Take a classic childhood-friends-to-yearning-to-lovers arc, add some time-travel-induced melodrama, and you’ve got the chaotic yet cozy romance that is Kat Landry and Elliot Augustine on Hallmark’s The Way Home. Elliot has loved Kat since they were teenagers, and now, decades later, they might finally have their chance. Their first kiss happens amidst a lot of wrenching revelations and heightened emotions. But for a moment, Kat and Elliot bask in the movie-perfect, sun-soaked joy of finally being together.
A Classic Rom-Com Move With Heightened Meaning
Fresh off a journey to the past through the portal pond, Kat is soaked and cold. Elliot, with all the affectionate exasperation of a true best friend, shrugs off his jacket without a second thought, puts it around her shoulders, and rubs her arms to help her warm up. A would-be lover giving his beloved his jacket is a time-honored romance trope. But at this moment with Kat and Elliot, it’s imbued with a significance that not even Elliot realizes.Â
In the preceding scene, Kat witnessed a tender moment between her parents decades ago. The gesture itself was simple. Past-Del gave Past-Colton a sweater so he wouldn’t freeze outside in the cold. It’s the culmination of a storyline in which Kat feared her father had been having an affair. In other words, she feared that the greatest love story she knew had all been a lie. In reality, Colton had been secretly meeting an investigator to dig deeper into their son’s disappearance. When Kat sees the moment with the jacket and hears Colton tell Del he loves her, the relief is palpable. Love is real and possible, after all. And what is her first instinct? To run home and tell Elliot.
Now, in the present, Elliot instinctively does the same for a pond-soaked Kat. If Kat is Colton’s mirror, as the tormented Landry desperately seeking answers, then Elliot, it follows, is Del: the one who loves their complicated Landry more than anything and just as desperately wants to care for them, even if they don’t fully understand. (And even if they, too, have to shut down sometimes to protect themselves from the pain.)
As Elliot helps Kat, you can see the wheels turning in her head. She’s making the connection in real-time, just like we are. It clicks all at once, and Elliot notices, too. Before he can do more than ask, “Why are you looking at me like that?” Kat is leaning in and kissing him.
It’s telling, too, that Kat is ultimately the one who initiates the kiss. For nearly two episodes now, the feelings between Kat and Elliot have been out in the open — yet Elliot won’t make his move. He flirtatiously tells her he’s waiting until “it’s gonna be perfect.” But really, he’s still that terrified and insecure kid. He overthinks everything and looks for all the ways it can go wrong — something we understand as we learn more about his dynamics with the Landrys and with his own father. Deep down, he still can’t quite believe that Kat could love him back after all this time. So he delays, and delays.
“That Felt Pretty Perfect to Me”
Kat, on the other hand, is impulsive and dogged. When she gets an idea in her head, she doesn’t let it go. So she takes matters into her own hands and kisses Elliot before he knows what hit him. After they break away, she tells him what could be the thesis statement of their relationship right now: “I don’t care about perfect. I just didn’t want us to miss our moment.” Elliot, in full romance hero mode, gives the perfect answer: “That felt pretty perfect to me.”
That contrast between reality and perfection underscores so much of this relationship. Kat and Elliot are both far from perfect. They get angry, say and do things they regret, make selfish choices, and lash out due to their own insecurities. It’s not always pretty — but then again, neither is life. Neither Kat nor Elliot is a villain in this story. They’re flawed people driven by fear but also by love, trying to live in the good moments and make the most of them. “Perfect” may only exist in moments; the rest is real life, and that’s much harder.Â
It’s also important that Kat makes the move because it proves — to herself, Elliot, and us — that she does have those feelings for him. It won’t be lost on a certain subset of viewers that the Landry farm is the same filming location used for Green Gables in Anne with an E, and the Augustine property is the exact location that the show used for the Blythe land. Childhood friends to lovers, he falls first, but she has to make the first move because he can’t believe she has feelings for him… where have we seen that before?
Kat doesn’t just want Elliot like a best friend, to badly paraphrase a certain song. She wants him to hold her, kiss her, and love her.
And speaking of wanting…
The kiss itself is, well, it’s a lot by Hallmark standards. After that first smooch, Kat and Elliot dive right back in for more. They are wrapped up in each other. Hands are in hair; mouths are open; Elliot’s glasses are half-falling off with the intensity of the kiss. We’re reminded that these are not blushing ingenues. This is a pair of forty-year-old divorcees who have known each other forever. They know what it is to yearn, to desire, and to act on those desires (even if not with each other).
There’s also the sheer beauty and romanticism of the moment; filmed at sunset in just a couple of takes, the light illuminates them — less like a sunset and more like a symbolic dawn. (Credit where credit is due: actor Evan Williams apparently suggested the sunset-meadow setting during filming. Someone knows his romance tropes!) The spinning camera around them is a classic romance device, inviting us to feel as giddy and dizzy as they do.Â
No one is under any illusions. The Way Home is only eight episodes into a multi-season drama. Kat and Elliot have a long road ahead, and they’ll both stumble along the way. But to temporarily put all that out of mind and just bask in this golden glow? Yeah, that does feel pretty perfect to me.
First Featured Image Credit: Hallmark