Brooke Shields’ return to Hope Valley as Charlotte Thornton was both emotional and powerful, but one scene in particular was necessary to move When Calls the Heart forward.
Warning: Spoilers below from season 13, episode 10, of When Calls the Heart.
“It’s a new chapter for everybody,” Shields, 60, exclusively told Us Weekly of the future for Charlotte and her family after the events of Hallmark Channel series’ Sunday, March 8, episode.
During the episode, Mountee Nathan Grant (Kevin McGarry) asked for Charlotte’s blessing to ask for her daughter-in-law Elizabeth Thornton’s (Erin Krakow) hand in marriage.
After Charlotte gave Nathan her stamp of approval, he told her he needed one more blessing, that of Charlotte’s late son and Elizabeth’s late husband, Jack Thornton (Daniel Lissing). So together, they went to Jack’s grave, marking the first time Charlotte had been there since his death during season 5.
“First of all, I was like, ‘Oh God, I gotta cry.’ Sort of like, ‘Oh man,’” Shields recalled to Us of her initial reaction to reading the scene. “You have to really psych yourself out to be able to, you know, access all that stuff.”
Once she got into the moment at the gravesite, where Charlotte spoke to her son after Nathan asked him to marry his widow, Shields said she felt calm.
“I was relieved that they were able to write a story line that encompassed [Nathan’s] gift to her, her gift to herself, to be able to mourn her son,” Shields explained. “She hadn’t been back, and the flood of all those emotions brings people together in a different way.”
Charlotte broke down in tears as she spoke to her son for the first time since his death, telling him, “You’re with us, Jack. You’re in our hearts and you always will be.”
The powerful scene was both the closing of Jack and Elizabeth’s chapter and the mark of a new beginning for Charlotte’s family as a whole. (Jack and Elizabeth share one son, Little Jack, played by Hyland Goodrich, whom Charlotte is very involved with.)
“I think that chapter will never be closed for a mother, but I think that [it] gave room and freedom for whatever new types of relationships to be formed and nurtured,” Shields told Us. “It was bringing her son back, and letting herself do that. And then letting herself and this new coupling to kind of see where it was going to go.”
When it comes to the future, Shields told Us that she would love to be brought back whenever Nathan and Elizabeth get married — although he has not officially proposed.
“We hope she makes it home safely. We always have to worry about that,” Shields said of her character’s immediate future with a laugh. (If you rewatch the end of the episode where Charlotte is picked up in a car to head to the big city, you will see Shields’ real-life daughter Rowan Francis Henchy in the back of the vehicle.)
Shields noted that if Elizabeth decides to marry Nathan then “everybody has to sort of decide who fits where right now and what does that mean, and how do you respect the wishes of the family? And yet, really kind of go, ‘OK, does that person have a place here or not?’”
Shields revealed that Charlotte “may or may not” fit into the new blended family, but said, “This right now is in sort of a very neutral way for everybody to sort of ask different questions instead of not knowing the answers.”
The actress told Us that it is “very up in the air” as to when Charlotte will return to When Calls the Heart following her three appearances so far this season.
“They haven’t told me anything,” Shields confessed. “Everybody’s entering a very new chapter. They have these other lives that they have to keep on going. So I think it’s going to be based on what happens with Nathan and Elizabeth.”
She teased that what Little Jack “needs” throughout this next phase will also influence whether Charlotte comes back sooner than later.
When Calls the Heart airs on Hallmark Channel Sundays at 8 p.m. ET.
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