Critic’s Rating: 4.2 / 5.0
4.2
Well, that was a juicy and action-packed hour of TV!
There is much to discuss, so we might as well start at the beginning. It’s as good a place as any!
Kat fell on her sword on The Way Home Season 3 Episode 7, and as valiantly as she tried to save her daughter from Del’s disappointment, it wasn’t the right thing to do.
Kat wanted to protect Alice for her part in Colton’s death as much as she wanted to save someone for Del to lean on when she’d most need a shoulder.
But still. There have been enough half-truths and outright lies to last several lifetimes within this family. At some point, they need to begin telling whole stories, consequences be damned.
Can the consequences really be any worse than the rest of it? As the rest of the hour played out, some secrets came to light while others emerged like light breaking around a closed door.
There are so many things we and the families involved in this saga don’t know that it’s hard to blame anyone for not knowing how to proceed. While some people like to throw caution to the wind, you have to wonder if that would work with this bunch.
Yet every time the family uses the pond or hides its power, caution comes into play in one way or the other.
Remember during The Way Home Season 1, when Alice hid her travels for a good portion of it? Well, they might as well put a ticket booth and a schedule board nearby as often as people come and go.
The lore is that the pond always takes you where you need to go, but the show might be playing fast and loose with that rule now.
It’s like the UK, where people “pop around” for a coffee off the cuff. As crazy as that seems to this hermit-like American, it’s almost quaint compared to the pond travelers these days.
Is Kat going to jump in the pond? Can I watch?
– Nick
Not only are we discovering that people have been in times nobody knew about, but Evie remembers Kat as the person who saved them in 1965. Colton was quick to tell her she was crazy, and now that we know he was in 1814, I think he was trying to go back to save Nick, even if he didn’t make it.
So much has changed for him in such a short time, but I’m even more intrigued now by the messages he and Evie sent to each other with invisible ink after they were not allowed to speak after the pond incident.
Alice was poking and prodding Colton to find out if he knew more than he let on, but he was good at deception all his life. Why would that encounter be any different? Alice was revealing enough that if he had been back, it should have dawned on him that she might be a traveler, too.
Did anyone else think it was weird how he asked Alice not to tell Evelyn about the messages in the books? There was more to their story, but even if it was destined to become a great love, Delilah’s arrival changed all of that.
Once she came into his life, there was no looking back. He was as sure of his future with her as the pond is in knowing who goes where.
If Alice was using the pond like an escalator, Kat couldn’t go through to get Jacob, and she was pretty bummed out about that. But she didn’t need to worry. Her friends and family in 1814 had her back.
Elijah was so happy Jacob stayed behind for a bit, but he wanted him to return to his own time. William will be returning, and he’s OK on his own. He knows Jacob has much to make up for in his own time, and he had the pleasure of raising him into the man he is today.
Elijah wasn’t the only one who wanted Jacob to reconsider. Susanna summoned him and Thomas to her quarters at Lingermore, and she finally revealed her painting of Katherine and what their friendship has meant to her.
Susanna: Katherine fights for those she loves. [unfurls the painting] She has been my light in dark times.
Thomas: She’s beautiful. Why hide her?
Susanna: Because Cyrus and this town can never know the truth of our friendship. She is the white witch, after all. Go home to Katherine, Jacob. The pain you feel, she feels it, too. You need one another, not us.”
Still, Jacob wasn’t ready to face his sister. He blamed Kat for his world crashing down, but Thomas gently persuaded his friend to go home. He reminded Jacob that Kat carried the guilt of her father’s death alone while fighting to get Jacob home.
She wasn’t just playing with time; she was trying to save Jacob. Sometimes, only your best friends can help you see the truth about the battles waging within you. Thomas spoke from experience when he told Jacob that holding onto that kind of anger is poison, and the sooner you let it go, the better.
When Thomas said goodbye to Jacob at the pond, he fully intended to follow him through. It’s too bad he didn’t tell Jacob. Maybe Jacob could have taken him with him.
When he didn’t go anywhere, Thomas was frustrated and emphatically said, “Enough” when he reached the pond’s edge. Part of me thought that it might be him closing the door on Kat, but that story isn’t over yet.
But before we go further with that discussion, we need to talk about Alice, Max, Sam, Casey, and Del, who are all rolled up in something together that I don’t think will come even close to being settled before the end of The Way Home Season 3.
Del was understandably upset for a few days after Kat returned, and she took some time for herself. That really seemed to annoy Sam, as did the fact that Jacob didn’t return home.
The way he said, “What the heck was he thinking? Do you know where he is?” didn’t sound like some guy asking after his girlfriend’s son. It was as if he knew Jacob more than he did.
When Sam said Del Casey was his client, and he could not share more because of attorney-client privilege, that didn’t ring true either.
Not to mention that when Alice wormed her way into Susanna’s and Evie’s attic room while studying with Max, she found a burner phone and a BISHOP chess piece in the not-so-hidden compartment in the wall.
But as to whether Max and Lewis are involved in any of this, well, he asked after Jacob under the guise of worrying about his inheritance, and Elliot told Alice he was close with Evelyn and mourning her loss. He also revealed there was a squatter at Lingermore over the summer, which was, of course, Casey.
Casey emerged just in time for Del and Alice’s conversation, and the way she said “Sam” made it seem like she called him by another name.
