'When Calls the Heart' Season 8 Premiere Starts off With Cliffhanger

When Calls the Heart Season 8 premiered on Sunday and kicked right off with a cliffhanger. [...]

By Michael Hein

When Calls the Heart Season 8 premiered on Sunday and kicked right off with a cliffhanger. Everyone from fans to the cast members themselves were surprised by the turn and curious about what comes next.

Warning: spoilers for When Calls the Heart lie head!

In Sunday's premiere, When Calls the Heart fans were reunited with their favorite characters in Hope Valley. They watched Elizabeth (Erin Krakow) agree to go on a dinner date with Mountie Nathan Grant (Kevin McGarry), accompanied by her son Jack (Gunnar Reid Taylor) and his niece, Allie (Jaeda Lily Miller). The duo met up with Lucas Bouchard (Chris McNally), who seemed disappointed that they were off to have dinner together. However, once he was out of sight Elizabeth actually called off the date and went home.

This tense moment for the love triangle left fans on the edges of their seats and, in some cases, heartbroken. When Calls the Heart fans have strong feelings about which suitor Elizabeth should choose, and they were not shy about sharing their feelings on social media. Nor were the cast members, several of whom joined Entertainment Tonight for an interview shortly after the episode premiered.

"I think [Lucas'] dreams are being slowly crushed," McNally said with a laugh. "It's just another step in the wrong direction for him. I think, on the other hand, he does leave Hope Valley for a while to gain some perspective on the situation, and he comes back because realizes he just wants to be with Elizabeth, but he also wants her to be happy and that's the most important thing. So it's a bit of a push and pull, you know? If she's happier with Nathan, that's great. It's going to break his heart, but he still is longing for her in his own way."

"I think any interaction with Nathan and Lucas is always uncomfortable," added McGarry. However, he said that his character is feeling the most optimistic out of the three. "For this point in the Nathan-Elizabeth journey, you might actually get to see a date with the two of them, so yeah, he's hopeful."

Finally, Krakow called this "an impossible situation" for her character, since "both Nathan and Lucas are such incredible men and they've created these amazing characters that we've all grown to love and I think, no matter what, Elizabeth is just in quite the pickle... It's one of these things where, yeah, maybe if they hadn't run into Lucas and his mother on the way, it would've been easier to just keep walking into that café. But I think it just didn't feel kind, and I think in that moment, Elizabeth realized she still had a lot to think about and she was just trying to follow her heart."

Fans will have to tune in for themselves to see how things play out in Hope Valley. When Calls the Heart airs on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET on the Hallmark Channel.

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