‘The Way Home’ Bosses Explain Kat’s ‘Moment of Desperation’ With Thomas & Future With Elliot
Spoiler Alert
Would you like Swooon in your inbox? Signup for our Swooon! newsletter!
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Way Home Season 2 finale “Bring Me to Life.”]
Season finales are usually one surprise after another and include big moments for relationships, and with its latest, The Way Home delivers both. It certainly sets Kat (Chyler Leigh) and Elliot (Evan Williams) on a hopeful path going forward.
But before getting the two to that place, Kat travels back to 1814 to say goodbye to Thomas (Kris Holden-Ried) after finding out he’s about to be killed. She blames herself, but he refuses to let her, and they kiss before she leaves—and thinks he’s killed before finding out he was saved by armor. Then, in the present, Elliot tells Kat that he time-traveled with Alice (Sadie Laflamme-Snow) and got his five minutes with Colton (Jefferson Brown), so now he understands what she’s gone through, having to stop herself from trying to change the past. “I want you to choose me,” he tells her.
Below, executive producers Heather Conkie and Alex Clarke explain including that moment with Kat and Thomas, Kat and Elliot’s journey, and much more. (Plus, get scoop on what Jacob returning home and the revelation that Colton’s a time-traveler here.)
Why have Kat and Thomas kiss given Kat and Ellie’s complicated relationship?
Heather Conkie: Because we’re evil, very evil. [Both laugh]
Michael Tompkins/Hallmark Media
Alex Clarke: I adore the Elliot character and I think that the relationship that Kat and Elliot have had in the past but also have had through Season 1, Season 2, yes, it’s been tumultuous, but it’s also been incredibly supportive and incredibly necessary. And the Thomas character of it all, I think, was a really interesting one to explore because he is sort of the antithesis of Elliot in a lot of ways. Elliot is someone who is very cerebral, thinks before he acts, feels very, very deeply, and is insanely empathetic. And here’s this man in the 1800s who acts before he thinks, is a bit wild, and he doesn’t really care what other people think and he speaks his mind and things are very black and white with him. And that is so the opposite of Elliot. And we love the idea of having these polar opposites exist in these different eras almost as representative of that era that they live in.
Having Thomas and Kat kiss at the end, I think was, a moment of desperation for both of them, or so we think. And I think it’s a kiss that comes from, again, not thinking, just acting, which is such the opposite of any kiss that comes from Kat and Elliot.
Where did you want to leave Kat and Elliot to set up next season? And are they in a better place to make a relationship work now than they ever have been?
Conkie: I think they are actually. I think that they had to go through what they’ve gone through in the first two seasons to see each other really, really clearly. Elliot is a person who analyzes and thinks too much, and Kat is much more impulsive than he is obviously. And I think they grow to realize those are strengths for the two of them, that that does not have to work against each other and can actually make a very united whole.
And to that end, in Episode 5, Kat said, “You have no idea what I do. You can talk about rules, but you haven’t actually done what I do, i.e., time travel.” And in Episode 10 when he is actually given this opportunity to time travel and meets Colton himself and finds himself in a position very similar to Kat in, “I wanted to warn him, I wanted to tell him not to go to the carnival. I wanted to tell him to watch out for his kid.” He is all of a sudden finally putting himself in Kat’s shoes and realizing how hard it was for her this entire time because she’s right. He is the one that talks the rules, but he hasn’t lived it. And the minute he lives it, I think a huge perspective shift happened for him. And as a result, by the end of that episode, by the end of the season, I think they’re in a way better place to start something.
And conversely, I think Kat has finished her quest. She’s brought Jacob home. That’s done. And so that obsession she has had with the pond that he has kind of held against her up until now isn’t necessarily something that she’s going to have. She’s done what she’s to achieve. Whatever comes from that is a whole other thing. But at its core, she’s completed the journey, and maybe she’s ready now to focus more on present day and him.
Why have Elliot time travel with Alice and share that with her and not Kat? Did you ever consider having it be Kat who brought Elliot back?
Clarke: No, it’s funny. We never did because it was the perfect—Season 2 is all about kind of mirror images and it’s all based on Alice Through the Looking Glass. And our Season 1 is Elliot as the Giles to Alice’s Buffy, sort of the teacher to the student. And for Alice to turn it around this season and be the guide, be the one to bring a newbie into what she knows, which is time travel, it just felt so right to us for their relationship, for their friendship. The whole season is really her questioning their friendship based off of what she’s seen in the past of what young Elliot does, and the ultimate payoff is her realizing that he did the things he did in the past without meaning to hurt her and Alice realizes what he lost by making these mistakes. And I think her gesture of, “Come with me, I’ll give you this gift,” was a very cathartic, really lovely moment of Alice saying to him, “All is forgiven and now let me guide you. Yeah, let me be Giles.”
And of course we have to talk about Alice’s discovery about the ring that Casey’s (Vaughan Murrae) wearing [that looks like Kat’s engagement ring]. What can you say about what that means for Season 3?
Conkie: [Both laugh] A lot of wondering.
Clarke: Obviously that is one of the new questions that we’re opening up in order to explore in Season 3, for sure. I think Casey is a really interesting character, and we love where we think we’re going to take them. And I’m really excited for the audience to come up with all their theories because I will say that’s been one of the greatest joys, especially this season, is seeing the theories online, seeing people really so invested to the point that they’re creating group chat rooms to talk about these things, and it’s such a genuinely lovely discovery that people are that invested. I think a lot of the theories that will come up in Season 3 will be based around the Casey character, for sure.
You mentioned that Kat set out to do what she wanted to. So should we be wondering if she’ll be able to time travel again?
Conkie: Oh, I guess we’ll be wondering, but it’s in her blood.
Will we see Thomas or Susanna (Watson Rose) again?
Conkie: We’ll have to wait and see. It’s an interesting one because that story has been told, but we do again leave this little moment of “huh” in the reveal that Thomas is still alive. So I don’t think that door is 100 percent closed, but yeah, we’ll have to wait and see.
What else can you say about Season 3?
Conkie: I think we’re so invested in these characters and invested in mysteries of the past. I think our show will always center around the idea that the past is never gone and everything we do in the present is informed by what’s come before us, especially when it comes to family. And that’s not going to change in Season 3. We are going to uncover new mysteries about the Landrys, the Goodwins, the Augustines, our three founding families of this town, realizing that those mysteries continue to go deeper and inform things in ways that we would never have expected. I think we’re going to see beloved characters in a very new light in Season 3, and we hope people are kind of left breathless by that.
Clarke: We intend to go further down the rabbit hole.
The Way Home, Season 3, TBA, Hallmark Channel
