Thursday, January 21, 2021

When Calls The Heart Season 6 Review

A Message from the Librarian:

Dear Readers,

The following review was written by both Maidens in a conversational style. Since they forgot to explain this little detail, I have taken it upon myself to differentiate between the two, thereby sparing you the confusion, madness and intense headache that I experienced when editing this. Also, they are assuming their readers will not care about any "spoilers", putting up no warning, therefore spoiling it for me...

Anyway, Katherine's text is in Red and Grace's text is in Blue. I hope you find this helpful,

Yours sincerely,    

The Librarian    


Good Morning, Everyone!
                                           

Katherine and myself are here today to talk about When Calls The Heart Season 6!

A most pleasing endeavor, if I do say so myself! (bites joyously into a cookie)

Where'd you get a cookie?

From the kitchen island, why?

(Grace retrieves a cookie, and sits back down before her laptop)

Continue!

I was done.  'It's your turn to say something, Mr. Darcy.'

If this were a party, I would remark about the number of couples, but since it is not, I shall return to the subject at hand. When we first began watching When Calls The Heart, we were pleasantly entertained by the endearing characters...

Particularly one character in red serge.

 (Grace soliloquizes for a moment, but is nudged back to the present by Katherine) ...Yes, that and the story-line.  

(Grace strikes a dramatic pose) 

A simple coal mining town reeling from a recent disaster, a budding hate-to-love relationship, and the everyday struggles of frontiersmen and women. Since it was a Hallmark production there were rather cheesy moments...

But we loved it anyways, admit it!

(Grace grumbles and retrieves another cookie)

She loved it anyways - take it from me.  However, we did see that gradually over Seasons 1- 5, Hope Valley seemed to lose it's historic authenticity, and the town morphed from a poor, rural, "wild west" town with real life struggles, to a more prosperous one, housing middle class citizens, with more petty problems.

Quaint and cute, but lacking real depth especially when Pastor Frank left town. Another problem was the lack of strong leading male characters. I lost interest in continuing after finishing Season 5 and I was happy to move on to other more exciting TV shows.

....But I still wanted to continue, much to Grace's chagrin.  So when my lovely friend generously gave me an Amazon gift card to comfort me when my wisdom tooth had to be pulled a couple weeks ago...I jumped at the chance and purchased Seasons 6& 7!

She was in excruciating pain, spending the entire weekend on the couch, moaning, eating ice, and under the influence of pain-killers; I tell you she was not thinking straight! And now we all must suffer!!

I assure you all that I was in full possession of my wits!  And let me also tell you all that though putting up a great fuss, Grace has become quite engaged in the storyline despite herself.

Let's not get too carried away. Anyways, here are our thoughts on Season 6.

When we last left Hope Valley in Season 5, everyone was devastated by Jack's death *sobs and wails*, but there was a glimmer of light with the news of Elizabeth's newly discovered pregnancy. But before we get into the new Season's details, first can we just take a moment to say:

WHY??  WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS TO US??  JACK WAS THE BEST CHARACTER?? HOW ARE WE TO SURVIVE SUCH A BLOW AS THIS???



Ahem... now that we have that out of our system let's continue on.

Season 6 kicks off with Elizabeth giving birth to her baby boy, Jack Jr., and three new characters coming to town. 


First off is Fiona, who travels into town to set up Hope Valley's new telephone system - a fun, lively young woman, who looks very much like actress, Sutton Foster.  We like her!

Next, Nathan Grant is the town's new Mountie; a handsome, thoughtful and principled man. He also bring with him, Ally his adventurous niece. We like him too!


Lastly, we have the tall, dark, and mysterious new saloon owner, Lucas Bouchard.  Lucas is a very cultured, charming, and clever (see what I did there? All Cs.) character, who soon has everyone flocking to his newly refurbished saloon, The Queen of Hearts.....we don't like him (Actually, that's not entirely true, but we'll address that later)

What I liked about this season was that we got to see some movement in two different stagnant relationships. Jesse and Clara have been dating FOREVER and Dr. Shepherd and Faith have been giving each other longing looks for quite a while as well. 



