The Way Home Series Finale Delivers Answers While Keeping the Pond’s Magic Alive

Critic’s Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

4.5

Here we are. The last jump into the Landry pond.

The finale had a lot of heavy lifting to do, and it was done admirably. You sure can’t fault the writers for cleaning up as best as they could under the circumstances.

I’m pretty much done theorizing, so this will be a long, in-depth journey through the finale. One last trip together, exploring Port Haven’s founding families and what became of them. Let’s get started!

Elliot lives! There’s little surprise there. Even if it had mirrored what others in her family experienced with the loss of a great love, the finale was about turning the tide away from misery toward a brighter, united future.

We have no idea how Kat dragged Elliot as far as she did, but she sure as hell did. Alice and Jacob landed just in time to take Elliot back to the future, but this time, Kat didn’t return with him. Her work in 1926 wasn’t finished.

The woman she had grown to love, her great-great-grandmother Fern Landry, was in worse shape than Kat. The man she finally gave her heart to, the father of her child, didn’t make it out of the catacombs alive.

At the very least, Kat knew Elliot had a chance. Cliff didn’t.

Nineteen Twenty-Six was supposed to be the beginning of Fern’s life. She was going to kiss her love at the turn of midnight, telling her fiancé they would soon be a family. Instead, he perished. Thankfully, we know that he didn’t take her zest for life with him.

But Cliff’s death did fundamentally change Fern. There’s no doubt about that. She had a promising future that she put aside for the future of the Landry line.

Kat was upset with Grayson for still caring about the movie he wanted to make and for not spilling the beans about the explosion. In her mind, he had rewritten history. 

She knows what it’s like to be between a rock and a hard place. That’s exactly where Grayson was. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. But his heart?

It was still with Fern, and in the aftermath of this terrible event, he chose to set things right by giving Fern Lingermore, as Susanna’s will dictated.

Grayson’s sister, Cassandra, who was apparently ill, was stronger at Landry Farm than she was at Lingermore. That strength was the genesis of the painting of the White Witch at Lingermore. Cass believed in that old fairytale. 

He believed that restoring Lingermore to the Landrys and finishing the film would be their way forward. But Kat reminded him that the previous night’s events proved you can’t take anyone or anything for granted.

It says a lot about Fern and Grayson that it ultimately played out the way it did. Grayson admitted his love for Fern was real. He even offered to marry Fern and raise her child as his own.

But because of how Cliff lived, right there on the farm, Fern was connected to it and wouldn’t leave. She turned down Lingermore and told Grayson to burn the will. In return, he would help her take care of the farm, no strings attached. 

She accepted his offer, and it’s lovely to know how close the families were at that point, and likely through Colton’s young adult life. 

But Grayson, dreamer that he was, somehow imagined a time when Susanna’s will might be needed again because what we know of the future proves he didn’t burn it. We’ll never know why, but his reasoning was certainly altruistic and would be duplicated by the time the finale ended.

On Fern’s part, for the first time in her life, she wanted to jump. The pond took her back one day, but that was all she needed. All she wanted was for Cliff to know before he died that he was about to become a father.

Her heart is bigger than most. Others in the family line hoped to return things to how they were, but Fern just wanted to make sure Cliff knew how much he was loved. 

Cliff’s reaction to “knowing the future” was to immediately elope. Even then, Fern played by the rules. She could have been his wife before he died, but she didn’t stretch the rules. She barely bent them. 

She knew her future wouldn’t include being his wife. But she tried, one last time, to urge him to find her before the stroke of Midnight, and not after. If only…

Instead, down in that tunnel, his life on the line, Cliff knew his line would continue. He’d be so proud of who they became, too. 

It was hard to watch Kat asking Fern, “What if Elliot is gone,” just moments after she saw Fern say goodbye to the man she knew was already dead.

And Fern’s reaction was even better. “The pond showed me how wonderful it can be today,” she replied. “Perhaps it will show you the same kindness tomorrow.” 

Kat didn’t have to stay for Fern. Fern was no longer alone. She had a baby on the way. Cliff’s son. 

