Warning: The following contains major spoilers for The Way Home‘s Season 3 finale. Proceed at your own risk!
The Way Home went back to the beginning for Friday’s Season 3 finale — and not just to the start of this season, but all the way back to the series premiere.
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The eventful episode began with a montage of Alice’s trips to 1999 from the first season, mixed with snippets of her visit to 1974, as adult Colton started to become curious about the teenager who’d befriended his daughter. When Alice made a new trip to 1999 in the finale, Colton confronted her at the pond about being the same Alice that he met in 1974. She warned him not to bring up the topic with the Alice that he’ll get to know over the summer of ’99 because time travel is brand new to that earlier version of Alice, so she won’t have the answers that he needs.
Then on Feb. 17, 2000, Colton received an envelope with money from Evelyn to help him in his search for missing Jacob, prompting Colton to go to Lingermore. While there, he gazed at the portrait of “My Katherine” — named just like his daughter, Evelyn noted — and started to realize the truth of who Katherine/Rose was, and that Jacob fell into the pond and he’d met him in the 1800s.
Meanwhile, in their time, Alice and Kat jumped into the pond with Del, but while Kat and Del ended up witnessing Del and Colton’s wedding in 1975, Alice resurfaced in 2000 and was greeted by Colton, who wrapped her in his sweater (so that’s how it got to the present day).
“Are you my granddaughter?” he asked hopefully, and Alice confirmed that she is. Colton shared that the pond never worked for him again after 1974, and it didn’t work for the kids either, so he didn’t mention it to Del. When Jacob disappeared, he was miles from it, and his stuffed animal was found in the ocean. Alice reassured Colton that Jacob will come home one day, but Colton realized from her silence that he will not get to see him again.
In an emotionally charged moment, Colton marveled at the fact that he got to sing with his granddaughter in two eras, and urged Alice to jump back in the pond “because this road we’re on, it leads to you,” he said. Once she did, he took his own dive and ended up at the Landrys’ summer kickoff party, where he told a young Jacob to remember that he loves him no matter what will happen.
As for Alice, she landed back at the night of the dinner party from the Season 3 premiere, and was the one who pushed herself into the pond that evening. When she eventually returned to her time, Alice told Kat and Del that Colton knew everything when he died. Del realized that Colton was about to tell her the truth that fateful night, while Kat registered that Colton was on his way to grief group in the hopes of seeing her when he crashed. He knew, and he still loved her, Kat tearfully marveled. Talk about a full-circle moment!
But what you really want to know is who is the baby that was left by the pond in the Season 3 opener, right? Well, as the finale came to a close, Elliot read a letter from his mother that Vic mailed to him, along with the Augustine ring (that belonged to Susanna!). A line from the letter rang a bell for Elliot: It came from a T.S. Eliot poem that was also inscribed on the clock from inside the house wall, but the wall went up before that poem was ever written. Alice realized that she met Elliot’s mom in ’74 in last week’s episode, while Kat and Elliot theorized that his mom’s line “I jump for love” means she leaped into the pond. But she can only do that with a Landry.
Once again, we were presented with a flash of someone leaving a letter in a baby basinet, then a girl and boy jumped into the pond. A mysterious figure picked up the baby and left him at Del and Colton’s door. As the couple discovered the child and letter, Del, cradling baby Katherine, remarked, “Poor Elliot.”
OK, take a deep breath because there’s even more reveals: Casey showed up and gave Jacob proof that Susanna left Lingermore to the Landrys, which should get Lewis Goodwin to drop the charges against him. (It’s what Casey used to blackmail Lewis into dropping his purchase of the Landry farm.) Casey also let slip a tidbit about the threatening letters Del was getting, and after Jacob discovered them, he decided it was best if he disappeared. Del relayed the bad news to Sam, who told her, as he stood by the pond, that he just knew it was going to OK. Curious!
Casey also ran into Alice and ruled out that Alice is their mom. But when Alice pressed Casey about being a Landry and a Goodwin, Casey didn’t want to break any more rules. (Get more scoop on Casey’s identity.)
Below, showrunners Alexandra Clarke and Heather Conkie break down the finale’s big surprises and get emotional talking about Colton and Alice’s touching grandfather-granddaughter moment. [Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted before the series was renewed for Season 4.]
TVLINE | Let’s start at the ending, which caps the beginning of the season. How did you decide on this big Augustine twist for the baby at the pond reveal?
ALEXANDRA CLARKE | That came out of the writers’ room. We all fell in love with the idea of that image, of a couple jumping and leaving a baby behind. We thought it was such a haunting way to kind of shock people back into our show and say, “Hey, we’re back, and we’re still magical and mysterious.” And as we started kind of falling in love with that idea, we started throwing out the ideas for who the baby could be. It took us a while to figure out the best route.
HEATHER CONKIE | There were a lot of options.
