#episode 1103

[murphyzzz]

UGLY UGLY SANJI WHAT DID THEY DO TO HIS FACE I GASPED… ANIMATORS ARE DEAD WRONG FOR THAT 😭

[zonaenthusiast]

None of the words running through my mind right now are in the bible.

[rainboneish]

uhoh

[murdoch-histories]

 In the episode “8 Footsteps”, Helen Keller, played by Amanda Richer, is another famous historical figure who makes an appearance, along with her teacher and companion Anne Sullivan Macy.

Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Alabama. At nineteen months old, she contracted an illness that left her both deaf and blind. While the illness was not specified by medical records at the time, the description the doctors made has led historians to believe that it might have been scarlet fever or meningitis.

Anne Sullivan Macy would enter Keller’s life when she was about seven years old and Macy was twenty. Keller would later describe the day Macy arrived as “my soul’s birthday”. Macy began to teach Keller how to use sign language and while it was a slow process, Keller began to catch on and understand the words of the objects around her, eventually even learning how to properly speak. 

Keller would later go on to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, and the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, followed by Radcliffe College of Harvard University. She graduated in 1904, the first blind-deaf person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. Keller also had a firm friendship with Austrian philosopher Wilhelm Jerusalem, who was one of the first people to discover she had a talent for writing. 

Eventually, Keller’s fame as an author and speaker would spread worldwide, and she began to travel around the world, giving talks on her writing as well as further advocating for people with disabilities. 

Keller passed away after a series of strokes at the age of 87 in 1968.

Interesting facts:

- While the plot of “8 Footsteps” sounds ridiculous - Helen Keller having an affair and wanting to elope with the man, but in real life this actually happened. His name was Peter Fagan, a young reporter for the Boston Herald. Not much information on what happened to him afterwards, though. 

- Along with being an advocate for people with disabilities, Keller was also known for supporting several political movements, such as women’s suffrage, labour rights, and socialism. In fact, she was a member of the Socialist Party of America. 

- Keller was also rather fond of music, despite the fact she couldn’t hear it. She experienced it by feeling the beat through vibrations, similar to another famous deaf person, composer Ludwig van Beethoven.

[murdoch-histories]

There are a few historical figures in the episode “8 Footsteps”, and we’ll get to them soon, but let’s start with Anne Sullivan Macy, played by Severn Thompson, who is famous for being Helen Keller’s teacher. Together, these two incredible women helped the world to better understand blindness and deafness. 

Sullivan was born on April 14, 1866 in Massachusetts to an Irish family as Johanna Mansfield Sullivan, but was generally referred to as Anne or Annie throughout most of her life. When she was only five years old, she contracted a bacterial eye disease called trachoma, which left extremely painful infections, and left her almost completely blind. The rest of her childhood can only be described as tumultuous - her mother died of tuberculosis when she was eight, and her father later abandoned her and her younger brother, James Sullivan, nicknamed Jimmie. The two children were sent to live in an overcrowded almshouse, where Jimmie later died of tuberculosis himself. 

Given that her eyesight was no longer functioning so young, Sullivan had no skills in reading, writing, or sewing, but she would eventually get an education at  the Perkins School For the Blind in Boston in 1880. During her time there, Sullivan had several operations on her eyes that greatly improved her vision. In about six years, Sullivan graduated at the age of twenty as the valedictorian of the class. 

Not long after graduating, Sullivan was offered a job by John Keller, who needed a teacher for his daughter Helen, who was seven at the time. Sullivan accepted and would leave for Alabama, meeting Helen in 1887. The two of them quickly formed a connection that would last for nearly fifty years. 

Sullivan passed away on October 20, 1936 at the age of 70, following a coronary thrombosis. She was later interred in a memorial at the National Cathedral in Washington, the first woman to be recognized this way. 

Interesting fact

In “8 Footsteps”, we see that Alexander Graham Bell knows both Sullivan and Keller. This was true in real life as well, given that he had taken a photo of them in 1899. 

Here’s the photo he took:

[the-real-tc]

lis4ever said: Great review, thanks!

heartland-lb reblogged this from the-real-tc and added:

Great review TC.

Thanks for reading it! I appreciate the positive comments. 

[the-real-tc]

jordm said: I wonder if val’s pushing will have the same effects on Ashley as Georgie. She literally pushed Ashley away. Literally. Out of province. Now I don’t think that’ll happen to Georgie bc she has family to lean on and all but you never know. It’s gonna manifest somehow and I fear it’s gonna be during a competition.  

I agree. There’s bound to be some blowback, I think, particularly if Georgie doesn’t perform as well as Val expects. I don’t think Georgie would deliberately throw a competition like Ashley threw the Fall Finale so many years ago, however. We don’t need that kind of history to repeat or plot line re-tread. I don’t mind parallels in story lines, but if that happened, I’d be like, “Gee, guess the writers have run out of original ideas.”

[the-real-tc]

Review: Decision Time, Ep. 1103

There were several threads weaving together this plot in another solid script from Ken Craw. We had Georgie and Val butting heads over how hard to train with Flame. We had Tim and Caleb nearly having a falling out over how to run the rodeo school. There was Jade having confidence issues when a new girl (Avery) shows up at the school with great bulldogging skills. We also had Amy and Ty having their first “new parents” freak-out with Lyndy’s health. Finally, we had Jack extending a business proposition to Mitch (he really does like having that guy around!).

