The Way Home Showrunners Answer All Our Burning Questions About Season 2 and Beyond!
We’ve all been hooked as The Way Home takes us on another incredible journey in season 2. From finding Jacob to Elliot’s first time travel adventure to a huge reveal about Colton and so much more, Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke with mother-daughter showrunning team Heather Conkie and Alexandra Clarke about what it all means!
Kristen Maldonado: Elliot proposed that people can travel in tandem with the Landry women, but they can't go to the future. I wanted to clarify, does that mean that like the Landry line also can't go to the future or just the people that are traveling with them cannot go to the future?
Alexandra Clarke: Oh that's a good question. I like that one. That's exactly the right thing that Elliot would say. That's exactly how Elliot would probably question it. Given the time to really ruminate on the Finn factor, I think he would test that theory too for sure. In his mind the Finn factor means that you can travel in time with a Landry holding your hand or right after a Landry and you are only taken to the past. Finn is a dog from present day that went to the past via Kat or Alice jumping in. If you notice in season one now that the Finn factor or at least this theory of the Finn factor, if you do go back, anytime little Jacob mentions seeing a dog, it's when either Kat or Alice are there which means that's how he got back there.
KM: Why did adult Jacob time travel to 2024 instead of 1999?
AC: Don't forget with Jacob, what's interesting about him is he is from the present day timeline. He was taken by the pond back to this time that he did end up spending a lot of time in, but really if he hadn't done that he would be living as 32 year old with Kat in 2024. That is something to keep in mind.
KM: Why was Alice able to go back to a moment she already experience with Elliot when they time travel together?
AC: In our minds, that trip was for Elliot. She really did say even to him ahead of time like, “I want to give you this gift.” I think going into the pond with that intention probably led them to where they ended up because that trip really was all about about Elliot getting his five more minutes. Not only that, but also having his eyes opened to Kat’s own experience. He did want to warn Colton despite all his logic and all his talk of the rules. In the moment, face to face with this man who was more like a father to him than anyone, he wanted to tell him: don't get in the car, don't go to the carnival, watch your kid, whatever it is. Checking himself in the moment and knowing, ‘Oh my gosh, this is why Kat did what she did. This is how she must have felt,’ I think is a really intriguing moment for that character to experience. He's such a logic based guy, so cerebral. To have that emotional experience, I think will really help inform where he and Kat meet moving forward.
Heather Conkie: Exactly. He had to feel what she felt. He could never really understand. In part of his heart, in his head, he blamed her for that without knowing how she felt and what she went through. Now he understands that so they are on a different plane going forward.
KM: In another interview, you shared that you have a whole list of rules of the pond in your office. How did you come up with them, what kind of research went into it?
AC: Marly Reed, who created our concept for the show and who was amazing and brought it to us, really had done a lot of research herself ahead of time. It was very much an idea of this cyclical time travel versus alternate timelines. You have the butterfly effect and all that stuff. We didn't want to do that because, at the end of the day, the time travel aspect of our show needed to be cleaner than that. The show really isn't about time travel, in a weird way. It's about what happens to you on this this journey that allows you to understand yourself, your family, your past, your origin better and makes you figure out how to connect with people in the present in a way that's more empathetic and more understanding. Time travel for us, it's cool and it's amazing and it takes you to really amazing incredible places, but we wanted it to be a tool versus the show. I think using this kind of version of time travel where what happens will always happen, you can't change anything, you can learn from it, really helped tell our story.
HC: It has rules and, if you break the rules, you break the trust with the audience.
AC: It allows us to get really creative. Sure, a rule is this way, but if you approach it from a different way maybe you can make it into something different. That's been one of the real challenges and exciting ones going into especially a season three when people have heard, “What happened will always happen,” I don't know how many times. How do you still manage to flip things on their head when there there are rules in play?
KM: Now that Alice has helped bring Kat and Del back together, it seems she’s done what the pond wanted her to do. Now that she’s closed that chapter, is she on to a new mystery with Casey’s necklace?
