Mysteries and burning questions aside, the best part of The Way Home Season 3 is the glimpses we get into the 70s. Young Colton and Del, as they first fall in love, Evelyn and her dazzlingly heartbreaking antics. Every person who walks through the door to Coyles. And, of course, Alice’s chance to continue spending time with the grandfather she should’ve had the opportunity to continue getting to know. Yet, amid all this, there’s one scene in particular that I can’t stop thinking about. It’s a moment that generally makes me uncomfortable on TV, yet in “Smoke on the Water,” it’s magic.
After recording the duet with Alice, Colton plays a demo of the music he wrote for Del while memories of them flash through the screen as Alice watches beside him in the booth. It’s intimate, honest, and a tremendous accomplishment from Jordan Doww, who keeps giving us a full range of emotions that break me. The Way Home isn’t delivering nearly enough of Colton and Del in the 70s, yet everything we see in this brief moment shines brilliantly to evoke how deeply he loves her—the lengths he’d go to for her and because of her.
The show’s time travel elements aside, their love story is the constant. It’s the heart of the series, beyond the other messy relationships. There are too many entangling romances in the show, yet Colton’s love for Del is a reminder that love endures—it survives the odds stacked against them. It survives time, changes, grief, and everything in between. It’s also fascinating how this scene flashes on the memories of Colton and Del while they’re adults, showing us Alice’s point of view and everything she observed in the 90s with how their relationship stood as a pillar of strength for the Landry family.
Interestingly, Colton doesn’t serenade Del with this song (he still might)—although this might be the reason it works for me, personally. There’s something about someone serenading someone else on TV that always makes me a little uncomfortable, no matter how great of a singer they are, and I can’t exactly say why. Still, a large chunk of the reason this scene works is because he’s playing it with no expectations, which then makes it feel that much more heartfelt and tender. He isn’t holding his vulnerability aside because he’s not thinking of how she’ll respond, but rather, he’s singing it to get the melody out of him. It’s every bit of the longing he’s holding inside that rises to the surface to mingle with the tender openness that’s often present because of who Colton is as a character.
It also helps that the song is exceptional, from the music to the lyrics and how Jordan Doww performs it. It results in a moment that feels real, as opposed to something that’s fabricated and fictional. All the pent-up aches of an artist are right in front of the audience to exhibit how music speaks when words fail.
In addition, Sadie Laflamme-Snow also elevates the scene with her reaction as she watches and understands how sacred this moment in time truly is. Why it’s important that this part of Colton and Del’s story and how it ensures that as a couple, they were always meant to be — all the questions she’s had, every little thing she’s wondered, it all evaporates as she understands how precious this kind of love is. How it’s a gift that she gets to witness it and make her own sacred memories with her grandparents while they were young.
One of the Taylor Swift songs that often haunts me the most is “Margorie,” specifically the lyrics that say, “I should’ve asked you questions; I should’ve asked you how to be; Asked you to write it down for me; Should’ve kept every grocery store receipt; ‘Cause every scrap of you would be taken from me; Watched as you signed your name Marjorie All your closets of backlogged dreams.”
Alice gets the kind of opportunity so many of us wish we could have — the second chance to get to know the people who’ve passed — the ones we’ve never met, who’ve somehow shaped the person we are. She gets a chance to live in the moments we only have glimpses of through photographs, and she doesn’t take any of it for granted, making the scene that much more heartfelt, honest, and vulnerable.
So much of The Way Home explores what we’d do if we could go back and change the tragedies from our past, but in “Smoke on the Water,” it’s not about changing any outcomes or wondering about the what-ifs — it’s about existing in a precious beat of time. It’s about truly living in a moment that asks its characters to simply love and be willing to show that love.
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