[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Way Home Season 1 finale “Not All Who Wander Are Lost.”]
After that ending, let’s simply say this: It’s factor The Way Home is coming again for a second season.
The Season 1 finale noticed Kat (Chyler Leigh) attend her dad’s funeral then, within the closing moments within the current, understand her youthful brother Jacob time-traveled by way of the pond! And simply after her mother Del (Andie MacDowell) heard her say she knew what occurred to him, the finale took us again to that 1814 scene that opened the sequence, and we realized it was Kat who’d been operating by way of the woods in white. “I’ll be back, Jacob, I promise,” she stated earlier than leaping within the pond.
Executive producers Heather Conkie, Alexandra Clarke, and Marly Reed break down the finale and tease what’s forward.
I’m assuming the plan was all the time to bookend the season with that 1814 scene.
Alexandra Clarke: Yes, completely.
Did you all the time know that was going to be Kat? Did you take into account anybody else?
Marly Reed: No, it was all the time Kat.
We know that Kat’s going again to 1814, and we’ll presumably see what results in that second in Season 2, however because it’s stated that the pond sends folks the place they should go, it’s not like she must soar round in time, proper? Because the pond would ship her there.
Clarke: When we first got here up with this idea — Marly was the one which introduced this unimaginable thought to the desk — and as we had been beginning to develop out this primary season, the very first thing we needed to do was create these guidelines for the pond. The minute you don’t have that construction, you don’t have that order, you lose your viewers with a present like this as a result of time journey has to have guidelines in an effort to even be considerably plausible. And so sure, going into Season 2, we’re leaning closely into these guidelines. We’re not going to interrupt them. So the pond does solely take you the place you must go.
It’s not essentially ever probably the most simple of journeys, however the pond has its causes, is normally the way in which we type of clarify that. It supplies you with a journey. It doesn’t offer you the reply instantly, however in the event you truly take a look at the journeys that our characters do take, you do understand that every a type of journeys knowledgeable them ultimately in regards to the present standing of the current, in regards to the different characters inside their world. There was all the time a purpose for taking them to these moments even when within the second it doesn’t actually make sense to the character. Every go to had a purpose.
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But might there be legs to the journey, like to at least one time to a different time, then again to the current?
Heather Conkie: I feel it’s sufficient to say that we’re not all the time going to stay with one time and the current.
Clarke: The different huge factor is there’s all the time going to be that peeling of an onion of a thriller. Nothing is simple. We are a present [with] twists and turns and surprising surprises and shocks. That’s going to stay constant by way of Season 2, for positive.
How a lot of what occurred to Jacob and Colton (Jefferson Brown) do you know from the start? The complete story or simply the place you needed to finish up in Season 1?
Conkie: We needed to obtain the signposts all through of the place we knew we needed to be to get to the place we needed to finish up, after which a number of the components of the story simply fell aside. Peeling the onion made us understand on the writing stage that we had to return and amend sure issues within the earlier episodes to make that work actually, rather well. But for probably the most half, we actually did have our tent poles, and we additionally had these intermediate objectives, particularly for the arcs of the characters.
Clarke: We all the time knew the midpoint carnival episode could be precisely the place it was. That’s when issues would actually flip for the primary time for our viewers and the temper would shift. Up till then it was a little bit of a nostalgic romp, which is incredible and what we needed to indicate. Episode 6 is the place that it hits a little bit of a actuality examine and we’re coping with an eight-year-old going lacking, and from then on the previous doesn’t look as golden and glory days because it used to. We knew that by the top we’d be the place we had been, as a lot as perhaps the viewers hates us for it.
Conkie: What we are saying within the room is that the present started with time touring being a present, and it went all through Episode 6 and on to turn into a curse. Hopefully we reverse that in Season 2.
I saved watching Del all season for indicators that she may know what’s happening, should suspect, or acknowledge Alice, then we acquired that scene with the 2 of them on the pond. I’m nonetheless on the fence about that. So what are you able to say?
Clarke: We can say that Del has a number of secrets and techniques of her personal. It’s been actually enjoyable and nice to see all of the theories. … That means we’ve carried out our job as a result of we’re letting folks theorize and perhaps we’re answering one factor, however that reply very equally to actual life opens up a heck of much more questions. That’s the MO of this present.
Reed: With each Del and Colton, there’s much more story to inform there. And we do have a plan for future seasons to inform extra of each of their tales.