HC: There's always gonna be a new mystery, no matter what. That's another rule, but I think that, in her case, season one was to get to know her mom better, to heal the rift between her and her mom. Season two, her goal, without even knowing it was going to happen, was to solve that rift between her mother and her [grandmother]. She found the reason for that unbelievably long estrangement, but she will have another goal always. We're in the midst of brainstorming all those things that you're bringing up. They're very interesting questions.
AC: Look, the 99/2000s era of our show is the golden era. It was when things were good. It was when everyone was still here. It was when Alice was a part of things, however small but truly impactfully. That's something that we would be loathed to walk away from fully because it's a moment in time for this family that was perfect. Utterly perfect. So much for the Landry’s hasn't been perfect and will continue to not be perfect, but you can certainly hearken back to those days as the dream almost. One of the things we love about our show is the echoes of the past are always with you in the present. The beautiful moments of a ‘99 night play out at the same table where they're fighting in 2024. You can feel that presence and that's always been the goal for our show. That idea that all of these different things, these different moments, can play out in the same space for a family. They're all still there in one way or another.
KM: This season, you bring a couple more people into the fold, like with Nick learning that Alice is his Alice. What can you tell us about that?
AC: I remember sending Kerry [James], who plays adult Nick, the script for [episode] nine and he was like, “Wait, what?” It was fabulous. The Nick character is just such a fun character and he brings such a level of ease and casualness to a show that is quite dramatic. Anytime he's in a scene with Elliot or with Kat or […] Monica, he always manages to be this really great energizing force where it's like, “Don't take things so seriously.” Like, “hey, let's have a drink” or “let's go to the bar.” That's what I love about the Nick character so to see him in nine come into the fold a little bit and know that secret and see the serious side of him was really, really powerful for us. Sadie [LaFlamme-Snow] and Kerry handled that final scene of the two of them on the couch so brilliantly. We made this rule in the blocking that they weren't allowed to look at one another until Nick says, “It was really hard on me, but I never realized how hard it was on you.” That's when they start going, “Okay, maybe we can have this conversation and it's not going to be, well… it's always going to be weird. […] I think that's an amazing moment of closure for both of them, but also, if we needed and wanted it in a season three, it's a really exciting place to start them. Having that knowledge of each other and having it out in the open with each other is just fun. Those kinds of things make me giddy.
KM: Did you guys have a favorite moment this season to bring to life?
HC: I really, really enjoyed the Noah character doing the Backstreet Boys with [Alice]. Even in the mix when we were getting the music perfect, it always makes me smile. Elliot pounding through the wall with that mallet. I just go, “Oh, wow!” There's so many. I mean, the scene when Thomas carries Kat into the water and he's going to drop her. It was so emotional and she just let it loose. I've never seen a performance like that. I looked at that performance in the rushes and said, “Oh my God, that was pretty special.”
AC: Another one to add to it, just from a pure point of pride because we'd never pulled off anything so big, was Jacob coming in by the boat and the soldiers taking him away. The coordination and stunts, it was a dance. We had to really figure that one out because there's a horse involved and there's stunts and people are going down and getting knocked over and someone's getting pulled out of a boat. It was Spencer [Macpherson]'s first day on set which, wow, that's one way to jump into our show, but, how that came out in the end, I think felt so epic. I remember Kris [Holden-Ried] who plays Thomas, taking me aside at one point. He was like, “It's, like, we're making like a blockbuster movie.” […] I'm so proud of what came of that day. Even just the smallest moment in it of Jacob turning for the first time and you see his face was like, oh my gosh, mind blowing.
KM: What can you tease about Jacob’s return home?
AC: Fairy tales… what happens after the happily ever after? Cinderella and her prince get married, but maybe there's marital problems. There's always something after the happy ending and I think it's been really exciting in the writer room that we're in now for season three to talk about what happens after the happily ever after. We were very purposeful, especially in episode nine about talking about fairy tales in different ways and the ideas of them. The end of our season does feel a little bit like a fairy tale in a way, but we wouldn't be the way home if we didn't make that fairy tale reality as well moving into season three. [..at is a part of that because, to your point, she's completed the mission. Mission accomplished, seemingly. Again, that's a really exciting place to start her in a season three. What now, what next? It's daunting, but it's fun.