She chose that moment to discuss “the one,” which has not really bothered me much when it came to The Way Home‘s lingering questions that may not be answered. Still, her great-grandfather told the tale of a boy from their future who fell back in time to save the family.

“The One” was Jacob. The tale wasn’t so much about the future as about the past. It was like a game they played. Who would be the Landry leading to “The One”? When her brother died, the game ended. In a way, she always knew she would be a mother. 

How and when was the question. And how she nurtured the children, ensuring that “the one” would eventually be born to go back in time and save the family, was of the utmost importance.

In her grief, Fern told Kat she would refuse to allow her child to be “The One.” She couldn’t lose her chance at being a mama, and she surely wouldn’t want to lose her last tether to Cliff.

I was surprised that Kat didn’t tell Fern her future right then. It was the perfect time to assure her that her child would not be the one, and that her own family’s grief would lead to all of the wonderful events we have experienced together, from love to profound grief.

She did finally tell Fern that she had a daughter, though. I didn’t realize that she hadn’t discussed that with Fern up to that point.

I guess it would break the rules to tell her the future. But if she couldn’t assure Fern that her son wasn’t the one, at least Kat could assure her that the line continues for a very long time.

She may not have realized it at the time, but protecting Cliff’s name wasn’t the gift for him she thought it was. Times change, and it wouldn’t be long before the family would actually think less of a man who abandoned a pregnant woman than if he got her pregnant at all.

Fern robbed her family of the chance to know her love story. She wrapped the page of the book around her favorite key on the piano, knowing it would always be a little off. 

But that doesn’t say much for the musical talent of the Landry line. Nobody, until 2026, thought of having the thing tuned? We saw it played many times throughout The Way Home. How did nobody notice it was off?

I guess that’s a question for the ages.

But saying it’s will always be “a little off, a little broken, like me,” was heartbreaking. Was that the beginning of the kooky woman Fern came to be known as? It makes me wonder if maybe that’s why we haven’t met the missing generation. 

Surely, it would have been hard to be a bastard raised by a mom who seemed to have lost her rocker. 

Still, I really wish we had the time to explore that part of the story. That may even be where Alice and Kat jumped right before the credits rolled. 

When Fern and Kat said goodbye, Kat promised to return, to remain a presence in Fern’s life, no matter what. And she does. We’ll never know how deeply that relationship goes, but I sure hope there are many unexplored layers just waiting to be seen.

What we do know about Fern is that she never told Alice she knew who she was until The Way Home Season 4 Episode 10. She held hard and fast to whatever secrets she knew throughout her lifetime, come what may.

She was singing “See you in my dream,” a line echoed in the past when Jacob comes to terms with his own history and the pond’s significance.

In the present, Jacob was lamenting the pond, not realizing that without it, he wouldn’t exist. The Landry family would have died without his help. That’s a fact. History would have erased them, but thanks to a lost little boy who turned into a clever young man, the family continued.

He blamed the pond for losing Abby, but Del told him that with or without the pond, you have to fight for life and love. 

Yet he was determined. He planned on jumping back to retrieve Kat so she could be reunited with Elliot, and then he wanted to put an end to the pond.

Had he not put two and two together to suss out who KC was at that point? Surely, he understood that without the pond, KC might not exist, and that because of it, they know their family continues into the future.

Pain scrambles rational thought sometimes, and that was one of those times.

Alice ran into Tessa at the pond. Alice was returning, while Tessa was preparing to leave — forever. She was burying her suitcase. She wanted them to hate her, not worry about her. It had to look like she left town, not that she was kidnapped.

Why did she jump? Because she was in awe of the pond. She felt like others looked at her like a problem, and only Griffin looked at her like a person. 

Vic left town, Elliot was always crying, and she felt detached from life after the party, when Griffin left. She was crying by the pond when Griffin emerged. He was the tall, dark stranger who was foretold by Evie’s tarot reading. Griffin was merely Tessa’s way out, nothing more.

As many of you thought, Tessa left because she thought she would hurt Elliot. Alice explained the basics of the postpartum period, but it didn’t matter to Tessa. She was determined. Even when Alice told her that she wouldn’t be able to come back, she wanted to jump, as long as Elliot would be loved.