CLARKE | Yeah. We, obviously, try playing with people a little bit, and yes, we really did want it to seem like it was Casey in that basket, and it was Alice and Noah jumping. That was one sort of misdirect we wanted to have. But I’ve been so in love and surprised by all the different theories that have been circulating online about who this baby is. I don’t think either of us really expected it to be such a mystery. It’s funny, because our bookend that we did in Season 2, with the little boy at the pond with his grandmother, people wondered, but it kind of fell by the wayside for all the other mysteries of the season. But this year, people just will not let the baby identity go, and it’s fabulous, and I think it’s because [it’s] a baby. They’re all like, “Who would do that?”
CONKIE | And probably the cutest baby in the world!
CLARKE | They were twins, and they were, like, the most sweetest little bubbas. I hope people are satisfied with the answer there. I think it’s the one that is the least expected. We’ve heard theories that it’s Nick or Susanna. I heard one that was Sam. [Laughs]
TVLINE | This reveal that Elliot’s mother time traveled, and she left behind baby Elliot, what are the implications of that for the show moving forward?
CLARKE | Huge, I think.
CONKIE | Well, every end of a season catapults us into a new season, hopefully.
CLARKE | In this instance, it’s kind of literal. It does sort of let us leap into a Season 4. It has massive implications. Again, we’re putting our audience in the front seat, and they know at least a semi-truth, because there’s so many things to be answered about that specific moment, but our characters haven’t fully figured out what we’ve gotten the chance to see. So it’s a really great posed question for a Season 4 on a lot of levels.
TVLINE | If Elliot’s mom can only time travel with a Landry, does that mean she jumped with Colton’s brother?
CLARKE | Can neither confirm nor deny. Nice try, though. [Laughs]
TVLINE | I had to ask. Same as I have to ask about this mysterious figure who takes the baby to Colton and Del, and not Vic, which is interesting. Can you talk about what the thinking was with that?
CLARKE | All we can say is that we have the answers, and if we are lucky enough to move forward with the show, eventually, you will have the answers. [Laughs]
TVLINE | I felt like this season was very much about the Landrys and the Goodwins, and their relationship to each other. Coming off this cliffhanger, would you say that Season 4 is likely to be the story of the Augustines?
CLARKE | I certainly think, if we are lucky enough to do that, that we will have to explore that avenue, for sure. But ever since we introduced the sort of three founding families in the beginning of our Season 2, we have tried to make it fairly equal. So moving into a Season 4, we would do that, as well. What’s so interesting about another sort of cliffhanger kind of hiding in plain sight at the end of our Episode 10 is that Lingermore was left to the Landrys, and I’m so curious and excited to, potentially, be able to explore that road, as well. That’s a big kind of statement. What would someone like Kat do with that? There’s plenty of room for exploring a really solid Augustine story, as well as a Goodwin one, because, really, they all are intertwined in this crazy little town.
TVLINE | At this point, is there anybody who hasn’t jumped in the pond?
CLARKE | [Laughs] Oh, there’s plenty of people who haven’t jumped.
CONKIE | We’re trying to keep it away from being a highway.
CLARKE | Yeah, exactly. The closest we came to kind of commenting on how much of a thoroughfare it’s become was end of Episode 7, when Kat jumps in, and Alice comes up in the same shot. That was sort of our kind of cheeky nod to, “Who isn’t using this pond?” [Laughs]
TVLINE | There are a lot of theories floating around on the Internet about who Sam is, and he, quite cryptically, tells Del that he knows everything’s going to be OK, while standing by the pond. What can you say about who he is and his motives?
CLARKE | I don’t know if you noticed this, but we put Sam in the exact same position as Elliot in the end of Episode 101 and had him say the exact same line. At that point, it was, “But where’s Alice? I don’t know where Alice is.” “Well, she’ll be OK.” “How do you know that?” “Well, I just do.” And then we revealed Elliot at the pond, and we used the exact same shot for Sam. We always love those little echoes in our show because it’s such a constant reminder that things are cyclical and the past can repeat itself. And so, that should say something about who Sam kind of is and who he will be.
TVLINE | You previously told me you knew Colton would be a time traveler from the beginning of the series, but how early did you know that he was aware of who Kat and Alice were when they travelled to his time?
CONKIE | That’s an interesting question, because our actor wanted to know that, especially in the scene [in Episode 109] in the truck, between him and what he thought was Rose, who was, in fact, his daughter. If you look back on that scene, in particular, he plays it so on the edge of does he know something or does he not know anything, and is he just accepting this person for who they are? And we did go back to a lot of those scenes to make sure we could pull this off.
CLARKE | The thing that we always kind of knew that we were going to do when we wanted to reveal the truth of how much he knew and when was do this sort of bizarre, almost forensic study of his last day on Earth and what he figured out when, and how all these characters that we’ve met over the last three seasons played a part. Every little piece, even the portrait from Season 2, Evelyn from Season 3, it all culminates in him putting the pieces together. I get emotional thinking about that scene with Alice.
