Critic’s Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
4.5
As usual, there is a lot to unpack after The Way Home Season 3 Episode 4, with enough to keep theorizers busy for the next week or so.
It’s a Del-centric hour, and to keep things simple, that will be the focus of this review.
I’ll touch on some of the other points, but for the first time, we’re discovering more about Del than ever before, so it deserves some attention.
First thing first: Del has secrets.
We’ve all been waffling with ideas about how much she knows of what, but the one thing we do know now is that she’s keeping secrets from her family.
While I would have thought we’d discover she knew more about the pond than she’s let on, her conversations with her version of Colton tell a different story.
If she had known about the pond’s abilities, she would have never asked him why, if he knew, he wouldn’t have told her and tried to save their son.
We have to assume those conversations between Del and specter Colton are sincere. She’s not going to lie to herself and play games for the audience. She was genuinely mystified that Colton could have kept something that significant from her.
But did he? While we were all pretty certain Colton and Evelyn both knew about the transportive qualities of the pond, that may not have been the case.
To fully understand Del’s story in this episode, we have to examine the past and present together, including Alice’s interactions with Evelyn.
Wait. Were you in the pond? …You don’t have to explain anything. I know what you know. The pond is a very special place. You feel it too, right?
— Evelyn [to Alice]
The writers are being so cheeky about what Colton and Evelyn knew about the pond — as cheeky as Evelyn and Colton themselves.
One minute, it seems like they take at face value the stories Fern told, and the next, it seems like they’re just playing a game of wish fulfillment, talking the talk but not walking the walk.
It wasn’t Colton in the pond at the beginning of The Way Home Season 3 Episode 3 that convinced me he knew about time traveling through the pond. It was the conversations between him and Evelyn, as well as their behavior at the pond, that led me in that direction.
Now, I’m not so sure.
Colton opened up to Alice, admitting it felt like a lot to be sharing with a virtual stranger.
He told her about Fern and time travel and that he believed enough that he thought he might be able to fix the past by jumping in after Nick’s funeral.
But he felt foolish because he traveled nowhere. Was he lying to Alice, giving her just enough to throw her off the scent? And if that’s the case, then why didn’t he share everything he knew with Del?
Del was the love of Colton’s life.
To keep her in the dark about the pond, something he supposedly shared with Evelyn, would make no sense, especially after Jacob disappeared.
Did he consider the pond was the issue when he lost Jacob? How could he not? How could Del not when she heard the same tales from Evelyn’s lips?
The bottom line is there is a lot we don’t know, and I don’t even think that’s the secret that is bothering Del the most.
Because we need to take another leap here and try to understand what was going on with Del in the summer of 1974 and how it connects to the “I know about your family” notes.
Del has a queasy stomach. She has never liked boats despite Colton’s love of them.
That disagreement sullied their first date when she threw up at sea. She was embarrassed and angry that he made her go on the boat when she didn’t want to go.
He made a grand gesture, singing Waterloo beside the water, and it calmed the storm raging inside of her. But that was not the moment they fell in love, as Alice surmised. It was another moment when she was sick again, but not from being at sea.
Of course, the clues point to Del being pregnant in 1974. Fans have already connected Lingermore to a place for pregnant teens.
I don’t know how the painting of the Woman in White at Lingermore is evidence of that, but some people believe that’s the case.
So if there were already rumors among viewers that Del was pregnant when she and Colton met, and people have already questioned how the baby in the basket, seemingly from the ’90s timeframe, could have been hers, well, you get the idea.
Now, it’s impossible not to see a connection.
My personal theory is that the Goodwins may be able to time travel through the pond, and they may be able to go forward as well as backward.
I’m going to go out on another limb and say that Noah isn’t going to win Alice’s heart. Max Goodwin may have that honor.
But I’m getting ahead of myself because how can you not with so much information to parse through? Whatever secret Del is holding relates to her family, and she’s frightened about telling Kat and Jacob because they’ve already been through so much.
She doesn’t want them “carrying that fear.” What on earth?
