On Heartland, Jack Bartlett and Lisa Stillman never looked like the typical glossy TV couple. He’s the stubborn ranch patriarch who’d rather fix an ancient truck than buy a new one; she’s the jet-setting racehorse owner from Fairfield who walks into his world with designer boots and sharp opinions. Somehow, across more than a decade of seasons — and a lot of fights, breaks and near-misses — they build something that feels earned.
This new fan video, “Heartland – Jack and Lisa – Through The Years,” pulls those pieces together: twelve seasons of stolen looks, slammed doors, do-overs and small domestic moments, edited to Kenny Rogers’ 1981 classic “Through the Years.”
From a broken-down truck to something real
Jack and Lisa don’t start with fireworks. They start with a horse.
Lisa invites Jack to check out a horse she wants to buy; the truck breaks down on the way, and the two of them end up on an improvised first date with turkey-and-Swiss sandwiches and that dry Jack humor she clearly likes more than she admits.
From there, Heartland lets them unfold in the background: a fishing cabin trip here, a hand on the shoulder there, a growing comfort that feels almost dangerous for a widower who’s spent years living alone at the ranch.
Then comes their first big fight — the “new truck” argument in season 3’s Man’s Best Friend. Lisa pushes Jack to let go of his old truck; Jack digs in because of everything that truck represents. It’s not about the engine. It’s about how differently they move through the world.
They don’t just fall in love once. They keep renegotiating what loving each other actually looks like.
The France break-up, the letter and the secret wedding
By the time we hit the middle years, Jack and Lisa have become one of the emotional anchors of Heartland — which is exactly when the show pulls them apart.
Lisa’s work has her spending long stretches in the south of France, while Jack is rooted to Heartland ranch. The gap between them finally breaks things: after Jack’s trip to France goes badly, they split up in season 6.
Later that season, Lisa writes Jack a letter from France, wanting to fix what they broke. On the very night he reads it, Jack has a heart attack — one of those story beats that lets you see, in a flash, how much they still mean to each other. When Lisa returns to Hudson in season 7 to help during his recovery, their relationship slowly re-threads itself.
Eventually, Jack proposes with his grandmother’s ring in Be Careful What You Wish For, and they finally marry at the Dude Ranch with only Tim as a witness — no big church, no fairy-light barn, just two people who took the long way around.
In true Jack-and-Lisa fashion, they even keep the marriage secret from the family for a while, with the truth only blowing up later and leading to a proper reception in season 8’s “The Big Red Wall.”
Why this couple hits differently
There are flashier romances on TV than an older cowboy and a high-powered stable owner figuring out how to share a life across two properties, too many grandkids and way too many horses. But Jack and Lisa work because the show lets them stay complicated.
- They’re allowed to want different things. Lisa still cares about business, travel and the racing world. Jack wants to keep Heartland small and rooted. The tension never fully disappears, which is what makes later-season episodes — like Lisa’s worries about her health or her stables — land harder.
- They keep separate identities. Lisa is not just “Jack’s partner”; she’s Fairfield, racehorses, her own messes and victories. Jack is still the man who will choose connection with the horses over big money every time.
- They get to screw up. That France blow-up, the secret wedding, the periods where they live apart — all of it says: this isn’t a tidy late-life fairy tale. It’s two people trying not to lose themselves or each other.
The video leans into that. Set against a song that was literally written about looking back on a relationship “through the years,” you see Jack and Lisa at every stage: strangers, tentative partners, exes who still can’t quite let go, and finally a married couple who still bicker in the truck but share the porch swing anyway.
Watching “Through The Years” as a Heartland fan
If you’ve grown up with Heartland — or just found it later on streaming — Jack and Lisa are probably woven into how you think of the show itself: two stubborn adults who never really stop choosing each other, even when it would’ve been easier to walk away.
That’s what makes this particular fan edit feel so satisfying. It doesn’t just cherry-pick the big, romantic moments. It remembers the truck fights, the distance, the awkward family reveals, all stitched together under a song that’s been sound-tracking real-life anniversaries since 1981.
So if you’re missing Jack and Lisa — or you just want to see their story without skipping episodes — hit play, let Kenny Rogers do his thing, and watch two very stubborn people grow into the kind of couple that feels strangely real for a TV ranch.
Sources: Heartland Wiki, Heartland episode guides, CBC’s Heartland, Wikipedia, Kenny Rogers discography.