[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for When Calls the Heart Season 11 Episode 10 “What Goes Around.”]
As When Calls the Heart nears the end of its 11th season (don’t worry, we already know there will be a 12th), there’s joy as well as a major reveal in the 10th episode, “What Goes Around.”
First, there’s quite a bit of happiness for Lily (Chloe McKinnon), the young girl Faith (Andrea Brooks) has been looking after: Lily’s grandmother (Miriam Smith), who had been sick, comes home—and decides she should stay with Faith!
“Her heart cracks open,” looking after Lily this season, Brooks tells TV Insider of her character as part of our weekly When Calls the Heart aftershow, Heart Beats. “And I love this for Faith. I think this is a long time coming.”
Faith hadn’t been expecting to have Lily stay with her permanently, though Brooks notes, “as the season progresses and as we see Faith and Lily’s relationship blossom, we start to recognize, wow, this is a dynamic that works so well.” After Dora suggested Lily stay with her, “it’s just this seismic moment of relief and it was just so fun to get to play as an actor because it’s something that Faith didn’t know early on she wanted, but in the end realizes that this is the person she needs in her life.”
At the beginning of the season, Faith said she was lonely. Now with Lily in her life, what’s still missing for her? “I think the expectation is, ‘Okay, Faith is lonely. Maybe she’ll meet a man this season.’ In fact, going into Season 11, that was on my mind,” Brooks admits. “And the Lily storyline was just such a great—I don’t want to say distraction—addition in Faith’s life. It’s a form of love she wasn’t expecting. She takes on a role she also was not expecting to play. And it just sort of shows you that love comes in so many different forms and we can give love in so many different ways. It’s not always romantic.”
She continues, “it was something that it dawned on me as the Faith-Lily dynamic continues on throughout the season and just realizing, wow, there’s so much more to life than just romance. So obviously that’s still an aspect of Faith’s life that she is missing, but I think she’s actually quite fulfilled for the first time, possibly ever on the show, in a way that she just was not expecting.”
This episode also reveals what really happened the night Lucas (Chris McNally) was shot: Jeanette (Cecilia Deacon) showed up, with a “friend” who had business to discuss. That “friend” was gangster Casimir Shaw (Hugo Steele), who pulled a gun on Jeanette. Lucas intervened and, during the struggle, was shot. Jeanette tells Lucas Shaw found out about their personal connection and threatened her so she’d put pressure on the governor to let him work in the territory—he’s behind the bid on the resort.
“I had shifting theories as the season was being shot,” Brooks admits when it came to the mystery of who shot Lucas. While she wasn’t part of that storyline, she does reveal that there were some deleted Faith and Lucas scenes. They “had more to do with his injuries. So that was sort of her preoccupation with the situation was just, ‘He’s my patient, let’s make sure that he’s okay so that he can continue on with his governor responsibilities,’” she shares.
Watch the full video interview above for much more from Brooks, including on Faith and Lily, Fiona’s (Kayla Wallace) departure at the beginning of the season, Faith finding love, crime-solving, and her hopes for Season 12.
When Calls the Heart, Sundays, 9/8c, Hallmark Channel