Heartland Season 15 Episode 3 Review

Now that three episodes have aired of the new season of Heartland, it seems though as things are really ramping up. Older storylines are continued while new ones are expanded upon. And in this episode, we also got to see some characters from last season as well as meet a few new ones.

Want to know what happened during Heartland season 15 episode 3? Then keep on reading this recap!

As always, this is your official spoiler warning because this recap is going to contain a lot of them.

The challenge of it

At the beginning of the episode, we saw Amy drive to Higher Ground, Cooper’s equine therapy center for troubled youth. Cooper’s horse trainer up and quit so he asked Amy to help out until he can find a new trainer.

And although Cooper knew that Amy could handle herself when it came to the kinds from a group home that were coming to the center, there still were a few issues that Amy had to deal with. The biggest of them being the horse she worked with in the Heartland season 14 finale, appropriately named Challenge.

As Amy started working with the group of kids, she gave one of the kids, Mac, the task to brush Challenge. But the horse started to get agitated and almost attacked Mac. Luckily, Logan, another kid from the group home, was there to calm the horse down until Amy could step in.

The incident got Challenge benched from interacting with the kids. So, Amy decided to work with the horse after the sessions with the kids to see if she can help. And with accidental help from Logan, who already showed that he had a feel for horses, Amy discovered that Challenge is afraid of loud noises.

But even though Challenge was getting better and better as Amy kept working with him, he still got wound up when Mac came close to him. So, the one logical explanation was that it was Mac that Challenge was afraid of.

And a while later Logan discovered why that was.

It turned out that Mac was torturing the horse when nobody was around by locking Challenge in a stall and throwing firecrackers at his feet. So, when Logan saw that, he confronted Mac about it. And although it might not been the best way to do it, since threatening to beat someone up is never the answer, Mac still seemed to get the point.

And when Logan told everyone about what Mac was doing to challenge, Amy knew that that was the reason why Challenge went after Mac.

Will Amy be able to rehabilitate Challenge now that she knows what is really going on? Or will the horse have to be sent away? It’s hard to say. But I hope that the next episode will give us some resolution on this since Heartland season 15 episode 3 seemed to be the first half of a two-parter.

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READ NEXT: Heartland season 15 episode 4 recap

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Easier to show you

In this episode, we also saw Amy find a common language with Logan.

Amy noticed how Logan seemed to be a natural with horses when he saved Mac from Challenge and then was able to tell when the horse was agitated or calm. So, when Logan asked about how Amy was able to gentle Challenge, she decided to show him.

With Cooper’s permission, Amy picked up Logan one morning before the group session and took him to see the wild horse she agreed to gentle for Jessica in the last episode. And Logan had a front-row seat to Amy’s process.

It was truly inspiring to see not only Amy work to gentle another wildy but also her bonding with Logan. After all, Ty was once like Logan – just a troubled kid who was dealt a tough hand and was just looking for somebody to give him a chance. So, it seemed like Amy was keeping Ty’s legacy alive by giving Logan the same chance that she and her family gave to Ty. And Scott and Georgie for that matter.

I’m really excited to see the friendship between Amy and Logan grow and to see Logan come into his own around horses in the coming episodes. Because helping people through helping horses in quintessential Heartland.

Help with the financials

Speaking of Cooper’s horse therapy center, in a lot of ways, it was at the heart of this episode since we not only saw Amy spend a lot of time there working with the kids and Challenge but Lou also got involved.

However, unfortunately, Lou’s involvement wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

The reason she went to the center in the first place was to make sure that there is no truth to the accusations that were flying around about the center’s kids being the ones doing the burglaries that were happening all over Hudson.

In the recap of the previous episode, I already mentioned that everybody were concerned about a string of break-ins that were happening around town. And it didn’t help that Sam’s ranch next door was also a victim of one such robbery.

So, in this episode, we saw Paula Westfield visit Lou at her office. Paula and a lot of her well-off friends think that the foster kids that Cooper’s center hosts are the ones behind the break-ins. So, Paula asked Lou to shut Cooper’s center down.