She apparently didn’t get the memo that secrets are the cause of a lot of their sorrow, but OK. She’s a slow learner. But is there someone in her family who is not who we think they are because she was pregnant and Alice or someone transferred the baby to another time?
I shudder to think how many leaps forward and backward it would take for that to happen, but on this show, anything is possible.
And if she was pregnant and that was her baby in the basket, why would Kat and Jacob live in fear now if they knew about it? There must be something else afoot.
Frankly, it makes your head spin in the best way if you happen to love this kind of stuff as I do. Every info drop gets your mind whirring with excitement.
While we were all trying to figure this out, Del was rediscovering her son, remembering who he was, and embracing who he is now. It’s taken her nine months to do that, but she’s finally acting like a grieving mother reunited with her son should act.
Remembering the little boy who gave her mama mail helped her recognize the man he’d become, and it inspired the postal service to start delivering again.
Del listened to Jacob’s nightmares, but she still didn’t fully understand until she saw how affected he was at Lingermore by memories of Cyrus Goodwin and when she finally spotted the scars on his back.
She said exactly what she needed to say, and it came from the heart.
Scars are proof you made it through the tough times. They bear witness to what happened, allowing you to move forward.
She also recognizes how much Jacob loved working with the soil, and she urged him to consider accepting Lewis Goodwin’s offer to work together at his winery.
Lewis offered an olive branch between their families, and it seemed to be well-intentioned and heartfelt. He’s proud of his heritage. He doesn’t know what kind of man Cyrus really was because the victors write history.
After a lifetime of believing his family was grand, trying to set the record straight would be a difficult task. And maybe they don’t need to let go of the past to create a better future.
Maybe that olive branch will make the difference, wiping the slate clean of Cyrus’s misdeeds so that the Goodwins don’t have to relive it any more than Jacob would have to.
While all of this was going on, Kat continued investigating. She’s got her nose set on discovering more about 1965, and she got a good start with Jasper’s help.
When they were six or seven years old, Colton and Evelyn were already involved with the pond, as was evident when their young voices could be heard at the town meeting.
Evelyn wanted to tell the town about the special qualities of the pond, but Colton stopped her. She please with him: “You got to, Cole. I know you did!” What does that mean? We’re back to not understanding what they knew.
And the closer Colton got to Del in 1974, the farther way he got from Evelyn.
Evelyn finally realized she was in love with him, and it was too late. No wonder she wasn’t fond of Del.
But what secrets did they keep as a result of their passing friendship?
Something occurred to me while I was watching the episode. We often think about knowing the future as being a heavy burden to carry, but what if it’s freeing instead?
When Colton and Jacob were camping out in the field, Colton said with certainty, “Nothing can hurt you out here, Jakie. I promise.”
Did he know that something would hurt Jacob, but it wouldn’t then?
And what if knowing when your life was to end allowed you to live the life you do have to its fullest? Could that be why he was so generous and loving?
Some people would fall apart knowing their future, but others would embrace the time between. Maybe Colton was one of them.
Maybe he kept secrets because he wasn’t sure others would receive them in the same way. Again, I’m spitballing and just thinking about the possibilities.
When Del was talking with Kat about her fears that life with Elliot might be boring, Del had excellent advice.
“It’s the small moments in relationships that matter the most. The little gestures, not the grand ones. That’s where the love is.”
— Del
Del had been on the receiving end of grand and small gestures, and it was the small gestures that captured her heart. She wants the same for her children and grandchildren.
When you can change your life by time traveling, it must make it harder to enjoy life’s quieter moments. Could that be the lesson of the pond?
Now, I know there is a lot that I didn’t cover here, but I hope I’ve given you at least something to think about. If so, please drop below and share your thoughts with me. Don’t save it all for Facebook groups!
The Way Home Season 3 Episode 4 was the perfect way to get to know more about Del even while giving her an even more mysterious air. We needed this, and it delivered.
What theories are you creating after “I’ll Have to Say I Love You In a Song”? I can’t wait to hear them!
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