What was super strange about that conversation was that she didn’t seem to care if Vic loved his son. She didn’t think of how her departure would affect Vic, and how his behavior would affect Elliot.

And I wasn’t happy that Alice told her Elliot would be OK, that the Landrys would love him, because that kind of love isn’t the same as love from a parent. Elliot was damaged by what his mother and his father did. And now we know Alice played a part in it.

That might be my least favorite thing about Elliot’s story. 

I realize that Alice was trying to give Tessa peace because doing otherwise would change the future, but I disliked it nonetheless.

And how ironic that Tessa’s favorite photo of her and Elliot was taken by Griffin with Alice at her side. We all spent ages trying to imagine who was in that photo, wondering if that’s who she jumped with. But it was actually Alice.

Alice promised to always protect Elliot, but it was a promise she couldn’t keep. Elliot did suffer, more than once, and there was nothing she could do to protect him.

Alice made another stop along the way to 1984, where she found Griffin, concerned that he had left Tessa behind, unable to return. 

So it seems that Griffin was gone for quite a long time, returning only because Tessa got sick. He knew Tessa didn’t love him, but he wanted to play the hero. And the letter that Vic received with her wedding ring? Griffin wrote it to give Vic peace.

And that fifth season we aren’t getting? I have a feeling that we might have found out more about Griffin and what became of him

He said about the pond, “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” He was unable to return to Tessa when he needed the pond the most. He sure didn’t feel heroic.

But what if he kept jumping, eventually getting caught in a past from which he couldn’t return?

Elliot, meanwhile, was blaming himself for Tessa’s death. If he hadn’t told her about the party, she wouldn’t have died there. 

He blames himself for his mom’s death, as if she hadn’t jumped decades earlier, setting this all into motion.

Del reminded him that without that pond, if he hadn’t gone back, he wouldn’t have known her at all. Because of the pond, he spent time with the mother he never knew.

She also told him to stop beating himself up for the choices Tessa made. Everyone is responsible for their own choices, and Tessa’s led to her fate. If she hadn’t made them, then Elliot wouldn’t have gone back to find her, and so on. 

We like to think that we’re at the center of every universe, but everyone who walks beside us plays into our fate, too. We can’t accept accountability for someone else’s actions. We can only accept responsibility for our own.

Jacob, who hates the pond, went “home” and found Susanna and Thomas at Landry farm. It was 1820, and all Elijah had wanted for the past four years was to have one more meal with his son. 

Jacob needed to talk to his father about falling in love, how the shadow of Elijah’s past has followed Jacob far into the future. He was uncertain about his place in the world that he left. 

All through time, those who had never used the pond explained how you can’t regret the choices you made. Elijah’s conversation with Jacob mirrored Del’s with Elliot.

Just like Elijah walked into a fire to save a man’s life, Jacob made decisions that changed his fate, too. He jumped into the pond more than once. The pond is not Jacob’s prison; Jacob himself is his jailor.

Elijah said that if Abby is anything like his Rebecca, then Jacob has found his place. He just needed to man up. 

He also reminded Jacob, who was sure the farm’s fireplace within it still existed in 2026 because of Elijah, that it was actually Jacob who made the difference. Jacob was “The One” who saved the Landrys, and he would be the one who ensured the line continued with the Landry name intact.

Before he left, Jacob caught up with Susanna and Thomas again. Thomas laughed that Jacob was dating a Goodwin, and Susanna was proud that in his time, the warring founding fathers would live together in peace.

She asked after Kat, learning she’s happy. Thomas was sure Kat hadn’t stayed out of trouble. 

Jacob wondered what brought Thomas back, and while he didn’t share why he was at the Landry farm the moment Jacob returned, Jacob was sure both he and Kat would be able to return for a longer visit in the future. 

Elijah returned Jacob’s faith in the pond, and Jacob finally grasped what a gift it is that they can have relationships with their own ancestors.

Jacob thanked Susanna for what she had given him, and Thomas for his friendship and sage advice. The words were much like the dream Jacob had of Thomas earlier in The Way Home Season 4, and he shared that.

