The Way Home Season 3, Episode 1 “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” Spoilers Ahead
Welcome back to Port Haven! The Way Home Season 3, Episode 1, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” reunites us with our favorite time-traveling family. It absolutely feels like a brighter season, but there’s plenty of drama to go around, too! I already have so many questions about where things are going. So let’s ponder together, shall we?
A Family Reunited
The Way Home Season 3, Episode 1, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” picks up right where Season 2 left off. Kat brings Jacob into the farmhouse to see Del. And yes, Del finally gets let in on the whole time-travel deal.
There’s an argument to be made that this was too easy. In real life, would the mother of a presumed-dead missing boy really believe immediately that a stranger is her lost son who time-traveled? But then again — this is TV, and more specifically, fantasy TV, and the “real” rules don’t apply. Likewise, the in-universe public explanation for Jacob’s reappearance is vague, featuring amnesia and an off-the-grid family who recently died.
I think it speaks to this season’s approach in general. Season 2 was dark, with intense trauma, bad decisions, regrets, and a lot of pain. If there were an opportunity for characters to misunderstand each other or hide something for the sake of drama, they would do it.
The Way Home Season 3, Episode 1, on the other hand, seems closer to the warmer “the past doesn’t define you” ethos of the first season. In that context, it makes sense that the show doesn’t want to drag things out by having Del doubt Jacob (and traumatize everyone even further in the process).
Let There Be Light
As Elliot said at the end of Season 2, while he literally smashed down the walls representing his past, “Let there be light.” That seems to be the motto of the season, and he, along with Del, are by far the biggest beneficiaries.
Immediately after Jacob’s return, Kat hurries to tell Elliot and also to confirm that she chooses him, here, and now. As we go through the obligatory season time-jump, we rejoin them happy, with casual “love yous” and a lightness they’ve never had before. He asks Alice’s permission to ask Kat to move in with him. He doesn’t bat an eye when Kat tells him she time-traveled again. Gone is the sullen, suspicious, angsty Elliot of Season 2; welcome back, sweet, dorky, supportive Elliot of Season 1 — now with 50% more self-confidence and healing!
Del, meanwhile, gives us a bit of a bait-and-switch. At first, she and Sam seem on the outs after Jacob’s return. She struggles to adjust to Jacob as an adult, which also leads to clashes with Kat. But then she admits to it, promises to do better… and promptly sneaks off to the “clubhouse” in the barn, where Sam has a regular set-up for their secret rendezvous?! Go, Del!
Back from the Future (And to the Past)
The Way Home Season 3, Episode 1, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” also gives us closure on Season 2’s 1814 storylines and characters. Nine months after Jacob’s return, Kat is struggling. Alice reassures Kat that it’s okay to miss the past — that she, too, misses her ’90s friends — and encourages Kat to take one last leap.
When she arrives, she learns from a still-wounded Elijah that just five days have passed in 1814. Stuart Hughes acts the scene marvelously, with Elijah’s complicated joy and grief. He also reveals to Kat that Jacob was still in danger of being killed by Cyrus Goodwin, so he had to jump.
Kat has one more stop: Susanna, who urges Kat to leave and never return. Kat does, but not before begging Susanna to keep writing and keep her dreams. In the present, we know she does: Kat publishes Susanna’s writings (under Susanna’s name).
At the pond, Kat bumps into Thomas. He goes to kiss her, but she pushes him away quickly. She rips into him for letting them have that emotional goodbye when he knew he had a decent chance of survival, and she tells him that her life — including “someone else” — is in the future. He’s fleeing the town for good; she’s going back to her own time. They’ll have some memories, and that will be enough. While the door is never completely closed on a time-travel show, this whole sequence did feel like a genuine goodbye to the 1800s as a whole.
But it’s the beginning of a new era! At a housewarming dinner for Elliot, after his renovations are done, Alice spots someone running past the window towards the pond and goes after them. She calls Kat from the pond, telling her someone else is using it… before getting pushed in.
What I’m Pondering
- The framing of Jacob’s “news conference” scene gave me the creeps. It’s shot to look like the POV of someone (who??) watching it on TV. Del receiving threatening notes certainly aligns with this possibility.
- What’s up with the clock Elliot found in the walls? A literal “house with a clock in its walls” — foreshadowing via literary allusion or some other mystery?
- Jacob’s smug “Took you long enough” when he realizes Kat and Elliot are together!
- It’s not all fun and games, though. Jacob has some serious trauma that I suspect we’ll be digging more into.
- Alice spotted Kat’s ring on a photo of Casey, just like viewers did last season.
- When she spills wine on the Alice in Wonderland book, Kat sees a message in invisible ink: “No curse is on the water. Believe in magic. Come to the pond.” Now she thinks Colton knew about time travel (which, of course, he did).
- Is Alice really going to give up her music for a “stable” PR career?
- The “Coyle’s” sticker is from a music shop where Colton used to sing! Presumably, Thomas’s descendants?
- And speaking of music: while dancing, Kat and Elliot realize that the duet voice on Colton’s demo album from the ’70s is… Alice?!
- The biggest question of all comes from the show’s signature “faceless cold open.” This season, we open with a shot of two people at the pond. One (a long-haired woman in denim) writes a note we can’t read, while the other (who looks like a man in a sweatshirt) soothes a baby in a basket. They tuck the letter into the basket, tell the baby, “You’ll be okay,” and then jump, hand in hand, back into the pond. It looks like Alice might be the woman, but the other person is pretty unclear. When are they, who is the baby, and what’s in the note? Those are, presumably, the mysteries we’ll find out by the end of the season. Theorize away!
Now streaming on Hallmark+: What are your thoughts on The Way Home Season 3, Episode 1, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet?”
First Featured Image Credit: ©2024 Hallmark Media/Photographer: Peter Stranks