TVLINE | You put so much emotional heavy lifting and exposition on Jefferson [Brown] and Sadie [Laflamme-Snow] in this episode. How did you feel when you watched that scene between the two of them by the pond when you first got eyes on it?
CLARKE | Well, I was there the day they shot it, so that was rough. [Laughs] It was a very closed set. We knew it was going to be a really tough thing for them, but also a really beautiful thing.
CONKIE | And the first time I watched it, I was just a mess, because I’m so familiar with the script… [and] their performances are pretty amazing and controlled and not over the top, but just gut-wrenching. Everyone who’s watched it just thinks [about] — oh, I’m going to tear up — someone they’ve lost, and if they’d had that chance. So, yeah, pretty amazing stuff. Kudos to Sadie and to Jefferson, as well. They were very hard to do, and all those scenes were in a row on the day. They were just wiped.
CLARKE | We’ve all been talking about how much we cry watching this episode. I think the tears are painful tears, but they’re also, not happy tears, but…
TVLINE | Cathartic is the word that came to mind when I watched it.
CONKIE | Exactly.
CLARKE | Yeah. She doesn’t tell him, “You’re going to die today,” but through what she’s said to him, he knows he’s going to die before [Jacob comes back home]. So there’s that pain, but then there’s this beautiful moment of recognizing each other for who they are. That’s something I think everyone wanted to see, Colton finally acknowledging Alice as who she was, as his granddaughter, and… [wipes tears] We’re both a mess. They did it so well. And speaking of things feeling earned, it really did feel so earned to have this between the two of them after their journey together, and the fact that he tells her to jump and recognizes enough to know that what happened will always happen, but also nothing is going to stop this, and “the road that we’re on leads to you,” and I thought that was a perfect way to kind of end that moment with them, realizing that even… [gets chocked up] I’m so sorry. [Laughs]
CONKIE | It’s too soon. [Laughs]
CLARKE | It’s too raw. That scene in the car that we saw in Season 1, where Kat sort of says, “I lost my dad, but it led me to Alice,” him remembering that and realizing good can come out of bad.
CONKIE | And he didn’t think of the amazing thing. He didn’t get to know [Alice] in his time, but he got to sing with her in two eras, which is just amazing.
TVLINE | One of the other cliffhangers you left off on is with regards to Jacob and those letters. Is he really gone? And what can you share about those letters? We still don’t know who wrote them.
CONKIE | Well, quite honestly, we wanted to solve the letter mystery within the season. It was the original intention, and then we realized that it could be spread out and make it much more interesting in future episodes. We certainly don’t want to do a “Where’s Waldo?” again.
CLARKE | A Season 4 isn’t going to be the hunt for Jacob. [Laughs] But it speaks to his character this season. We’ve seen him struggle all through, between past and present and where he fits, and feeling this sense that everything he touches kind of gets destroyed, and still dealing with the trauma.
CONKIE | He’s still haunted. He hasn’t emerged totally from the past.
CLARKE | Him returning home into modern day was never going to be an easy, easy road. Again, he’s impulsive. He’s an 1800s guy at heart, and he’s all about action, and seeing those letters and realizing they’re all about, “I know the lie. Keep an eye on your son.” They’re all very threatening, but using him as the focal point, and so, of course he’s going to take that in and go, “Well, then they’re better off without me. I got to go.” Of course, it seems to affirm everything he feels about himself. It’s a question mark, for sure, where he’s actually gone.
TVLINE | Watching Del get to watch her own wedding was so powerful. She’s had such a difficult time coming to terms with time travel and what it’s done to her family this season. Now that she’s gotten to experience it for herself, will her feelings about it change going forward? Do you see her taking the opportunity to jump against next season?
CLARKE | I mean, never say never. Again, the pond takes you where you need to go. We’ve seen Del, all season, try to grapple with keeping her memories for herself, versus Alice coming home and saying, “Well, oh, you know that thing that you did with Colton, well, I see it this way,” and kind of messing with those memories. And then, also, on top of that, having all of this proof that Colton was keeping things from her. So the memories she has, are they actually real, or was it all fake? And her own insecurities about why he gave up the music career to stay with her and felt like she hadn’t given him a choice, all of these things are kind of called into question for her. But the throughline is, “Are my memories mine? Is how I remembered it the actual way it happened?” And what was so incredible about the purpose of that trip, which was to affirm to her that it is exactly how she remembered it, stop doubting and just believe, that was really the message of that trip for her.
CONKIE | And how beautiful and perfect their love story really was.
CLARKE | Yes. Despite it all. [Laughs]
CONKIE | Yeah, despite all the tragedy.
The Way Home fans, what did you think of the season ender? Grade it below and stay tuned to TVLine for more from our Q&A!
