, predictably, doesn't think it's a good idea. Seriously, what ideas are good, Amy? Instead of sticking around to have that advised family meeting with Lou, Amy is all worried sick over Pegasus, her mom's old gelding. Apparently he isn't eating, preferring to mope in his stall because his favorite human doesn't visit him anymore. Amy has the perfect solution: aromatherapy. Pegasus picks out his scent and she starts to dribble it into his feed, which he still wants no part of.

You know what I think? Perhaps they should take him out of his stall occasionally. That might be helpful. Anyway, Amy spends the night with Pegasus and her beauty sleep is interrupted by Ty, who is trying to be a nice guy by putting a blanket on her. How dare he!

So, right about here I can only come up with a giant blank. This is because I watched this late last night, and am now trying to piece together a recap of it fourteen hours later with no attempts to refresh myself on the plot whatsoever. We'll skip forward to this horse that needs help, because after that I happen to remember everything, and I don't know how to feel about that.

Grandpa Fletcher and Ty go to the fancy/evil stable to pick up a tent for the open house. While there, Ty sees a motorcycle he just has to go ogle, giving Ashley a chance to invite him to ride it because it's her brother's and I'm sure this will be fine with him. Right. So Ty jumps on and she asks if she can go, so she gets on also and asks: "What do I hold onto?" Ty says, "Figure it out yourself." And I giggled myself through the rest of that scene.

Amy and Scott go to this other fancy, non-evil stable and see Ty motorcycling around. Amy knows immediately that it's him, because I guess she's memorized every article of his wardrobe. She makes the look. They continue on to see a horse that doesn't want to be saddled. She's been labeled vicious by everyone who has tried to work with her, including the fancy/evil stable owned by our antagonist, Val. The owner of the fancy/non-evil stable asks Amy if she's a horse whisperer, and Amy pulls out her righteous outrage by saying: "I listen to horses." Except she lets her tone tail up in the form of a really pissy question. Amy says she'll work with the mare, and they take her to Heartland, where she runs back into Ty and asks him how his ride was. Ah, jealousy.

Meanwhile, Lou is off having a normal lunch with her normal pal from high school, and then she runs into her father and asks him to come to the open house. While this is happening, Amy goes straight to work on the mare, putting a saddle on the mare's stall door. Out of nowhere, the mare lunges at her and Ty happens to be right there to slam the door closed and pull Amy out of the way, resulting in teen swooning as they press up against each other and don't immediately remove themselves from this position until Ashley wanders in totally out of nowhere. Ashley puts down the mare and tries to get Ty's attention, but he rebuffs her and notices how uncomfortable Amy is, which I'm sure just warms...places of his body.

Anyway, the rest of the time Ty is off trying to put up this giant tent, giving Amy time alone with Pegasus or the mare. She gets nowhere with the mare, deciding to call in the mare's former owner, a blind kid that looked really freaky on first impression. Honestly, my first reaction was "wait, why is there a serial killer in this show?" That weird. Then he turned out to be blind and respecting of living things, so it was all okay. He tells Amy that he never rode the mare with a saddle. Or a bridle for that matter. He rode her bareback with a halter. So Amy's all OH. The mare has not actually been broken to tack, which would obviously be a problem. So she montages her way through breaking the mare to saddle, which takes about, oh, one try. And things are all spiffy immediately.

Then we have Pegasus. The friend Lou saw at lunch comes by and puts on Amy's mother's fringed suede jacket, which winds up making Pegasus very mildly excited. So they hang the jacket up by his stall and that seems to do the trick. I still say they should just take him out of the barn occasionally.

Then we get to the open house. Amy parades the mare around and delivers some speech about how Heartland is better than any ranch on earth, and Val decides to throw out a challenge: if Amy can jump her $100,000 jumper who won't jump, she'll be, I don't know, more willing to believe in the fantasy, or something to that effect. Lou insists that Amy shouldn't have to display her amazingness more than she normally does on any given day, but Amy accepts. She rides the horse and gets tossed about once or so, and then Grandpa Fletcher tells her that the horse is commonly jumped in front of a lot of people. And he's always trained to jump by having people stationed by the jumps and armed with lunge whips, for some reason. Amy immediately tells everyone to clear the field, because this will help somehow. And then she jumps perfectly.

So, that's that. The open house turns into a dance party/cook out, and Lou is sad because her father didn't show up. She dances with Scott, who is so in love with her. Little does Lou know, her father has arrived and is in the barn talking with Pegasus, only Grandpa Fletcher comes and tells him to get off his property. They talk about not wanting to fight "today," which means that there will probably be a glorious moment where they do come to blows. I cannot wait for this moment.

Oh, and Ty asks Amy if she was jealous when Ashley came on to him and she totally is not. But she so is, and he knows it.

Heartland: Storming off in a huff is better than resolving conflict.