And that’s where The Way Home might have done the unthinkable. It opened the possibility that dreams could become reality when Thomas admitted he had dreams of Kat and himself sitting together on a porch under a blue house. Jacob was stunned.

“I never told you our house was blue,” Jacob said. “Well, as I said, the universe works in mysterious ways,” Thomas replied. Indeed. And cruel ways, too.

Could there be a fracture in time, a timeline in which Thomas and Kat are together? Don’t come for me, but I’ll hold onto that, even as Kat and Elliot prepare to get married. Not sorry!

Jacob checked the Almanac when he returned to the present. Elijah died on February 27, 1820. He gave his father peace in his final days, allowing him to rest.

It freed Jacob to make peace with Abby, too. He was finally finished being angry. Being there with Abby was a gift he would never take for granted again. 

Sweeping romance music-filled scene, and you realize that this is really Jacob’s story. He is The One, and his family exists because of him. Kat will write the stories that he was responsible for.

Jacob made peace with Lewis, and just like Fern before him, when he handed Susanna’s will to Grayson and told him to burn it, Jacob did the same with Lewis. He knew that Susanna was trying to unite the two families after years of discord.

Jacob wants to do the same. He wants to end the strife and restore the three founding families to what they were before it. 

Lewis remembered the different times. He lived them. It was he who pushed back against home, starting a new period of discontent between the families. 

Jacob understands the meaning of family and legacy and memories, and he had no intention of taking those things away from Lewis.

The final quarter of the finale generally moved to the present, attempting to tie up loose ends. Elliot was healed, Kat was home and reunited with him, and he was planning his proposal with Alice.

One last mystery remained: Who edited the reel? Elliot had the answer. He gave the film reel to Evelyn after hearing her wax poetic about the golden days of Coyle’s. He found it in his basement, along with books that probably belonged to Tessa.

It was Tessa who took the reel from the trash after Alice’s half-hearted attempt to dispose of it. 

Alice jumped one more time to visit with Evelyn before she died. She was watching the film and had just pieced it all together. One of her best friends was actually her best friend’s granddaughter. What a small world.

When her mother died, she found a treasure trove of documents, including Susanna’s will and the drawing of Colton with Jacob from the 1900s. Colton died before she had a chance to ask him how, and seven years later, she found a disposable camera with a photo of Alice from 2007. 

She didn’t understand how the world had shut her out. Alice, Colton, and Kat were all time travelers, and nobody looped her in. Magic existed, and everyone she loved knew it but her.

Alice’s explanation didn’t explain anything. Yes, Evie was magic, but they did keep the secret from her, the person who brought it into their lives. It hurt. It hurts me, and I’m not Evie!

Evelyn spliced the film, a skill she learned from Grayson. So fitting. Evelyn thought it was fitting that she was leaving the entirety of the Lingermore library to Kat, the White Witch herself. She discovered it when Kat Landry was announced as the new Editor in Chief of The Port Haven Herald.

Alice spoke briefly of Max, and through her tears, a more youthful Evie appeared before her, reminding her that she lived a full life, in part because of Alice urging her to embrace life and see the world.

Alice apologized for not being there when Evie needed her, but Evie assured her she was there when she needed her the most. They were friends, and that friendship stood the test of time.

And Alice’s life with Evie was hardly over. Her relationship with Max will be the difference.

Max returned to talk to Alice for a reason many of you already thought about. Alice’s song. He thought it had to be about him because he pushes her to be a better Alice. Alice didn’t recognize that she was following in the footsteps of her mother.

She thought that Elliot pushed Kat to be a better version of herself. Can you imagine if she had met Thomas? Alice would have been shocked at the difference.

But Alice did realize that the story was about the kind of relationship she wanted, and even if she hid it from herself, she saw that Max could provide it. He sure did.

And who better to remind her about it than the boy, now man, who did the same for her in the 1970s? Nick was the catalyst who pointed her in the direction her heart already wanted to go.

He may have returned to Port Haven after a life spent elsewhere, but he knew that he wanted to be there. He knew the difference between home and someplace else.

Alice is choosing herself for a while, but she’s going to do it with Max. You can do both if you have the right person walking beside you. That might be the most significant lesson The Way Home taught us. 