But it does appear to be Kat and Alice (Sadie Laflamme-Snow) are going to have to inform Del every thing, after that closing scene within the current. What are you able to say about that dialog to return and what the household dynamics shall be like? There must be a shift after every thing that’s occurred.
Clarke: I feel forward of that second is an equally necessary one on the desk the place Del does have a second of claiming, “You’ve opened up my world, you’ve allowed me to love again.” She did go to the grief help group and has realized perhaps that’s not the highway she desires to take herself. She’s a really non-public individual, however the truth that she’s opening herself up even to her household is such an enormous step by the top of first season. We’ve seen it coming along with her relationship with Alice, however now she’s prepared to open herself as much as a relationship with Kat. I feel that scene is essential for Del. What goes to launch her right into a second season is that this allowance of letting folks in and acknowledging damage and acknowledging grief and acknowledging errors. And sure, then now we have this revelatory assertion from Kat that’s going to ship us into our second season. But it doesn’t matter what Del will get after that, firstly of subsequent season, what we have to deal with is the place she’s at from a private standpoint, when this data or not comes, if that make sense.
Conkie: Clear as mud.
We have to speak about Kat and Elliot (Evan Williams) as a result of nice first kiss. What did you need to do with that relationship all through the season to steer as much as that, then Elliot’s resolution within the finale to start out a brand new chapter?
Conkie: Yeah, it was a gradual burn for positive.
Reed: We needed a gradual burn, however not such a gradual burn that it was like three seasons in earlier than [the kiss].
Clarke: That would simply be merciless.
Conkie: One of my favourite moments is after they’re on their stroll by the waterfront in episode 7 when he says, “I’ve waited so long to kiss you and when I do…”
Clarke: Takes off the glasses and every thing!
Conkie: Evan is so fantastic at these moments that you just completely count on one thing after which he turns it on a dime and performs it completely.
Clarke: Honestly, we had been all so in awe of that kiss. It turned out even higher than all of us thought it will. Marly was on set that day and to get the solar setting…
Reed: The most anxious day of my life!
Clarke: Chyler and Evan are such unimaginable actors they usually did actually turn into actually good buddies throughout capturing. I feel everybody was ready for that second and simply prepared for it, and it was so wonderful when it truly went off and not using a hitch as a result of so few issues truly do work out while you’re filming issues. That one simply felt very destined and kismet-y that it truly did occur and was good. It was solely, what, two takes, was that proper?
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Reed: Two takes was all we had time for earlier than we misplaced the sunshine. I feel we all the time needed that second to be Kat initiating it due to the truth that Elliot has beloved her for thus lengthy. I feel it was necessary that after they lastly did get collectively, it was Kat chasing him, it was Kat that made that step after Elliot loving her his complete life.
Clarke: Also it says lots about Elliot. [He] might be, in the event you truly give it some thought, one of many extra fascinating characters on this present as a result of he doesn’t time journey, however he is aware of about time journey and it has affected him very personally from the yr ‘99 through to the year 2023. He is the gatekeeper and he’s additionally the knower of all secrets and techniques.
And talking to his alternative that he makes on the finish of Episode 10, he’s been frozen in time a little bit bit by these very offhanded, off the cuff feedback that Alice makes in Episode 2 of, “Well, no, you’re just my science teacher, dude, you’re not my dad.” And then later, “No, my mom and my dad are getting divorced.” He has been informed his future in these moments and he’s trapped consequently till it’s carried out, and that’s the place he’s coming from in that second that’s so heartbreaking.
We initially needed the viewers to see that his journey was a journey to Kat — he’s waited all these years to lastly have his probability — however actually ultimately, if he truly thinks about it, it’s a journey to freedom. It’s a journey to being again within the driver’s seat of his personal life, making selections that haven’t been predicted to him at a younger age. He has to reside past that and whether or not that takes him again to Kat or not is as much as him and her. But there’s a freedom there that he hasn’t had since he was 16 years outdated.
So who’s Elliot with that freedom?
Clarke: That’s query. We’ll discover out. He’s all the time going to be Elliot and I feel he’s a really introspective, considerate individual. Maybe he thinks [freedom] is likely to be a technique and perhaps it isn’t, or vice versa. Or perhaps he’s going to like it. Obviously we’ll go there in Season 2. But it’s been enjoyable to speak about within the writers’ room what that freedom seems to be like for Elliot.
Reed: He’s going to strive some issues and see in the event that they work out for him.
The Way Home, Season 2, TBA, Hallmark Channel