All seems well at Heartland on this morning, with Georgie taking Flame around the jumping pen; un-official coach Amy likes what she sees, telling Georgie everything looks good and that no changes are necessary. New daddy Ty shows up just then to place “smiley-pants” Lyndy in Amy’s arms so he can head off to the clinic. Just before he leaves, Ty suggests dinner at Maggie’s; Amy readily agrees. At Tim’s rodeo school: It’s time for his students to learn the fine art of bulldogging (steer wrestling), or for the ladies in the class, ribbon-grabbing. Caleb and Tim have a little disagreement over Tim’s chosen method of instruction, something that threatens to become a huge problem. Jade overhears their little spat and tries to reign them in a little before things escalate. Tim was so irritated with Caleb’s “suggestions” as the episode progressed, he was about to fire him. Caleb-the-Clueless thought he was contributing invaluable assistance. So funny to see these two on totally different pages. Caleb’s hero-worship of Tim has clearly never ended. But Tim does owe him one: when the students were close to ridiculing the old rodeo legend for banging himself up during a steer wrestling demo, Caleb indignantly talked about Tim’s successes, and that they should be grateful to be learning from him. Back at Heartland, Val is disappointed to find Georgie and Amy are done practicing already. She’s skeptical when Amy tells her they accomplished a lot. The show in Okotoks is next week, and Val lays a guilt trip on Georgie about where her priorities lie. She whips out an iPad with a detailed schedule for Georgie, and it’s clear that between practice times and competition dates, she won’t have much time for anything else, particularly Trick Riding. If Georgie thought riding Flame would be a fun, Val Stanton can really suck the joy out of it. Many others have commented on this, and I agree: it’s like Val hasn’t learned anything from when she pushed Ashley and Apollo. She pushed so hard, Ash grew to hate the sport and took up barrel racing just to spite her mother. So, one wonders why Val is pushing so hard… Flame is apparently an Olympic hopeful. Is it the prestige? Is it the money? I’ve posited in other quarters that since Lisa is experiencing financial difficulty in the “expensive” horse business, could Val be experiencing similar troubles? (It’s been pointed out that show jumping and horse racing are different, so maybe the show jumping scene isn’t going down the tubes and Briar Ridge is staying afloat quite nicely.) But if Val’s business is suffering like Fairfield is, maybe she’s desperate for a winner in Flame in order to keep from folding. Georgie tries to make the grueling schedule work, especially since Olivia has approached her to do a tandem trick as headliners in an upcoming rodeo. When Georgie pulls a muscle during a practice run, upsetting her training schedule, Val pretty much forces her to choose between continuing to work for her and riding for the Extreme Team. Side note: Helen Colliander does a brilliant job as Olivia trying to mask her glee when Georgie breaks the news she’s quitting the Extreme Team. Olivia knows the polite thing to do would be to sound disappointed, but she just can’t help herself. It’s a comical scene (I actually burst out laughing) since it’s clear Oliva is really jubilant that her “rival” is no longer going to be a challenge to her solo “headliner” chances. The other “decision” that had to be made was by Mitch, who seems to be hating his job in Calgary, even though it’s what he trained to do. Jack, seeing how much he misses the great outdoors, offers him a stake in his cattle business. In a really comfortable scene around the dinner table, Jack happily announces that Mitch has agreed to come on board. (Wonder what Lou will think of this when she gets back!) For Amy and Ty, Baby Lyndy has been a pretty happy infant… until she starts teething. Her sleep patterns are upset, and the new parents panic and rush Lyndy to the hospital when she starts running a fever. Of course, the kid is all right, but her whiny, cranky behavior shows new godparents Cass and Caleb that maybe now isn’t quite the right time to start their own family. Last but not least thread: Jade and Avery, the new kid in class. Not satisfied with ribbon-pulling, Avery gets into the thick of things by wrestling the steer to the ground, just like a pro. Jade is instantly intimidated, and treats Avery with open hostility. To her credit, Avery takes Jade’s constant maltreatment and comes across as humble, yet self-assured. By the end of the episode, the two of them come to an understanding. Jade realises Avery isn’t there to be a threat, and (maybe) convinces her to stay on as a student in Tim’s school; offers her a chance to partner with her in team roping. Avery says she’ll think about it… Final notes: Baby Lyndy is seriously cute. Not-so-cute when she’s cranky and bringing up her food on poor Cass, but when she’s happy, she’s adorable. Caleb had a poster of Tim on his wall when he was growing up; Tim had a poster of Farrah Fawcett. Adam is still hanging around, though he's stuck with Olivia. Still, he seems content to be chummy with Georgie, and the two seem comfortable with this arrangement. Val was clearly relieved to hear Georgie had chosen to quit Extreme Team, but at least she acknowledged it was a tough decision. Maybe there’s hope for her, yet! Ty claims he *sings* to Lyndy for bedtime. This, I wanna hear. (I would have thought songbird Mama Amy would be the one to sing lullabies.)