The Way Home Premiere: Chyler Leigh, Andie MacDowell Talk Kat’s Goodbye to [Spoiler], Landry Family Reunion (Video)
Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Way Home Season 3 premiere. Proceed at your own risk!
The Way Home’s Season 3 premiere was host to an emotional and long-awaited homecoming for Jacob, and while he’s safely back with his mother and sister now, everything is far from fine.
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After reuniting with her long-lost son, Del finally learned the truth about the pond and time travel. Naturally, it was a lot for the Landry matriarch to take in, and although the body of water allowed for Jacob to come back to her, star Andie MacDowell doesn’t believe that Del is thrilled about the pond’s special abilities.
“My intuition is that it’s a struggle [for Del], and that’s written in there, but my gut instinct is that she doesn’t feel that it’s a safe place,” MacDowell tells TVLine. “She’s already lost her son to it, so she’s still frustrated with it. But I don’t know if she’ll change her mind about that.”
In the meantime, Del has more imminent concerns, like rebuilding her relationship with Jacob, who is struggling to adjust to the present and find purpose. For much of the episode, Del coddled him like the little boy that he was instead of the man that he is now.
“That was really interesting to play, because having lost a child and had somebody else raise them, it’s an intense feeling of loss,” MacDowell describes, “and trying to get that back, and also, the fear of losing him again, and watching him, how he feels, how he acts, and wanting to baby him because I lost him, and I didn’t get that. So I think there’s learning to love the man, the man that he is, rather than the man I thought he would be, because he’s been living somewhere else and has all these memories that don’t include me.”
As if learning how to deal with your child suddenly reappearing as an adult after time traveling wasn’t difficult enough, Del also received one of many ominous letters threatening to expose the truth about the false cover story that she and Kat fed the media to explain Jacob’s absence. (The latest one: “Your lie is known. Time will tell.”)
“Just the fear that lives with her, that someone would reveal the truth or could hurt her son, the anticipation of that, I think, is something that she’s keeping in her heart and is terrifying her,” MacDowell shares.
Meanwhile, Kat was haunted by the past and the people she left behind in 1814 even as she rejoiced in having Jacob back home. Encouraged by her boyfriend Elliot and her daughter Alice, Kat jumped into the pond and returned to let Elijah know that Jacob was safe. It was Elijah who surprised Kat, though, revealing that Jacob didn’t want to leave, but he had no choice after his life was threatened by Cyrus. Kat then went to visit Susanna, who bid Kat a somewhat tense goodbye before taking out an early sketch of her “My Katherine” portrait.
On her way back to the pond, Kat ran into Thomas and erupted at him for lying and making her feel things. Thomas promised that he meant everything he said and kissed her. Kat pushed him away, declaring that whatever this was between them was impossible and that it was over. He agreed — he was getting on the next ship out. Plus, there’s someone else, Kat added, and Thomas replied that he was glad to hear it and hoped that this other man was good enough for her.
“Be safe. Be free of this,” he urged her as they parted.
Later, Kat told Elliot that her latest trip to 1814 helped her close the door on it all. But has she truly put Thomas and the 1800s behind her?
“I can neither confirm nor deny exactly that,” star Chyler Leigh tells TVLine in the above video. “I think there’s always going to be some part of her that will be left behind in the 1800s, just on her relationships alone with Elijah, with Susanna, with Thomas. There’s always going to be, like, a nostalgia for it. There’s always going to be a love and a connection to it.”
As Season 3 unfolds, Kat will learn more information about her family history and the town’s origins, particularly via the the 1970s timeline, when Del and Colton first met and fell in love. The knowledge she gathers, in turn, helps her to move on.
“As we discover more about the founding of Port Haven, the Augustines and the Landrys, she’s starting to get bigger pieces to the puzzle to kind of put together about her being able to let Thomas go and the idea of Thomas go,” Leigh says.
And now that Kat and Elliot are going strong — nine months and counting of dating, with him on the cusp of asking her to move in with him — “they’re trying to figure out what their life is going to be like moving forward,” Leigh previews. “It’s like, ‘Who am I now? If all those adventures are done, who am I now? What do I do? Like, what are these next steps? And I don’t want things to get boring. I don’t want things to get too predictable. So how can I keep this spice alive with Elliot now? And can we keep growing in that way and keep things zippy and fresh and snappy?'”
The Way Home fans, what did you think of the season opener? Grade it below, then hit the comments!
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