What is happening?
There are so many balls up in the air after The Way Home Season 2 Episode 7 that it’s hard to see a straight line to the finish.
There is so much to discuss, so let’s get started.
Things are coming to a head in the Landry family, and Kat’s need to hold all of her secrets close to the vest could ultimately tear her family apart again.
I think we have to tell Del the truth about everything. It’s the only choice we have.
Alice
The possibilities for her to get stuck in the past or for Jacob to die are very real, and if she fails to share what she knows with Del, no matter how her mother takes the news, she will regret it.
Kat’s idea to save the day by returning to the past with a bag of antibiotics and other 2024 medicinals failed. At least Elliot knew it would fail and saw her off with a warning to that effect.
It’s too bad Kat doesn’t have more faith in what Susana accomplished with her wounds to believe she’d be able to tincture her way to curing Jacob, as well.
Susana is incredibly capable, but you get the feeling that Kat feels more capable since she comes from an advanced society. Instead, she’s often the one scrambling for answers or understanding.
Getting to know people in the past puts her life into perspective.
Kat has already pegged Thomas as the ultimate bad boy, who dragged her brother kicking and screaming into the line of fire. Except, she was wrong. It was Jacob who had plans for breaking bad. It was his idea to double dip on their own smuggling.
What else was Jacob’s idea? He probably has plenty of them. He’s already lost everything he had in life once. Why would he live in fear of losing anything else?
We don’t know Jacob at all. Kat knew him as a child, and Susana and Thomas know the adult he’s become.
As Kat screamed that her Jacob would never, I couldn’t help but want to scream back that he was a kid. After the trauma he suffered, there’s every reason to suspect that who she knew at seven is much different than the young man he’s become.
She’s let her life and her relationships be ruled by tragedy. Look what not being able to deal with it did to her relationship with Del.
Now, we don’t know what went down at Langermore and why Alice thinks that’s the final nail in the coffin of their mother-daughter connection, but we do know how losing Colton and Jacob affected them both.
Kat was lost within herself, wondering how she’d stand it if she lost Jacob again, never getting the chance to know him, when Thomas matter-of-factly said he’d already lost two brothers. She often forgets the facts of her life are smooth sailing compared to life in 1814 and earlier.
Kat: What if I never get the chance to really know him?
Thomas: I’ve lost two brothers. Losing Jacob would be like a third. We walk this earth in the time that we’re given and then we return to it.
Kat knew Jacob as a little boy; Susana and Thomas have grown up with Jacob. Jacob is like a coin, with two distinct demarcations in his life journey.
It’s hard to imagine what he went through, but it would be similar to a child being kidnapped and told their old life is gone, and this is the new one. Except we’ve been given the impression that Jacob was told not to return to the pond until the right time.
Kat believes now is the right time to return Jacob to the future. It seems unlikely there are other alternatives to the plan in the short term, and since the pond and time travel are at the heart of this show, it makes more sense for him to return than to make a run for it.
Jacob must know the pond is his lifeline home, but I’m eager to find out how many times he’s tried to return, if at all. If Jacob the boy was obsessed with the pond in the ’90s, how on earth could Jacob the adult be any different?
Of course, the hour faded to black just as Jacob’s memories of home invaded his mind. We are on the precipice of the big reunion. What do you expect from it?
Adult Nick has also returned home after his fiancee broke off their engagement. During The Way Home Season 1, I never thought Nick was all that chummy with everyone. He was a friend but not a close friend.
Now, it seems like he was always part of the crowd and quite beloved. You’d have to be very close to the family to have the gall to ask Del about Colton’s boat.
It seems that Nick will play a significant role in whatever went down at Langermore and how it changed their lives. It doesn’t take a magical pond to change the future.
I’ve often wondered how many people will know about time traveling before too long. Kat tells pretty much anyone who would listen in the past, but she muzzles herself in the future.
Thomas: For a witch, you know shockingly little about nature.
Kat: Wait, wait a minute. You think that I’m actually a witch?
Thomas: I saw you leap into that pond two days ago and only emerge again this morning. How’d you manage it? Is it an illusion, or is it truly sorcery?
Alice is begging to tell Del to give the poor woman some peace. Even when it’s not Jacob-related, being on the outside looking in isn’t working.
Thanks to our reader Spas, who pointed out that Kat getting The Herald out by herself makes her pretty magical in her own right, pond not needed.
OK, no offense to Kat, but did she have a 12-year-old put together this paper?
Nick
The amount of work to put together one paper with one person would be astronomical. She has no time to investigate or experience the things she’s writing about, which makes writing about them even harder.
Elliot and Alice’s attempt to put out the paper on The Way Home Season 2 Episode 6 proved that and more. Del was humiliated at how poorly her daughter represented the most important event of the year in Port Haven.
And all the while, Kat just says she can’t reveal her big secret. How many secrets are enough? We’ve already hit the limit.
Nick isn’t an idiot. He’s going to realize that the Alice he’s talking with is his Alice from the past. The way he speaks of the past proves he’s never put Alice out of his mind. How could he not recognize her?
Nick: Is that Alice singing?
Del: Yeah. Isn’t she somthin’?
Nick: Unforgettable.
Alice is normally one of the most mature people in any room, but when she’s around Nick and Noah, she’s just a girl. That’s a smart move in what could be an icky situation since Nick is now an adult.
Since Alice is in full-on young lady mode with adult Nick, it will be easier for him to pull himself away from memories of his Alice, even if he discovers she is the same Alice.
She’s the same girl he knew at the same age. His feelings are likely to return, but they’ve done enough story work that it won’t veer into cringey territory.
Plus, Noah is a cutie. Alice and Noah have found something nice, and she needs to remain present. She can clearly see the boy she liked is now an adult, and it’s made easier having Noah around to temper any lingering doubts.
Nick’s presence also causes Elliot to rethink his relationship with Kat. “Sometimes, love just isn’t enough.” I’m going on record now, saying that Elliot and Kat have a very long way to go before they’re romantically involved.
When you watch Kat in 1814, that’s what I expect of love. Passion and conversation and butting heads. Kat already trusts Thomas more with her thoughts than she does Elliot, which doesn’t say much for Elliot.
Kat and Elliot are constantly in a battle of wills as if they’re proving something to each other. It’s not an easy relationship, which is surprising given their history.
But with Thomas, Kat gives as good as she gets, and instead of letting things linger in the air unsaid, they’re saying them. She beats around the bush with Elliot but walks straight into the bush with Thomas.
Are you always this confounding, or is this something I bring out in you?
Thomas
There’s something to be said for a relationship that progresses naturally. Just look at Del and Sam.
Del does and says what she wants, and Sam reacts as he wants. Del made it clear she didn’t want to be one of his girls, and without a word, everyone in town knew Sam had someone special, and his days of playing the field were over.
Just so we’re clear. One moonlight swim doesn’t mean I want to be one of your girls.
Del
With decades of secrets clouding their souls, the Landry women need to cleanse themselves of those secrets and start fresh.
They are stronger together, and they make better decisions when being true to themselves. Will The Way Home Season 2 end on a positive note, or will what we expect to happen (Jacob’s return to the present) make things even more difficult for this family?
How will meeting Thomas and Kat’s burgeoning feelings for him affect things with Elliot in the present?
Will Kat tell Del what’s been happening, or will she only discover the truth when Jacob returns and Kat remains in the past?
So many questions, and we only have three more episodes for answers. It’s one hell of a sophomore season, isn’t it?
Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She’s a member of the Critic’s Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on X and email her here at TV Fanatic.