And dammit, if the internet isn’t ablaze with the possibility that he could be Colton, in part because it seems obvious he knows too much and how he purchased land next door right seems sketchy, and in part because Rob Stewart, who plays Sam, said in an interview that “he’s not who you think he is” and “I know who I thought he was that he isn’t” and that he’s part of the upcoming season finale and its cliffhangers.
He was frustrated and somewhat angry when he told Del, “However hard a time you had with trusting Colton before he passed, that does not mean that you can’t trust me.”
I can’t tell if he’s a good guy or a bad guy. Is he Colton or Cyrus or Vic? Is he just some guy who came out of left field? I’d be the most surprised if he was the latter.
But Jacob also said the only two people who haven’t had more time with Colton are him and Del. Hell, even Elliot went back to get his extra 15 minutes.
But then we discovered that Jacob did have time with Colton. Colton was the young man who told Elijah and Jacob to plant potatoes and rye. As much as Colton loved Del, can we really believe that he wouldn’t move heaven and earth and change the very nature of the pond to return to her?
We originally thought the title The Way Home was about Jacob, but it makes more sense that the endgame is about Colton. Sure, he died. Or did he? This is science fiction. I’m not ruling anything out.
If all of that wasn’t enough, Casey and Alice ran into each other when coming and going from the pond, and Alice asked about the ring around Casey’s neck.
It’s a family ring, but not the Goodwin family. And just as soon as that came out of Casey’s mouth, the chase was on. Casey either drowns in the pond (HA!) or returns from whence they came. No surprise there, but Alice still found herself breathless to have her suspicions confirmed.
The ring is quite clearly a Landry heirloom, so Alice must be beside herself at this point.
As I sat there scratching my head, I wondered: How on earth has this family never passed down through Landry lore what that pond means? Why is it a cherished secret they hold so dear until it happens to whoever it happens to in the present?
It’s a lot, and it’s wreaked havoc with more than one family.
I had to laugh when Rita put on her conspiracy hat and told Del that Sam was doing business with some old clients in Toronto. She wondered if one of those folks could be coming after Del because Sam cares about her.
I was thrilled that Del actually confided in someone about the letters. It must have felt so good to get that off her chest, to let someone in, you know? But when she said, “I know Sam, and he wouldn’t hide something like that from me”? Oof.
If Del knows Sam even as partially well as she knows her own family, she should know that hiding things is commonplace.
But that’s hardly all that happened during “Tell Me Something Good,” as Elliot was moping and coming to grips with his kiss with Emma. He didn’t seem convinced of anything, but Nick promised him that he and Kat would find their way back to each other.
Do you remember at your wedding when I told you that Emmas was the best thing that ever happened to you? Total lie. It’s always been Kat. I’m sure you’ll find your way back to each other. You always do.
– Nick
Yet, earlier, Elliot said something that I found interesting. “Things were good with Kat; I was happy. At least, I thought I was.” Has Elliot ever looked happy to anyone? Have Kat and Elliot ever looked truly happy together?
When Nick conned the lovelorn duo to sing Karaoke together to mend fences, he picked the most inappropriate song of all time. For a guy who used to carry around a guitar, he’s clueless about music.
If I thought Kat and Elliot had never looked happy before, while they were singing that song, they were downright uncomfortable.
Yet the creators used that moment to show a Kat and Elliot montage, where none of the scenes made me feel any differently about them as a couple. They looked miserable, and not because their love was falling apart. It was as if they were realizing they never loved each other at all.
Kat couldn’t exactly be upset when Elliot told her about Emma. They are both fleeing to the past to find what they need. If what they needed was each other, it would be a lot easier than this.
What was the “always” that Nick was talking about? Before the present, they had never been together. They had a brief moment at the party before she discovered she was pregnant, and that was the end.
It was one fanciful night that never amounted to anything more than hopes and dreams. Does that mean it shouldn’t amount to anything now? Not necessarily, but to pretend they were a great romance is absurd. They were always best friends, with one brief moment of something more.
Anyway, Del, who didn’t think she wanted to watch people singing (finally, we have something in common!), did so anyway, and the music worked for her and Kat if not Kat and Elliot.
When things fell apart with Elliot, Kat returned to 1814 to see Susanna, but it was Thomas who was, as always, lurking behind a tree, waiting for her arrival. It’s so uncanny that I’m beginning to think he has intel about her comings and goings.
She was unsettled and told him about Elliot kissing another, and seeing her hurting, Thomas did what all rakes do: he kissed her passionately.
Their kiss surprised her, but I couldn’t read the look on her face. Could you? What was that reaction? I saw a thousand things cross her mind, but I couldn’t grasp any of them.
Is their end near? When we have all just gotten them back, and she and Elliot are stepping back from one another? Do I have to start writing fan fiction? Don’t make me do it!
Other things to ponder:
- I loved that Del wanted to go with Kat to the 1800s to find Jacob. It was the most resolute we’ve seen her in three seasons, which also came just after she told Kat she would walk through fire to save her child.
- I also loved that Jacob encouraged Kat to go back to see Del and Colton’s special moment and didn’t rule out going back himself one day.
- Will The Bay Street Bandit turn out to be important?
Have you hung in there this long with me? I can’t wait to hear from you. Your thoughts inspire me! Let’s share a little Valentine’s Day love in the comments.
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