Dale, I thoroughly enjoyed reading “The ‘Root’ of All Evil”. It made me go back and re-read the stuff you sent me once on Amy. Really good stuff.
I still have some unanswered questions, I think.
(1) I think the logic of the plot is this: from the latter part of Season 7 Amy was both attracted and repelled by Ty. “Repelled” is too strong a word. “Wants to withdraw from…” is more like it. So she wanted to be with Ty but at the same time wanted distance.
Amy was “hurt” in some way by Ty saying he had wanted to be the one to earn the down-payment. She took that in the worst possible way and thought he was being utterly “conventional”, as if he had the view that the man is supposed to be the breadwinner.
Amy taking the job with Ahmed (7.09) despite Ty’s reservations is the beginning of her deliberately trying to establish some emotional distance, to be “independent” of Ty. I think this is only because neither one of them know how to ask for an equal partnership. But also she fears she is going to be hurt by Ty. Everyone has always gone away; why won’t he?
(2) How could Amy have gone to Europe and almost forget about their dream farm? A week passes before her helicopter departure from Heartland but never once does she think “Now we can put a down-payment on the farm”? When she returns from Europe Ty reveals they could’ve bought the farm four months ago but “I couldn’t get a solid answer from you, and I sure as hell couldn’t get a clear picture of where you stood… on anything!”
One question is why Ty doesn’t insist on an explanation right then and there in the trailer, but also it sounds like he tried to get a commitment while she was away and she evaded his questions. Why? I think the writers also evaded these questions. The implication is that Amy didn’t totally want to commit to Ty and the farm.
(3) How could she be completely surprised when Ahmed kissed her? “Naivete” doesn’t seem to explain everything at the beginning of 8.01. Had she been drinking? When and why did that start?
Dale, you write “We laughed the night away and as we talked our eyes met and I was lost in the moment then felt his lips on mine and I did not know what to do!” Getting “lost in the moment” is an explanation of sorts. She does a lot of that. I still want to understand the mechanism.
I’m leaving it as an open question whether or not the “Ahmed Kiss” was similar to the “Chase Kiss” (or even the Caleb Kiss in the barn in S2). She later admitted that she had been attracted to Chase. That’s explanation enough. So now we can’t really trust Amy to realize that she is attracted to someone and giving off those “vibes”.
Dale, you have Amy say “He was always a friend, always thinking about me”. That sounds like the beginning of attraction to the Prince.
(4) Ty’s Break and Amy’s reaction to it still remain a mystery. Why is she so angry at him before Pike River? That he didn’t call to thank her for the bail-out just doesn’t justify the degree of her anger. Dale you have Amy say “I was not going to call him because he is the one who had left.” That sounds a little childish but I don’t trust her explanations for her feelings or her actions.
(5) Dale, you have the “desire for money” being the wedge that drove them apart. That makes sense but it’s not a full explanation. Money is just the commodity that can exchange for any other material value. The money would go to buy their farm so it’s just as fair to say the desire for the farm drove a wedge between them. And that’s true, in a way. Anything that is going to devalue their relationship is a threat.
This is essentially the same theme that is revealed in “The River” (4.15). (Inviting yet one more comparison between seasons 4 and 8).
And if you generalize the theme, then money doesn’t even have to be the problem. It can be anything. In “Full Circle” (2.17) it is the fear of losing Spartan that pulls Amy out of the “center of her life” and out of balance.
(6) What mechanism would keep Amy from realizing until the end of 8.01 that she shouldn’t have gone on tour the way she did? Five months is a long time. She was very busy not communicating with home. She seems to practice self-deception regularly and there was a pattern of cover-ups for Ty’s benefit right through the dinner in 8.04.
So, unpleasant as it is to say, Amy reached a depth of dishonesty leading up to 8.04 that I never thought we’d see. You can even watch her movements through that dinner and she is trying her best to cover up, to distract, to smooth over. And she is still wearing Ahmed’s necklace even though he told her earlier in the day what it meant and why he gave it to her. She is never fully honest with Ty through to the end of that episode.
Then in “The Heart of a River” (8.10) she dismisses all these remaining questions with “I was a nightmare when I came back from that tour and I don’t know how anyone put up with me”. But that just won’t do. There are a ton of questions still unanswered. The writers really failed us on this point. Remember “Trust The Writers”? Yeah, right!
(7) Most of the above considerations boil down to “How could the Amy that we know do these things?” I considered the idea that something is wrong with her, like mental illness. (She has suffered her share of head trauma) There is actually a mood disorder called “Euphoria” in which a person experiences exaggerated and intense feelings of well-being and elation. The trigger for this disorder can be sexual feelings, physical exertions or many other events.
In “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” (2.07) Amy and Caleb win the roping contest. Then Amy and Ty are waiting for Caleb’s bronc riding event and Amy is so excited, she looks high with wide and wild eyes. Ty is turned off by this and disappears, only to show up at the bull riding event.
Again, when Amy was first working with Chase and they ride out of the ring to wild applause, she is high with excitement (her words) at how good they were together. Chase sees this as attraction and kisses her, and she kisses him back.
It all seems to be a familiar pattern of being swept up in the moment, perhaps releasing repressed feelings. After winning the Futurity Race Amy is almost high when she goes to Ty’s trailer. She can’t speak fast enough. She can’t finish sentences. And worst of all, she fails to consider Ty or their plans.
So I’m still searching for a full explanation of her behavior.
Best regards,
Bill Sims
billsimsposts 