The episode begins with Carole, Lisa, and Stevie are out riding together. They're spotted by a woman driving by, who watches the girls racing each other— and then Stevie gets Comanche to do this huge, dramatic rear. (The implication seems to be that Stevie has taught Comanche to do this. I have to say, I think training a school horse that YOU DO NOT OWN to rear is maybe … not … the best idea?) Anyway, the woman follows them back to Pine Hollow, and introduces herself as Shoshanna Green. She explains that she’s a location scout for the new Skye Ransom movie. (If you back to episode one, you can peep a Skye Ransom poster in the background of one of the scenes.)
The girls all immediately start fangirling over Skye — even Stevie, which feels quite uncharacteristic for her. From what I remember, in the books at least, much was made of her being a tomboy? Shoshanna explains that they need a new location to film the opening scene, and that she thinks Pine Hollow could be suitable. Max is initially reluctant, but Shoshanna drops that, if the movie shoots at the stables, they’ll be holding auditions for a small role, too. The girls all plead with Max to change his mind, and he relents.
At Lisa’s house, we’re introduced to her little sister, Melanie, who is talking about her recent sporting achievements. Melanie excitedly asks them to guess what else she has done, to which Lisa replies, ‘You found a cure for the common cold and ended world hunger during recess?’ which is hilariously snarky. Lisa wants to one up her high-achieving sister, so she tells Melanie and their mum about how she’s going to audition for the Skye Ransom movie. This completely backfires, and Melanie insists on auditioning, too. Lisa is unhappy, but Mrs. Atwood thinks it’s a great idea.
At Pine Hollow, we’re introduced to Deborah Hale, plucky journalist and Max’s future lady love. She and Max have their meet cute when she is startled by a horse and bumps into him. He helps her pick up her papers, they share a glance, Max is immediately all heart eyes — it’s really quite cute. Alas, Deborah has to leave in search of Skye, who she’s trying to interview.
There’s a montage of pretty much every female student at Pine Hollow auditioning for the movie. Afterwards, Stevie and Carole tell Lisa that she for sure got the part — only for it to go to Melanie. Veronica chucks a tantrum in front of Max and says that she’ll have her parents move Cobalt to a different stables. (I have to imagine that Max is hoping she’ll carry through on this.) Shoshanna smooths things over by saying she’ll speak to the director about getting Veronica a small part, and Veronica is elated.
We finally get to meet Skye Ransom. He seems unhappy when he finds out the script has been changed to require him jumping on a horse. His agent/manager (it’s unclear) basically tells Skye to get over it, and that all he needs is a good horse.
The Saddle Club finds out that Skye is going to be riding Comanche in the movie, and watch him rehearse his scene in the ring. The director tells him to have a go over the jump — a nervous Skye canters towards it, but yanks on the reins at the last second, making Comanche skid to a halt. The girls are furious, and Stevie is about to tear Skye a new one when his agent/manager beats him to it and chews him out. Realising that he doesn’t know what he's doing, the girls decide to offer to teach him. Skye’s worried because if anyone finds out he can’t jump, he’s going to get fired. He’s also worried about Deborah finding out about his incompetence and putting it in an article, so the girls arrange for Mrs. Reg to distract her.
Mrs. Reg takes her mission very seriously, and arranges for Max to give Deborah a tour of the stables. They do the shy/awkward smiling at each other, before Deborah drops that she actually hates horses. Oh no! A potential dealbreaker!
The Saddle Club are giving Skye a jumping lesson. He tries to jump Comanche, but falls. He then also reveals that he’s supposed to make Comanche rear after doing the jump. Lisa offers to make him a milkshake, which is the tween equivalent of a 'u up?' text. They proceed to bond with each other — Skye misses his friends and family, and his old life as Bruce Krazelson, his real name. Lisa shares that she’s jealous of her perfect sister, and Skye tells Lisa that she’s really cool, and Melanie should be jealous of her. I think we're supposed to find their chaste flirtationship cute, but, as an adult, I find it vaguely uncomfortable given that Lisa's eleven and we don't actually know how old Skye's actually supposed to be.
Veronica brags to an unimpressed Red about her upcoming acting gig. Red points out that big movies usually hold auditions months ahead of time, and that it’s pretty odd that Veronica snagged a role days before shooting. Veronica brushes this off by saying they must have been impressed with her natural star quality. We should all aspire to that level of confidence.
Deborah wants to go and try and find Skye for an interview, but Mrs. Reg continues to run interference and insists that Deborah and Max watch his old competition tapes together.
It’s shooting day! Veronica freezes up in front of the camera, and ends up getting dragged off set. Lisa and Carole watch as Skye’s scene is about to be shot — Stevie is mysteriously nowhere to be found. Hmmm. Lisa can barely bring herself to look, but Carole insists she watches. Skye clears the jump and does the big dramatic rear just like he’s supposed to! Skye then rides behind a wagon and then back out in front of the camera. Everyone’s thrilled, Lisa can’t believe it. Carole takes her behind the wagon, where it’s revealed that Stevie, dressed up in the lone rider costume, rode in Skye’s place. Everyone seems to think this is the most innovative idea ever, so I'm guessing that the concept of a stunt rider did not exist in 2001.
Skye says goodbye to Lisa, and she asks if he’ll ever come back to Pine Hollow, because Comanche is going to miss him. Subtle. Skye gives Lisa a peck on the cheek, Deborah arrives and finally gets her interview, and Melanie asks Lisa about how she did in the movie. Lisa tells Melanie that she did great. Stevie tells Max that if he wants to say goodbye to Deborah, he's just missed her, but Max shares that they’re going to go on a date. They all giggle about Max being in luuurve.
Overall, I still think this episode was pretty fun, although completely unbelievable even for the world of The Saddle Club. The idea that nobody on set noticed sixteen? eighteen? I really can't tell year old Skye suddenly having the physique of an eleven-year-old girl and being able to clear jumps that he was clearly scared of is ridiculous. But it's the fun kind of ridiculous, and sometimes that's all you can ask for.
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