Heartland
1.2: After the Storm

Don't you sort of think it's amusing that Lauren Brooke is given a writing credit on this show? One thing that never gets old is her Wikipedia page, because as the so called author of Heartland she'd need to have a life, and the publishers have made one up for her. I love this. Seriously, couldn't they have just done the Thoroughbred route and said "created by *insert editor name here*" so all the books would stick together on a library shelf?

Anyway, in this episode Amy is going through some post traumatic stress related to the crash. Her nightmares lead to classic bolting awake episodes, which makes me wonder who really does jump and sit straight up when waking up from a nightmare. I'm not sure this is possible. Anyway, Lou hears her in the middle of the night, but waits until morning to point this out to Amy. Honestly, Lou is more concerned about running Heartland properly. She wants it to run more like a business, while Amy is insistent on stating that Lou's ideas are "not how it works," or something, while being completely unhelpful by not making it clear to Lou exactly how it does, in fact, work. Lou asks Amy how this horse, Swallow, is doing in training and Amy replies that he's doing great. She's not exactly listening because her best friend, Soroya, is back from Quebec, and she's rushing to meet her. Lou takes Amy's off hand answer to mean that Swallow is ready to be picked up, setting us up for conflict.

Amy and Soroya decide to go for a ride, while Ty notices that no one is going to help him muck stalls and gets whiny about it. Mallory, this kid who is always around for no reason, offers to help, but no one cares enough to acknowledge her. Amy and Soroya go on a ride while Soroya goes on and on about how hot Ty is. Hot and whiny. Soroya is apparently a show jumper, and so is Amy, I guess, so they make a plan to enter the circuit this year or something like that, and they will go to a neighbor's farm to practice their jumping.

Meanwhile, over at the place that is clean and upscale and therefore snobby/evil, Swallow is ridden by the blond antagonist (whose name is Ashley, I guess). Swallow freaks at a car and Ashley falls off, resulting in hysterics from the owners. Amy did not train Swallow correctly! Let's get in our SUVs and go act indignant at Heartland! They do that, making Lou and Amy appropriately sorry for having no communication skills at all. Amy blames Lou, Lou says she thought Amy meant the horse was ready, and now they're going to lose business because the first thing horse people do in these stories is talk bad about each other. When Lou thinks she's got another customer, Amy doesn't help matters by throwing a fit at the dinner table and storming off when she yells something to the effect of not being able to give a quote when she hasn't seen the horse. I think these people need to have a meeting, post haste, just to save me from seeing Amy storm off from the dinner table again, which she does two or three times in this episode alone.

Then we have Ty's parole officer meeting with Grandpa Fletcher about the paperwork he needs to sign if he's going to keep Ty at Heartland. Ty, of course, is shirking his responsibilities so he can help Amy with Spartan, who is also going through some post traumatic stress in regards to trailers. He will not get in them, ruining their attempt to trailer to the neighbor's to practice. Soroya is disappointed, but gets over it, while Amy is having a self-confidence break down. No one believes in her abilities, least of all herself. So when Lou comes along to try to apologize and smooth things over by saying no one expects her to be a miracle worker, Amy acts like a bitch and storms off again. When Ty dumps his chores to make her a jump course consisting entirely out of dead wood in their back pasture, is she thrilled about it? No. She just takes it as a confirmation that she's not good enough with horses to get Spartan into the trailer, so she acts like a bitch and storms off. Again. Dude, what?

So, by now I wanted someone to take Amy and shake her akin to some romance novel. She's got everyone in a fit...Ty is getting his ass handed to him by Grandpa for helping Amy instead of doing his work, Lou is having a crisis while trying to juggle work and the ranch, and then Amy has to have a dream about Spartan and the trailer, indicating to her that Ty is right -- Spartan thinks the trailer is like a jail cell. A moving jail cell that may run into a tree. So she decides to park the trailer in front of Spartan's paddock and open up the side door into the paddock so Spartan has to go through the trailer to get to his grass. This eventually works. Hurrah!

Also, Grandpa goes over to the nice/evil place to confront Val, the owner who has been making snide comments about Heartland behind their backs. And Swallow's owner decides to take the horse back to Heartland, and this new guy/awesome jumping star wants Amy to train his horse to not be afraid of dogs. And Lou and Amy finally apologize to each other and get on the same page. We end with Amy jumping Spartan over the course Ty made for her, suggesting that she's not so much of a bitch to ignore the fact that he made this thing entirely.

I would really like it if Amy stopped storming off. I hope she grows out of it, because if she's still doing this as a method of getting out of resolving conflict by the third season, I don't know how long I can continue with her. That said, I did like this episode more than the first.

Heartland: If Wildfire and Caitlin's Way had an illicit love affair in Canada...

Heartland
1.1 Coming Home

So I'm going to start watching this show. On Youtube, I guess, because Canadian television is all, I don't know, caring about who watches their programming for some reason. Look, Canada, I get that this is a Canadian show and all, but if and when you feel like publishing a tween book series about horses set in your own country, feel free to hoard the resulting tv show for Canadian eyes only.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on Canada. Or maybe it's just that I'm royally pissed off that this series gets a whole FREAKING TV SHOW and Thoroughbred didn't. Granted, Wildfire is basically a Thoroughbred fanfic, but that doesn't exactly count, now does it? So, I guess ultimately these entries will become giant rants about the unfairness of life and television. Hear me people that make these decisions: Thoroughbred tv show. You know you want to.

Okay, back to Heartland. I haven't read the books. I figure that I don't need to, given that Monique has laid down a solid primer and I really don't care. Let us watch the opening credits, because that's usually a good indicator of if a show is actually viewable.



So, damn it, I like the opening credits. They're actually way better than the opening sequence, which involves Amy and her mom stealing a horse from someone who is presumably abusing it, because they are morally superior to all other humans in the western half of the United States. Or Canada. Unfortunately for them the guy comes along and immediately shows some rage about the fact that this mother/daughter team has come along and decided that, you know, they'd really like his horse on grounds of their deciding he's an asshole. He rushes in and flips out entirely, deciding that the only appropriate response to this is to beat the horse more. Amy and her mom are shocked by his behavior, and the horse knocks him down. They tell him that they could call the cops, but they'll just take his horse and let him sit there on his ass and think about what a jerk he is, or something to that effect. They load up the horse and go, only to run off the road and into a tree.

There you have it. Horse and Amy survive, but mother dearest kicks the bucket. Amy's sister, Lou, is in a city that does not at all look like New York, and gets a phone call about the accident. She rushes home to be the pillar of strength that Amy can beat on angrily later, when she's feeling bitter and downcast about everything that life has thrown at her. When Amy gets home, looking pale but otherwise totally okay (her face was, you know, shoved into a windshield, so you'd think there would be some stitches, if not some serious bruising), she wanders around in a daze while the horse, a big black animal named Spartan, may or may not survive because he has been traumatized and the vet wants to put him down because of the trauma, I guess. It was one of those moments when a vet wants to put a horse down in a tv show, but has no realistic reason to, so they don't bother to state even a probable, yet fictitious, reason. I found this fascinating.

So Amy's grandpa says to keep the horse alive, and Amy continues to wander around and IM people as she holes herself up in her room. Lou learns that the bank is defaulting on their mortgage, and she goes to meet Steve, the crazy obvious Canadian banker, who so wants to go out with her that he does the natural thing and asks her out on a date if he can get the bank to approve whatever it is Lou is selling. Lou accepts.

Meanwhile, Ty has arrived, you guys, and according to Amy's friend Jen, he is hot. In a juvenile delinquent way. Because Amy's mom is an astonishing judge of character, she just happened to hire this guy before she died. I assume this will be explained later, because he has no experience, or clue. At all. Grandpa Fletcher tells him to stay the hell away from his daughters and then puts him to work.

Lou and Amy snip at each other in classic fashion, and Amy is forced to go back to school, where she suffers the advances of her boyfriend, Jesse, and the Classic Blond Antagonist Girl whose name I can't remember. Eventually they all go to a pool party, and this is where the plot probably deviates sharply from the book because there is underage drinking (from an American standpoint, anyway) and these kids couldn't possibly be older than 16. They can drive, so I guess I'll settle on that age. I could not tell what they were drinking, but I like to think they were drinking wine coolers. Just because.

So Jesse gets drunk and starts saying stupid stuff such as: "I drive really good when I'm drunk!" Oh, Jesse, you are so going to get beaten up. And he does, when Ty comes along and goes all Matt Ritter on Jesse's scrawny, drunk ass. At this point...right here...I wanted a Junior Davis to stand by looking bored by the stupid teenage shanigans, and there was no Junior Davis and I was UPSET about this. This show would benefit from the awesomeness of a Brad Townsend character, but that goes without saying.

Ty beats up Jesse and Amy has had enough of this stupidity, so she decides to walk home. Considering this is the middle of nowhere America, this is probably not wise because it's got to be a long walk. Ty finds her and apologizes and gives her a ride back, where they discover the rest of the farm hands doing Ty's work for him. Ty does not appreciate being found out like this, and when Grandpa fires him he has a melt down and Amy storms off after shouting at everyone and wow, teen angst. It is not as good as Wildfire. It's like a Thoroughbred book populated by drunk teenagers, actually. Hum. I would so watch that.

Yeah, well, during all of this Amy has discovered her gift of horse whispering and has whispered Spartan into being sane. In, like, a day. Go Amy. Lou finds out that the bank won't approve whatever she asked for unless she stays to implement her plan, so she has to stay at the ranch. Ty gets to stay because Grandpa Fletcher decides to be nice, I guess. And then Amy rides around on Spartan some more.

The Good:
This is a gorgeous show. Seriously, some of the scenery here is breathtaking. It reminds me a little of Wildfire in this aspect, because there were some scenes in that show's first season that really hit me as beautiful.

The Not So Good:
It's a general horse story. The formula is there, right down to the retraining a horse in a day thing. At least, it felt like a day. The way the shots were set up made it feel remarkably easy, when the dialogue kept trying to convince you that it wasn't.

The Appreciated, yet Hilarious:
The drinking. Okay, that wasn't expected because I had pegged this show to be majorly G rated, to the point of sugar shock. Yet all of a sudden there is this party scene where girls are running around in either bras or bikinis and everyone has red cups. The best part of this scene: when Ty threw his fists around. Not for the throwing of fists, but for the Classic Blond Antagonist Girl's gumption to actually tell him point blank that his hero routine blew up in his face. Nice work, show. Usually, no one bothers to point this out so directly. Ever.

Next up is After the Storm. I guess the first season borrows most of the book titles, but as you can see from IMDB, this stops rather obviously in season two with titles like "Divorce Horse" and "Showdown!" What, we couldn't think of some nice romantic titles? This is remarkably expected.

Heartland: Apparently horses are people too... emotionally.

Heartland 7: Out of the Darkness
Lauren Brooke
Scholastic 2001

Alrighty, Mara informed me yesterday that Lauren Brooke isn't a real person. I was all "whaaat?" over it and then I really thought about it. That makes sense. Serious sense. It explains the vast differences between Heartland and Chestnut Hill for one thing.

It seems that Heartland is produced by three authors, who collaborated under the title of Working Partners (TM) which Heartland is copyrighted under. Lauren Brooke is a name they attached to their combined efforts. It probably looks better than having three names attached to a series like Heartland and the fans could then become attached to the author.

I have yet to find out or decide if a single author wrote a book, or if all three were involved in the writing of each. The one thing I always liked about Heartland was that it was consistent. There were very few errors in the series as a whole. Maybe now that I am aware of this, I might find little things that give me an answer.

Anyway, onto the book!

Basic Plot Points

• Our horse in need of healing this time around is Gallant Prince, a thoroughbred who was involved in a barn fire. He was branded as a hero because he escaped and alerted his handler, Ryan, about the fire. But both Prince and Ryan got hurt. Ryan lost his job as he felt responsible for the accident. He also ended up blind in one eye. Prince ends up at Heartland all wild and distrustful and Amy can't seem to do anything with him. He is also scared of the dark.
• Amy and Ty are all awkward around each other. Seems that kiss messed with Amy a bit and she doesn't want to lose Ty as a friend. Yeah, Amy. Ty is such a bundle of fun, we wouldn't want that at ALL. But this doesn't get resolved in this book. Maybe in book 8? The suspense is killer.
• Daybreak and her dam Melody are ready for a new home, but Amy doesn't want them to go. She and Ty have a little spat over this one. Eventually, Amy gives in and realizes that she's just being selfish. Again. They find a new home for Daybreak and I rejoice because it means that I no longer have to read about how special that foal is.
• Lou and Scott (McVet) are also fighting. Lou's new system paying for their creditors pissed Scott off.
• There is no progress on the father issue in this book. Tim is still MIA.
• Prince's secret to getting better is... did you guess it?.... his handler Ryan. Their super bond is all he needs to get better. And Ryan can stop being a recluse and go back to working with horses. Tear.

Points of Interest

• Why must thoroughbreds be branded as wild and unmanageable. A few times in this book, people tell Amy she's crazy to be taking on a thoroughbred. Damn you, children's literature. Thanks to shit like this, I had to deal with kids freaking out over riding the old TB plodder at the stables I used to work at.
• OMG, Lou got a computer for Heartland. No wonder this book is titled Out of the Darkness. Huzzah!
• I am sorry to say this Bach Flower Remedy people, but there is no way your oils will work to calm down a freaked out horse.
• I wonder if Ty finished school. Seriously.
• How the hell does Amy fit in school, working with horses and visiting Ryan near Baltimore all in one day? Where is Baltimore, anyway? Is it far from Virginia? I don't know these things.
• Sleeping in a barn will never solve a problem with a horse. They actually don't care if you are there or not. In fact, they would probably prefer it if you weren't there. You only end up smelly, dirty and with hay in your hair.
• Interestingly, this is the only Heartland with a painted horse on the cover. The rest are photographs.

Ok, I am on a roll. And determined to see if I can actually work out if a single author wrote a single book or not!

Heartland: It's all high drama and angst for Amy...

Heartland 6: One Day You'll Know
Scholastic- 2001.

Ah, welcome back to another exciting episode of Days of Our Amy, who leads a very horrible life. I am going to break this review down into a few sections so I don't bore the shit out of you retelling the whole damn book.

Basic Plot Points

• Daybreak, the foal of a mare Heartland took in, is a real little bitch. But, Amy feels all bonded and shit to her so it should all work out dandy. (What about your OWN horse, Amy? Sundance? Ring a bell?) But training Daybreak gives Amy a chance to work with Ty. Yay.

• Jack Bartlett AKA Grandpa is sick and refuses to see the doctor. He collapses and ends up in hospital with pneumonia. A plot twist I did not see coming.

• Lou goes to England in search of her father and HE'S NOT THERE! Oh noes! We can't have the elusive daddy plot concluded with this book, can we? (To fill those of you in, Tim Fleming was this super awesomely cool show jumper who got badly hurt in a big show and then freaked out and abandoned his family years back. Since then, Amy's mother has died as well as Tim's old horse, Pegasus. Tim sent a letter to Lou saying he plans to visit them in a few months, but Lou has daddy issues and she just couldn't wait that long.)

• Amy's friend Matt is in love with her but she rejects him like the self-obsessed bitch she is. So, poor Matt decides to date the hottest girl in school, Ashley Grant. Who also happens to be the Anti-Amy. Good for you, Matt. Good for you.

• Daybreak also gets sick to add the the drama. At least it makes her easier to handle and she can forge a SUPER BOND with Amy.

• Christmas rolls around, Lou is home and Jack is recovering from his pneumonia. We have a merry Heartland get-together and Amy and Ty watch a recovered Daybreak frolic in the snow. Do they finally kiss? Yes... yes they do. And it is so lacking in detail I really need to remind myself the intended readers of this series are 12 not 24. Bleh.

Points of Interest

• Don't they have the freaking internet in 2001? Can't Lou just e-mail her father instead of sending letters? WTF, people. Or phones. I hear those work well.

• At one point, Amy asks if they have Thanksgiving in England. Yeah, sure Amy. Along with the pilgrims and Native Americans too.

• Wow, Daybreak is special. She can buck discreetly. Ok... Lauren Brooke really tried too hard to work in the reading list words here me thinks.

• Lou is such a bitch. I can see where Amy gets it from. Going away when her Grandfather is sick? Selfish much? The old geezer could have pegged and then Lou would have been feeling all guilty about it for the rest of her life. Ask Amy about guilt, Lou. Seriously.

As a side note, Ty is sort of hot on the cover of this book. He could almost be my Brad. It's a pity he's such a vapid nancy boy.

Alrighty, onward to book 7. I might backtrack at some stage and review 3-5. I might not.

This. This just isn't fair.

Seriously, why didn't the Thoroughbred series have its own television show? The Saddle Club and Heartland have theirs, and apparently there's a Phantom Stallion show in some stage of early production...so I demand to know. Why no Thoroughbred, people who control these things? We get Wildfire and no Thoroughbred? I demand a Thoroughbred tv series so I can be obsessed with it! It could be Canadian. They could take great liberties with the story. Brad could be awesome (I mean, you know he would be). Ashleigh could be blond. I don't care. I'd still watch it. Are you hearing me, television people? I need a Thoroughbred tv series. Immediately.

That is all.

I can haz messed-up whores... I mean horse- Heartland 2!

Riiight, so I thought we were due for another visit to Heartland. The second volume, After the Storm, is a little less angsty than the first.
With an idea I sort of stole from another blog somewhere, I give you Heartland 2: The Script!

Amy: (sobbing) I miss my mother so much! It is my fault she is dead.

Lou: I am your sister and I am here for you, though I might move back to the city to be with my asshole boyfriend, Carl.

Ty: Look, Amy! We are going to try and fix Spartan, the horse that was involved in the accident! Yay!

Amy: Spartan hates me! He blames me too! I can't do it! I am such a whiny, self-abosorbed bitch!

Lou:Yes you are. I have plans for Heartland that will raise money and you won't listen to them! I feel like I have no place here! Maybe I should go back to the city with my asshole boyfriend, Carl.

Spartan: *attempts to kill Amy*

Grampa: We need to kill him! He is nasty and unpredictable!

Amy: I don't listen to anyone or anything! Spartan is going to be fine! I will just have to do something when you people aren't around to tell me what to do.

Ty: *converts oxygen into carbon dioxide*

Spartan: *rages*

Carl: Hi Lou! I am your smarmy, asshole boyfriend. I just got a job in Chicago and I know you want to move there with me! *g*

Lou: Oh gee. It is such an unclear choice. Maybe I need some proof that you are a wanker before I decide.

Carl: Ok. I will give you time while I hatch up some scheme! Mwahahahaha!

Amy: Gee Spartan, who knew that chasing you around in the middle of a storm would cure you? I bet Monty Roberts would be uber proud of me!

Spartan's Owner: I know you found me but you people gelded my prize special horse and now I don't want him anymore!

Amy: But Spartan loves you with an Undying Love that Only Fictional Equines Have For People!!!

Lou: Forget about that,we have a fundraising barn dance thing to organise! I am so happy that asshole Carl will be there too!

Amy: Wow! I was wrong to doubt you, Lou! This is going to be a success.

Carl: I am back and I know that job offer you got is so great and you're just going to move to Chicago with me, Lou!

Lou: You set me up! I did not see this coming! Fuck off!

Amy: Yay! Now Lou is going to be able to lust after Scott, the hot Vet!

Grampa: The party went so well. Now we have money again! At least for the rest of this book!

Amy: I am going to ride Spartan in a practice round at a show. I know he's not been jumping for more than a week but he has such talent!

Spartan's owner's grandkid: Gerry! You really have a cool name, Geronimo, but we have to give you a stupid nickname instead! I need to ride you in my class. My pony is lame!

Amy: Wow. Spartan loves this girl with a love like no other. I think she must take him home. I know I made Cindy look like an angel in this book, but I am now over blaming myself for my mother's death.

Spartan/Gerry: Neigh!

I have to admit that the books sort of get better after this one, when Amy grows up a little and stops throwing hissy fits all over the show. The twist with Spartan going to the grandkid was kind of sweet if overdone with the whole Special Bond thing. After reading this, I am even more convinced that Heartland and Chestnut Hill have been written by different people. Now that the drama has abated for the time being, I sort of enjoyed this one. It kept my attention for the hour or so it took me to read it. Although, my enjoyment is relative to the last book I read!


More Heartland? Chestnut Hill? Or maybe I will attempt to read Claire's TB Book of Doom, Star's Chance!

Chestnut Hill: Why TB doesn't suck that much, really!

Ok, so I figured I needed to find something truly terrible, something worthy to add my bit to the awesomeness that is the blog.

I bring you my review of Chestnut Hill 2: Making Strides. (I can’t find the first book, sadly, but I do own 2-6, so be prepared for the nastiness) This series is supposedly written by Lauren Brooke, the one and the same author who wrote Heartland. I, however, suspect that she handed her pen over to some 12 year-old fangirl.

But, there will be plenty of time later for me to go into detail about this, the shittiest horse series ever created. Let’s take a look at the cover!

The Cover

Nothing too much to gripe about here. You can’t go too wrong when you’re working with actual pictures of actual horses. And hey! Tybalt, our equine hero, is actually a bay. Shock. The only thing I hate about this cover is that it tempted me into buying the damn book.

The Blurb

Horses. Friends. Competition. Tradition.

Welcome to Chestnut Hill. An exclusive boarding school set among the rolling hills of Virginia. With a premiere riding program, Chestnut Hill has a long tradition of excellence. Here, the best and brightest learn to shine.

Malory has earned a spolt on the riding team and she’s found a close crew of friends, yet she still questions whether she really belongs at Chestnut Hill. Then a new horse arrives at the stable, and Malory is instantly drawn to him. But Tybalt is weary and defensive. Malory is determined to reach him, and she believes a girl called Amy Fleming can help. When it comes to horses, Malory has always trusted her instincts, and now she’s willing to bet her future at Chestnut Hill that Tybalt has what it takes to win.

It seems all innocent and sweet, right? And, for the most part, accurate. I just love how Brooke shamelessly sticks Amy (Heartland’s main character) in here. It’s kind of like she’s doing the whole self-promotion thing, especially considering how the CH girls worship Amy. Blah. Whatever. This is a bad book in disguise as a passable read.

The Girls

Malory O’Neil: she’s the star of this one. And the scholarship girl, which instantly gives her reason to feel inferior and play the “poor girl” role. She is, of course, naturally talented when it comes to all things equine.

Dylan Walsh: the Stevie Lake of this series, Dylan’s purpose is to make wisecracks and not to take anything seriously. I liked Stevie in the Saddle Club, so I should like Dylan, right? Not so. Dylan is irrational and stupid and annoying. She rides a pony called Morello, that she enjoys pretending is hers. But her aunt is the director of riding at the school, so she gets away with it.

Honey Harper: the girl from England is all demure and cute. Right now, she doesn’t have a special horse but I am sure that will be sorted out in the next book.

Lani Hermandez: well, Lani adds some Latino flavor to the series, I suppose. ‘Cause it can’t just be about rich white girls and their Louis Vuitton accessories! She is just there, for now.

Lynsey Harrison: the uber rich bitch antagonist who always has something nasty to say while wearing some monogrammed item. If Brad Townsend was a girl, he’d be Lynsey. Except, I bet he’d spell his name properly.

The Plot

So it’s Homecoming Weekend at CH, and all the girls in a tizz because they are only getting oatmeal for breakfast and they have to ride in front of the CH Alumnae later. Bitchy comments are exchanged and I can sort of understand why Lynsey acts the way she does. I gotta tell you, these girls can be nasty.

As is tradion with a Lauren Brooke series, Malory’s mother is dead, but it was two years previously, so I am spared from Amy-esque angst for now.

The girls eat hors d’oeuvres and talk shit while waiting for their class. Malory is riding bland old Hardy, who’s only a lowly school pony with the unfortunate show name of Hardy Har Har. I kid you not. Malory rides in the quadrille and then does a course on Hardy. She knocks a pole and we are sad. Plus, it gives certain girls ammo to tease the poor scholarship girl.

There is a Halloween party coming up, where the rich private school girls get to act all slutty with the rich private school boys of St. Kits (Christopher’s), their affiliated school. Malory cannot afford a costume, for shame! So she hides this from her friends. This is real drama, people.

After telling Lani that she reminds her of her grandparents dog, Malory talks about this awesome WonderHorse called Zanzibar, a name Brooke’s neice/daughter/fangirl clearly sucked from a Phantom Stallion book. She used to just randomly climb on this horse’s back in the paddock and ride it around, until her parents decided it might be safer to pay for lessons. Where Malory could ride with tack and under supervision. Like that one’s a real challenge to figure out. Anyway.

Dylan and Malory get asked to try out some new ponies by Mrs. Carmichael, Dylan’s aunt. They go and Malory finds Tybalt, who reminds her of Zanzibar! I’m telling you, a tear rolled down my cheek. Of mirth. Tybalt is all mistrustful, but Malory is convinced she can fix him and turn him into her own Super Special Horse! The horse’s owner gets all pushy and they end up taking Tybalt home with them along with Foxy Lady and Winnie.

But, this is a Lauren Brooke book and things will never go smoothly!

The girls are all excited about using Amy Fleming’s techniques to train Tybalt. You see, they were given a talk by Amy in the first book. Sort of like how some people think by watching a video on Natural Horsemanship, they can suddenly get a green Mustang off the range and train it in one day.

The girls go shopping for costumes and Malory again hides the fact that she can’t afford one. They see boys flirting with Lynsey, who is clearly living up to the whole slut reputation. Malory thinks of Caleb, a guy she used to ride with who will be at the party. He is hot. Like…. HOT. As far as Malory is concerned, anyway. Clearly she has not met Brad Townsend, who surpasses all standards of hotness like Glory does other racehorses.

Eventually, Lani confesses that she has no costume and the girls dress her up as Cleopatra. But no! Lynsey’s minion, Patience, is dressed the same! Turns out, Caleb, the hot guy, was supposed to be Patience’s date, but confuses her for Malory. Drama! Malory is all hurt and thinks that Caleb doesn’t remember her. I don’t care.

So, Tybalt has to be ridden at some stage. Lynsey gets the honor. She gets dumped and throws a prissy tantrum that the horse isn’t worthy of Chestnut Hill. Now we are scared Tybalt will get sent back to where he came from.

Hardy comes up lame and Malory has no horse to ride for the upcoming interschools competition. She asks Mrs. C if she can try Tybalt out, much to my shock. Or not. She rides and she does terribly and Mrs. C says she will have take Foxy Lady to the show instead, so all is not lost.

But, then we all have the epiphany that Amy Fleming can help! Yay! Amy works her magic with massage, join-up and herbal stuff. Tybalt is a totally new animal, thanks to love and all that crap. Malory rides him again and they do well.

Tybalt is so great and talented, that mere horses pale in comparison. Malory rides him a lesson and gets permission to take him to the show, which is always good to do on a pony that they know nothing about that hasn’t been worked hard in ages and ages. I am so glad there are books like this to instill good horse sense into impressionable young minds!

At the show, Tybalt freaks out and Caleb rescues Mallory from certain death. They debate about scratching him, but Malory cannot give up! Her ride goes badly and they mess up the course. Malory is sure that Tybalt will be sent away.

But, this is is aimed at children and we must all have our happy endings. Of course Tybalt gets to stay at CH! Mallory now has her very own special horse… aside from the technicality that she doesn’t own him, of course.

Monique’s Name-Dropping-o-meter! (Becuase it happens. A lot.)

• Scooby Doo

• X-Files

• The Flintstones

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer

• Rolex- the watch

• The Addams Family

• The Four Seasons
  

Points of Interest

• One of their classmates is studying poetry by Silvia Plath. I had no idea they covered that in middle school. I should send my kids to CH!

• Typical breakfast fare at CH is: French toast, waffles, muffins, THREE kinds of sausage (would that be beef, pork and vegan?) and fresh fruit!

• What is it with horse books and fucking blueberry muffins?

• I seriously hope I never compare a guy’s breeding to a horse’s.

I suppose I should stick with it and read CH3: Heart of Gold next. I warn you though, the books get suckier and suckier.

Heartland: If TB and Days of Our Lives Had a Lovechild...

I own all of the Heartland series by Lauren Brooke and I decided to put the fact that I spent all that money on them to good use. You have to bear in mind that I am not really for T-Touch and Join Up and all that stuff they promote with this series. In fact, I don't have much of an opinion on it at all.

Hold on to your seats as we have an in-depth look at the high drama and angst that is Heartland #1: Coming Home!

Amy calls Heartland home, and ever since she can remember, she's watched her mom instill trust and hope in horses that were once fierce and afraid. And Amy's inherited her mother's gift, the ability to listen to horses and understand what they need. But when a tragic accident changes everything, Amy must cling to what her mother taught her- she must truly believe miracles can happen at Heartland.