Lou, of course, wasn’t one to jump the gun and decided to go to the center herself to put the rumors to rest. But while there she discovered another issue with the center, one that could lead to its demise.

Cooper let Lou look at the books for the center and Lou discovered that the center was bleeding money. And if Cooper didn’t scale back it would go bankrupt. So, Lou offered to help Cooper. After all, she has 15 years of experience running various businesses.

However, Cooper didn’t really listen. He had this big, fancy Gala planned for the next day that he hoped would bring in more donors and more money which could help save the center.

But the Gala came and after Paula Westfield interrupted Cooper’s speech to tell everyone that she thinks that the center’s kids are the thieves behind the robberies a lot of the donors left. And even Emma Fitzroy, one of the initial donors for the center, said that she will have to rethink her investment in the facility.

Meaning that the Higher Ground Equestrian Therapy Center was really in danger now.

Will Cooper finally accept Lou’s help and manage to get the center out of its financial troubles? I sure hope so. Because I would hate to see this storyline end with the center shutting down. 

Security system mishaps

The recent break-ins also finally started to affect the Bartlett-Fleming clan. Lyndy wasn’t sleeping well and asked if the theaves could come to Heartland, too. So, Lisa decided to do something about it and buy a new security system for the Heartland Ranch.

But, Jack being a proud man declined Lisa’s offer to get someone to install the high-tech security system and chose to install it himself. Which, of course, led to more problems.

If you remember from episode 3 of last season, Jack already had trouble with installing the solar panels that Parker convinced them to get. And since a security system is a lot more complicated than solar panels and consists of many moving parts, Jack was not having an easy time with it.

First, a raccoon triggered the motion-sensor cameras outside the barn. And then the family was woken up one night by a blaring security alarm because Jack had turned on the motion sensors inside the house and Lyndy tripped them by getting some water in the kitchen in the middle of the night.

So, the family was really on the edge due to the break-ins and all the false alarms. Plus, it didn’t help that Jack was not letting anyone help him manage the security system.

And then during Cooper’s Gala that the whole family attended, Jack started to get all these alerts. Thinking that it’s just more raccoons Jack tried to turn off just the motion alerts. But he ended up accidentally turning off the whole system. Which ended up being disastrous.

The cliffhanger

Why disastrous?

Well, because once the family got back to Heartland from the Gala they discovered that all the lights at the ranchhouse were turned off, Remi was outside the door barking and a window in the screen door was broken.

The unthinkable had happened and the robbers had been at Heartland.

Jack ran inside with a wrench while Amy called the police. But after a few tense moments with Jack sneaking through a dark house, we realized that the thieves were already gone. All that was left was the mess that the burglars made while they were ransacking the house.

The next episode is sure to show how the family copes with getting targeted by the robbers. But I’m most interested to see how Jack will cope with the break-in since it was his mistake (turning off the whole system, not just the cameras) that caused the theaves to be able to do so much damage.

Last thoughts on Heartland season 15 episode 3 review

In the recap of the last episode, I mentioned that we haven’t yet had an update on how Georgie is doing. Well, in this episode Lou did provide a small update on Georgie’s whereabouts.

When Paula Westfield came to Lou to complain about Cooper’s center, the two had a quick exchange about how their respective daughters are doing. And that’s when Lou mentioned that Georgie is in Florida training and hoping to qualify for the Olympics soon.

That’s really about what I thought Georgie is up to. But it was nice to hear that confirmation and to hear Lou talk about her oldest daughter since I don’t think we will be seeing Georgie this season.

Promo for Heartland season 15 episode 4

And here’s the preview of the next episode – Heartland season 15 episode 4:

It’s titled “Sins of a Father” and in it, we will be seeing how the break-in at Heartland is handled and the bad memories the event brings up for Jack. On top of that, Amy will continue to bond with Logan by working with the wild horse. While Tim will team up with Parker to find the things that were stolen during the robbery.