What did Lou expect when she connected with Georgie’s aunt? That was the first thing that came to mind when Lou decided to reach out to Crystal (Keegan Connor Tracy) so that Georgie could complete her birth mom’s side of her family tree project.
Lou, Peter and Georgie were front and centre during “The Family Tree,” with Lou being her usual overly-concerned self with regard to her daughters and anyone else that lives in Heartland. Written by David Preston and directed by Chris Potter, Lou at first found herself trying to measure up to the self-assured, confident and perfectly-coiffed Crystal before switching to plotting her demise. And who could blame Lou, really? Crystal had blown in like a whirling dervish, telling her niece how much she looked like her late sister and describing that side of the family so Georgie could fill in the blanks. Lou didn’t have too much of a problem with that, until Crystal started to question how Georgie was being raised.
Mucking out stables? Wearing her hair back? Dressed in hand-me-downs? That wasn’t good enough for Crystal. Her niece deserved more. The high-end shopping spree wasn’t a surprise. Georgie breaking her arm after falling from Checkers wasn’t. Lou’s outrage wasn’t either. What was surprising to me was that, rather than have Georgie lash out at Lou–a trope that’s over-used in this genre–Georgie embraced her and admitted having Crystal urge her to be more assertive and wear makeup just confused the young girl. (Did anyone else cheer when Peter told Crystal to get out of the house? Yeah, me too.) Crystal saying Lou and Peter couldn’t stop her from seeing Georgie hinted–at least to me–that she may show up later this season to cause more trouble for the Hogans.
Potter, meanwhile, was doing double duty behind the camera and in front, as Tim valiantly tried to get his relationship with Casey back on track. Again, rather than have the usual back-and-forth of two people tentatively easing into a relationship, Heartland did it differently by having Casey put Tim in an uncomfortable spot–buying a bulldogging horse so he could wrestle steer–before he admitted his rodeo days are in the rearview mirror. The two ended up smooching in the hay, so all is good with “Tasey” (“Casim”?).
That bulldogging horse of Caleb and Ty’s represented the last sale the latter wanted to make before leaving his business with the former so he could concentrate on his vet gig. Ty’s decision to sever ties over beers with Caleb had the usual effect. After all, beer and business don’t usually mix; throw in Jesse Stanton and things got ugly. I wish more time had been spent during the bar brawl itself, but the result was nonetheless the same: the pair were thrown in jail overnight and Ty called on Amy to come and bail them out.
“Did I mention I hate you two?” she said as she pulled away from the RCMP detachment? Yes, Amy, you made that quite clear.
 Notes and quotes
- “What happened to your face?!”–Lou
- “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Yeah, shut up Crystal
- I like Drunk Caleb
- I missed Jack
- Did anyone else catch the “godmother” reference that teased Connor’s role on Once Upon a Time?
Next week is a repeat of Heartland followed by one more new episode on Dec. 7 before a break for the holidays.
Heartland airs Sundays at 7 p.m. on CBC.