‘The Way Home’ Jumps Into the Deep End in Season 2 Premiere [Recap]

The Landry women can’t resist the lure of the pond. In The Way Home Season 2 premiere (which aired Jan. 21 on Hallmark Channel), Kat (Chyler Leigh) swears off time travel, turning instead to her journalistic skills to help her find out what happened to her missing brother Jacob. But when circumstances lure her back to the water’s edge, she makes a choice that will likely reverberate throughout the season. 

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Way Home Season 2 Episode 1.]

Kat swears off time travel in ‘The Way Home’ Season 2 premiere

Like The Way Home’s series premiere, “The Space Between” opens with an intriguingly cryptic scene. A barefoot young boy runs up to the edge of the pond. He grabs the hand of an older woman (Agi Gallus). 

“Remember what I said. It will always take you where you need to go,” she tells him. “But you need to stay here for now.”

Who is this boy (played by Lincoln Reigh McCaffrey)? Could it be a slightly older version of Jacob, lost somewhere in time? Or is someone else who also has a connection to the pond? If last season’s opening sequence with the white witch (eventually revealed to be Kat) is any guide, we’ll have to wait until the finale to get more answers. 

Back in the present, we pick up immediately after the end of the season 1 finale, with Kat telling Del (Andie MacDowell) that she knows what happened to Jacob. To recap, Kat suspects that the family dog, Finn, can time travel. She thinks Jacob followed Finn into the pond the night he disappeared, and then he couldn’t get back. But Del doesn’t want to hear Kat’s theory. She’s ready to put the painful past behind her and move forward.

Rather than explain to Del what she’s talking about, Kat flees to the pond. (Are we ever going to find out if Del knows about the pond’s unique properties?) She jumps in the water, but the portal doesn’t send her anywhere. Apparently, it’s decided her place (for now, at least) is in the present. Alice (Sadie Laflamme-Snow) follows her mom into the water. But it’s winter now, and the pond is nearly frozen over. Alice is briefly trapped under the ice before Kat pulls her to safety. The incident leaves her shaken, and she declares the pond – and time travel – off limits. 

“The pond is done with us,” Kat says. “We have to be done with it … we live here. Now.”

Kat discovers a clue that could lead her to Jacob  

After that opening, “The Space Between” jumps forward seven months. Elliot has been away from Port Haven for more than half a year. He abruptly fled town after breaking up with Kat at the end of season 1. Kat’s working out her feelings through a new jogging routine, while also focusing her energy on running the Port Haven Herald. Those activities also keep her mind off the fact that Alice will soon be leaving town to spend the summer with her dad in Minneapolis. 

Kat gets a call informing her that Evelyn Goodwin has died. Evelyn was a member of one of Port Haven’s oldest families. (The Landrys were also among the town’s founders.) Evelyn has left a mountain of family archives to the local newspaper, and Kat and Del head out to her estate to look things over. (There are big hints that the house also carries some bad memories for Kat.)

Having given up on time travel, Kat is spending her free time digging into records in the hopes of finding traces of Jacob’s existence. But she keeps hitting dead ends. Will she find what she needs in Evelyn’s papers? Perhaps. While looking through the room, Kat finds a painting that looks just like her. It’s dated 1814 and is titled “My Katherine.” (Interestingly, “My Katherine” is what Colton said to Kat as she watched him die last season – is there a connection there?)

Elliot returns

Kat’s out for another jog when she runs into Elliot (Evan Williams). He’s back from his adventures, and despite their abbreviated romance (and some initial awkwardness), there are still serious vibes between him and Kat. At Alice’s goodbye party, he and Kat retreat to the clubhouse. She tells him she’s given up on time travel. (Elliot ended things with Kat because of her obsession with changing the past, which he doesn’t believe is possible.) Then, they kiss. Both quickly pull away, but it looks like they haven’t closed the door on their relationship. 

Alice is far less enthusiastic about Elliot’s return. She doesn’t know about him and her mom (though Kat eventually fesses up), but she hasn’t forgiven him for abandoning them. Alice is also having second thoughts about leaving Port Haven for the summer. She keeps thinking about her trips to the past. During a visit to the pond, it spits out a bracelet she threw in the water last year. What could that mean?

Meanwhile, