The Way Home’s Evan Williams on Elliot’s ‘Powder-Keg Situation’ With Emma and What He’d Say to Thomas
Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Way Home Season 3, Episode 6. Proceed at your own risk!
The Way Home’s multi-timeline love triangle just turned into a love square.
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During this Friday’s episode, Elliot’s ex-wife, Emma, returned to town, desperate to know why he didn’t give her the Augustine family ring when he proposed. She claimed to be over their divorce, but she needed to know why it didn’t work out between them. Did he think they were doomed from the start, she wondered.
Elliot admitted that he didn’t give them enough of a chance, and maybe in another world and time, their relationship might have worked. He apologized for hurting her. Emma responded by asking him if the love was real… and then she kissed him! And Elliot did not immediately pull away!
Meanwhile, Elliot’s girlfriend, Kat, was bickering and dancing with Thomas in 1816, before bidding goodbye to each other “until next time.”
Needless to say, Elliot and Kat’s relationship is getting more complicated by the episode, so TVLine chatted with his portrayer Evan Williams about what that kiss means for the couple and how Elliot feels about Thomas.
TVLINE | Elliot’s ex-wife has been something of a mystery and a question mark. Was she what you imagined over the past two seasons, once they finally introduced her?
That’s an interesting question. I think that the show deliberately kept Emma under wraps, so the audience started asking questions about it and creating her in their own minds, and there’s a few things about Elliot that we don’t know, and it’s sort of like a slow, timed release. And so, when Emma pops up on the scene, I was really thrilled with how grounded she was, both as a casting choice with Miranda Millar, who’s an amazing Toronto actress, but also with just the type [so] that you really believe that Emma and Elliot could have had a relationship that was based in love, and that they had so many things that they had common ground over. And there’s a comfort there that I think we, deliberately, were seeking, and I’m thrilled that we were able to find that.
TVLINE | Did anything surprise you about her character or their relationship together?
When we were discussing it, and [the writers] were saying that they were thinking about having Emma be a classical musician, I thought that was just absolutely perfect. I think that’s exactly the kind of person that would meet Elliot on a certain sort of intellectual level… Being a musician and a mathematician, there’s a certain sort of intersection there. And so, I thought that was just an inspired choice, and so many of the interactions between Elliot and Emma grew out of that choice.
TVLINE | I got it into my head, maybe because of how much Elliot didn’t seem to want to talk about her, that maybe there was some troubled past between the two of them. But they got on very well for two divorced people.
Yeah, well, I think that there’s a few inciting elements to that. First of all, it’s been a while. It’s been five years, and also, Elliot is pretty firmly with Kat at this point. And so, he’s not in a destabilized position. He’s with a new girlfriend who is living with him, and so, he at least feels like he’s coming from a position of stability. And also, there’s the element that Elliot is a bit of a people-pleaser, and we see that ever since the beginning of the show, especially the way he will kind of bend over to make sure that the people that he cares about in his life feel cared for, probably as a reaction to the way that his father treated him. But there’s also a bit of that habit which has a shadow side, as well, and that’s why I think that the eagerness with which Elliot is inviting Emma back into his life, he’s relying on some old patterns, and we’ll see how that ends up affecting how things go.
TVLINE | It was fun to see this more awkward, romantic-comedy side coming out in him and Kat last week, with how much he was inviting Emma in, and then Kat was inviting her to the birthday dinner.
Absolutely. And when Chyler [Leigh] and I were reading the scripts for it, we kept kind of looking over at each other during the table read, kind of nodding that this was going to be so much fun to shoot. After three seasons, Chyler and I have had a chance to shoot so many different kinds of scenes. And so, to get to break this new ground was just exciting, and always fun to try new colors, and also see what surprising things your scene partner’s going to do. And I loved what Chyler was coming up with in those scenes. She’s such a talented actress, and I just love getting to see her shine in all the ways. I mean, we know she has the waterworks when she needs it, but she’s a very gifted comedic actress, as well.
TVLINE | In this week’s episode, Emma’s kind of giving Elliot some mixed messages. She says she’s glad he and Kat found each other, and that she’s over the divorce, but then she kisses him. How is Elliot feeling about what she is sort of putting out there towards him?
I think Elliot thinks that he’s in control of the situation, maybe because he’s feeling confident. Like, he’s moving into a relationship with Kat that he has been dreaming of for decades. And so, maybe he doesn’t quite recognize how much of a powder-keg situation it is when an ex shows up who’s clearly not finished, and I think that Elliot kind of gets in over his head, and it’s a problem. [Laughs]
TVLINE | I mean, he doesn’t immediately pull away from that kiss…
That was a question that we were discussing with the director and showrunners is, “How much does Elliot let this happen?” and we had to be very intentional about that. Elliot has his reasons to suspect that maybe all is not right in the state of Denmark with his relationship with Kat, as well. He overheard a comment from Kat to Brady, saying that her move-in was going to be temporary, which even though the audience knows he didn’t understand the full context of that sentence, we see that hit Elliot. That’s a very destabilizing sentence to hear from the woman who is also saying that she would have kind of run into your arms if she had had the opportunity. So both characters are very destabilized at this point, and people do strange things and make strange choices… When the people in their lives start being inconsistent, it can throw people for a loop, especially sensitive people. And we know that Elliot is quite sensitive, as much as he would probably prefer to be seen as more stoic.
TVLINE | Looking ahead at Episode 7, how is he processing that kiss? And how is it impacting his relationship with Kat?
Well, I’d say it calls into question all of his ideas about maybe what he would have related to as a happily ever after, and I would say that not every destabilizing factor is as a result of his choices, either. This is complex writing, and they’re complex characters. There’s all sorts of different volleys in the air at this point. As we see Elliot trying to pick up the pieces, once the puzzle comes apart, the question is, “Will it ever be put back together the way that he was so sure that it would?”
TVLINE | What do you think that kiss means to Elliot? And does it mean the same thing to him as it does to Emma?
I think that what Emma is showing up with is striking in how different it is than what Kat is showing up with, and I think that even though she’s sort of a figure from the past, it’s impossible for Elliot not to notice that, and I can see how that would be very confusing. And also, I think that Elliot works very hard to be a person of integrity. We’ve seen him apologize for the mistakes he’s made throughout the multiple seasons of this show, and the way that I’m portraying the character is somebody who is really trying to figure out how to show up as a man, as a friend, as a partner, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows what to do all the time. But I think that the people who are invested in this relationship enjoy the fact that it’s not a romance novel, it’s not A to B. It’s maybe a little bit more reflective of the lives that we all live, and the peaks and the valleys, and, hopefully, the rewards, as well, because we want to get to the idea of what is real love, and that’s one of the questions that this season asks in general through many of our storylines.
TVLINE | There’s another party that’s a factor in this relationship, and that’s Thomas. Kat has mentioned Thomas to Elliot, but I think it’s fair to say she hasn’t fully opened up about him and what she feels for him. Is Elliot going to be a little bit suspicious that Kat’s keeping the full truth of what is going on between her and Thomas?
I think this show doesn’t have things happen for no reason, and so, I think that Elliot, as somebody who loves his partner, is also sensitive to the things she says, and also the things that she doesn’t say. And I think that part of the reason that Emma is such a problem in this moment is that Elliot is energetically feeling that there are other forces at play. And so, whether or not Kat wants to be up front about it, I think, depends on how clear she can be with herself about what it is, and I think we’re watching Kat struggle, as well, with what is more pressing: the chemistry of a forbidden love or the stable… I don’t want to put it down by just saying that it’s just stable. It’s a nutritious love that has the potential to grow between Kat and Elliot in a way that I don’t think either character has ever had before. And so, it’s not surprising that both those characters wouldn’t know exactly how to handle it, since it’s outside of both of their purview.
TVLINE | What do you think Elliot would say to Thomas if he had a chance to confront him face-to-face?
I don’t know, because I don’t think Elliot knows enough about who Thomas is. At this point, it’s just very much an unknown, and there’s clearly a whole bunch of stuff that Kat is keeping in her corner, and Elliot is keeping in his corner. But I agree, it would be interesting to hear what that conversation would be.
The Way Home fans, what did you think of the episode? Hit the comments!
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