HC: It gives us a chance too to delve into Del's mind set. If you recall in season two how Kat had to wrap her head around the fact that she's not looking for an eight-year-old boy anymore. She’s looking for a 32-year-old man, that really hit her. So you can imagine if it hits a sister like that, how it hits a mom. […] We have to get into her mind and feel what she would go through. Both the happy and the worried and the protectiveness and the everything. You don't want anything bad to ever happen to that beautiful boy again.
KM: We have to talk about Colton being a time traveler. How early did you decide that and does that introduce timelines where people can come back from the dead?
AC: Colton as as time traveler was always there for us. Jefferson [Brown], who plays Colton, did such a masterful job of making this really ambiguous choice with how he performed those scenes. So that if you had it in your mind that he was a time traveler you would see those scenes one way and if you had it in your mind that, no, he doesn't recognize these people or he's just a normal guy, it would be something else. All along we were playing with the idea of it, that story of why he's there. Because, don't forget, he's not only seeing himself and his family, he's also seeing Elliot and Alice and he's seeing a lot in that moment. Our job for season three will be to deal with that. A lot of questions will be answered [and] all the answers will have questions come out of them. It'll be really interesting for the audience to see what that moment meant.
KM: When we see young Colton with his grandmother in the final scene, what time period was that?
AC: The wardrobe we chose for that scene, we were purposely, very ambiguous. That is something that we will absolutely address in season 3, so no need to fear. But, yes, we were very, very purposeful in no shoes because shoes will immediately give away the era. So this poor little boy had to be barefoot and, yes, his grandmother was in something that could look like it would apply from anywhere from the 1700s through to the 80s. That was our goal so it's been fun to to see people note that and ask questions about it, but, have no fear, that question I can say with 100% certainty will be answered next season.
KM: What is it like to see the fan reactions of everyone so invested in the show?
AC: It's just supremely flattering that people are this invested ina show that that we adore and love and care for and take our time with and put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into. To see it be taken and run with by these groups of of fans and viewers… it means so much. It really does. It's what keeps us going to be quite honest in these grueling schedules. The other thing that it's really helped us with is paying even more close attention to detail and making things even more purposeful. I was joking around with mom […] and some of the Hallmark Executives that I think at the end of this we should be publishing Elliot's journal. We did have to write every single entry because you don't know where an actor will land when they're playing playing with it and we now know that people do take the time to screenshot and read it and that's huge for us. Someone wrote that, I wrote that, and it's really lovely to know that people care that much to want to read it too.
KM: We’ve got Alice, Kat, Jacob, and Colton time traveling which leads me to believe there could be other Landry’s time traveling out there. Would we ever see that and will we see other time periods in future seasons?
HC: It's a show about time travel so we're always going to be time traveling and you can't go back to the same place all the time or it wouldn't be very interesting. So, yeah, we're going to see more places. We thought we were taking a huge chance in season two to introduce the 1814s because it was a totally different look. Totally different than the 1999s and the 2000s look. It was dark and dirty and dangerous and it was a whole new cast, a whole new set. We didn't know how people would react to that and people reacted really well to it, so now we're a little braver. You can rest assured that we haven't run out of places to time travel to.
KM: Is there anything you can share about where you guys are in the writer’s room and how far ahead you’re thinking about this story?
AC: One of the things about the show is you do need to know the ending before you begin because of those Easter eggs. You have to plant them. While we treat every season as its own season because you never know if you're going to get another one, you also do have to look at that bigger picture. That's the fun part. So every season that we get renewed, we're like, “Oh gosh, we get to show them that bigger piece of the puzzle that we've been planning.” That's what's really exciting us about season three is it's a show that by its very necessity has to be different every season because the journeys are going to be different to show the different angles of this family, their origin, how they continue is just so, so exciting for us. The Landrys are a remarkable group of people and I feel very lucky that we get to tell their story. We'll continue next season with new chapters, new jumps into the pond perhaps, new places to go. It's hopefully going to do the same goal as these last two seasons, which is ultimately it all ends in a better understanding of where you come from who you are, who your family is, how important they are, and cherishing that.
The first two season of The Way Home are out now on the Hallmark Channel and Peacock, while a third season has been confirmed.