You don’t have to give up on the person you love because you have adventures of your own.

She’s going to New York City and getting the education she deserves. 

Still, bringing the story full circle wasn’t yet complete because Del never got to see her beloved Colton again. KC gave that to her. 

And just like that, Jefferson Brown, who is experiencing a surge on shows like You’re Killing Me and I Will Find You, stood before Del as her beloved husband.

At the same time, finally, Elliot proposed to Kat. He said there is never a perfect time to do it, but he still went out of his way to craft what he thought was the perfect proposal, nonetheless.

He wants to be for Kat what the Landrys were for him: a protector, a shelter, a lover. Their love is forever.

Alice played her song as they danced in the present, and as Del and Colton danced in the past.

Del worried about how she looked, but Colton just held her in his arms. Alice told Colton that Jacob would return.

He knew enough that when KC told him to go to the pond, he probably didn’t question it. He knew about the pond’s magic, and seeing a wife from the future come to him? Why would it surprise him?

Honestly, I wasn’t even entirely sure if this was a Colton from the past or some in-between place. Have the mysteries of the pond expanded in the finale? Is magic taking an unexpected turn?

It would be super awkward if Colton told Del to walk into her future with Sam, only for him and Del to be together in yet another future we don’t understand, be it heaven or just a different plane of existence. 

But the finale certainly opened the door to many possibilities.

Because Del sold the boat to Nick and stepped into a life with Sam, who joked about how much KC overshared about their future. 

The broad smile on his face proved they’d be happy for a long time, and her response showed her at her brightest in a very long time. The weight of the past has fallen away.

Elliot got his happy ending when he realized that telling his mom about the clock allowed her to send a message to him in the future that she didn’t die in the explosion, after all.

“To make an end is to make a beginning.” 

That line also works for Jacob, who finally made the connection between Kat’s wedding ring and KC, his child.

As he exchanged vows with Abby next to the pond, with Sam officiating, he and his time-traveling family saw everyone they loved standing there with them.

It’s not a gift Abby understands as far as we know it, but something tells me the days of keeping the pond a secret are long over.

The final song’s words, “This could be the end of everything,” perfectly suited the moment for the Landry family and for us. We’re hoping for a Hail Mary, another jump in the pond, just like Kat and Alice took before the credits rolled.

Every ending is just a new beginning. Could we be so lucky? Perhaps. Unlikely, but perhaps.

And if we were granted a new beginning, where could the story go from here?

We didn’t get answers to everything. You can read about some of the lingering questions that wouldn’t leave me alone before the finale, and the show’s creators opened just enough doors to open, should they get the opportunity to do so.

When Kat began writing about the family, she realized there was a disconnect in their history somewhere. Fern grew up with lore about “The One,” but by the time she was a child, it was lost. Why? Maybe that’s where she and Alice are heading now.

And maybe it’s just me, but I’d love to see Grayson’s film made. If that means that Alice and Max take the reins and do what Grayson couldn’t, that would be OK by me.

If I’m right, and the Landrys will no longer keep the secret of the pond to themselves — and it sure seems that KC’s presence proves that — so many stories open up. 

Jacob promised Thomas and Susanna another visit. Surely, he’d love to take Abby to the past. And what a joy it would be for Max to get to know his grandmother Evie at a time when Alice loved her the most.

Even Nick’s story isn’t over. His cryptic answer to Alice’s question of whether she would ever meet Claire made me think there really was a plan for Claire, and not just one from my imagination. 

Why will they meet “someday”? Why not today? Why not soon? We will probably never know. But we can imagine that and so much more.

Let’s not forget Griffin, who got the short end of the Landry stick. We don’t even know where he ended up. That’s a story I would love to explore.

The Landrys can’t change the past with their pond adventures, but they sure make an impression on it.

Every jump reveals something nobody knew, hidden by the promise not to reveal in the future what happens in the past.

And here we are. The last recap, the last time we’ll be discussing new adventures. The final answers to lingering questions. 

Were you satisfied with the finale? Would you walk beside the Landrys wherever they might go?

I think I already know the answer to that, and you know mine.