You know, Harper Collins should employ whoever wrote this to write the blurbs for their books. It doesn't really give much away and it is accurate. Wow.

The Plot

The book starts off with Amy Fleming watching her mother, Marion, work with a horse called Copper. The methods Marion uses are very much ripped off from Monty Roberts, but anyway. Amy and Ty Baldwin, the high school drop-out stable hand are clearly in lust with each other and will, no doubt, resolve this lust in future books.

Amy is having her fifteenth birthday soon and her big sister, Lou, cannot make it, as she is tied up in Big New York Things and is far too important to bother with her sister's birthday. We learn that Lou might be avoiding Heartland, as she was closer to her father, who had a bad accident years before. It is hard for Lou to be around horses. Especially Pegasus, the horse her father had the accident on.

Amy has some free time and she and Soraya go for a trail ride to check on this pony, Sugarfoot, who's owner is very frail and to see some neighbour's amazing horse. As it turns out, the neighbours have moved, leaving their horse behind. And so the drama begins! Amy feels compelled to help this stallion, as he is just so pretty.

Now, a storm breaks while Amy and Soraya ride home, but Amy insists that the horse must be helped now! So she convinces her mother to hitch the trailer up to go fetch the horse, inspite of the fact that the road they have to travel along is dangerous. They get there, load the horse up and leave. But, on the way back, a tree falls and they get into a terrible accident.

Amy wakes up in hospital to the news that her mother died in he crash. She had been unconscious for eight days and her sister was there. They had the funeral without Amy being able to attend it, which would also make me pretty upset.

So, Amy blames herself for her mother's death and there is much crying and angst over this. She refuses to get involved her her life at Heartland again, which is pretty selfish considering there is so much work to be done. Amy convinces herself that she is the only one that cares that Marion is dead, as the others are too busy with work to care.

But then Any finds out that Mrs. Bell, the old woman who owns Sugarfoot, is dead. So Heartland takes on the pony and Amy gets involved in his care. We meet Scott Trewin, the hunky vet. I have to admit that I am sort of in lust with Scott.

We learn that Lou hates horses becuase they alway cause heartache and pain. She blames them for her father's accident and her mother's death.

Lou clearly has no intentions of staying to help at Heartland forever. She has a boyfriend, Carl, in the city as well as a good job. This causes some more issues between her and Amy.

Matt Trewin, McVet's younger brother, is in love with Amy... but it is clear this is one romance that will never reach fruition. Alas... maybe Matt will fall for someone else... like Soraya. Seeing as she is so in love with him and all.

Sugarfoot's condition does not improve, in spite of Amy giving him herbs and stuff. She begins to doubt if she can help him without her mother's guidence.

Hearland also takes on a new horse, who is having trouble loading into trailers. This is kind of a problem, as his owner is a top showjumper. We can't be having those problems with show horses, now! Amy insists she can help him.

More fights ensure over Heartland's continued existance, as they cannot do the work without Marion. Amy gets upset... again.

Scott, aka McVet, asks Amy is they can take on Spartan, the horse that was in the trailer when they had the accident. Amy agrees... reluctantly.

Star, the showjumper, learns that trailers are not scary places and Amy proves she has her mother's touch and that they can still keep helping damaged horses. Yay!

Lou bonds with Sugarfoot and the pony makes a Miracle Recovery, only possible with love and song.

Lou decides she will stay and help Heartland for the time being.

All is well... until the next book, when Amy and Spartan have to face the trauma the accident caused!



Points of Interest:

• Why is that the token best friend is never that much into horses as the main character in these books? Soraya can't hold a candle to how awesome Amy rides or how much she loves equines! Just once, I'd love the best friend to be a better rider than the main character. Just once!
• Amy's sister, Lou, is very unlikeable in this book. She gets the reader to feel irritation for her in the first chapter!
• Oh, of course Amy has a bad-ass pony that hates everyone else. Am I shocked? Are you? I'd bet money on the answer to that question.
• A boy, Matt, likes Amy. Matt wants to be a doctor and he is a really nice guy, but this is not enough for Amy who states "I wish he liked riding more." I wonder if Amy is aware that men who like wearing tight pants are usually inclined to like other men too. At least, that's what I have concluded.
• Sugarfoot the pony is worthy of TB... he only helps himself to one apple from the fruit bowl a day!
• Can I just say here that Scott Trewin is hot? Scott Trewin is hot. I am done!
  
• Amy needs to stop taking her anger out on other people... seriously. It's called therapy!
• The Grants are Heartland's Townsends. Rich people who don't care for horses! Do we need any more reason to hate them? I think not!
• Soraya is the funniest name for a best friend character... and she had curly black hair. I wonder what ethnicity she is! Seeing as such things have to be glossed over for the sake of being politcally correct.

All in all, this wasn't too terrible. But I can do without the melodrama and Amy's pissy attitude. Onward, to book 2!