Yes, that was great - I've been rooting for Faith and Dr. Shepherd to get together for a long time!  I was very happy for the agony to have ended with a proposal from Jesse to Clara (YAY!!) and a formal courtship agreement between Faith and Dr. Shepherd. They both are such cute couples and they got much more screen time/lines this season which was great.  


I was really happy that they addressed the fact that Rosemary herself has yet to become pregnant (which to me had seemed awfully unrealistic as the Colters had been married so long). I agree, and Lee and Rosemary would be such loving parents.   


In seeing Elisabeth rise to the role of mothering a little boy, Rosemary feels saddened by the knowledge that she doesn't have a baby of her own and with Lee's help works to remain hopeful for the future. I just hope the opportunity arises soon!

I'm also happy that Henry Gowan is once more a main character. 


Going into the oil business with Lucas as a partner was a nice return back to Henry's confident self, though this time I think the lessons he has learned will keep him on the straight and narrow. And NOW we know they are officially throwing him and Abigail together, (before she was written out of the show, anyways). At the Founders Day celebration, Henry was just about to ask her for a dance when the music stopped. AHHHH!!!!!  And his character is so funny too!

And let's not forget Bill Avery!  I just love his character; he always lightens things up with his dry sense of humor!  It's hilarious!  He's just like the "Dad" character who doesn't like change or "young upstarts" moving to town. (looks pointedly at Lucas)


Bill spends a good part of Season 6 remaining suspicious of Lucas Bouchard's evasive answers regarding his past, but comes around to accepting him into the town.

It was obvious upon the introduction of Lucas and Nathan, who both just happened to be eligible bachelors...


 ...that they both would become contenders for Elizabeth Thornton's heart. 

WE ARE TEAM NATHAN!!!! WHOOOOO!!!!! 

Yes... we are!  *squeals*! Don't get us wrong, Lucas is a good character,

 and we still like him, and yes, there are some good scenes between him and Elizabeth,

But---- NATHAN OVERSHADOWS THEM ALL!!!!

....BUT, even with all his shining qualities, Lucas has one great defect... he's not Nathan! 

And besides, can you really see Elizabeth, a down-to-earth school teacher, saddled with a man always dressed in suits and ties, forever gambling at the card tables? 

AND DID I MENTION HE OWNS A SALOON???? "ARE THE SHADES OF PEMBERLY TO BE THUS POLLUTED????"

The writers are not so subtly setting up both Lucas and Nathan with Elizabeth, though Lucas is bolder in pursuing her.


Yes......unfortunately.  As I've said to Grace, I'm afraid of how this love triangle will end in the upcoming  7th & 8th Seasons. 

A few of our favorite scenes are as follows:




I love the scenes where Nathan and Lucas are both talking to Elisabeth and Lucas is just being oh, so smooth and suave to Elisabeth, while Nathan is right there rolling his eyes inwardly. Hehe! (I wish I could find a video of one to post here).  Also, the episode where Lucas' past confronts him had some epic scenes in it!  (The fact that there was a "shootout" of course always adds to the fun). It wasn't exactly a shootout, but yes it was great.

Well that's about it! We have become very invested in this show (notice she said we) and after we watch an episode Katherine and I always hash out every detail (every detail) as we do our dishes, driving Mamma crazy!!  What are sisters for if not to rant and ramble to about our latest obsession?

In closing, if you haven't watched this Season, we hope you will, (even though we've pretty much spoiled it for you), and tell us what you think about all the new faces and circumstances. 
(Yes, give us the details!)


See you next time!


Grace & Katherine
~~~

P.S  Stay tuned for our review of season 7 of which we are almost finished...

...AND THINGS ARE NOT LOOKING GOOD!!!!!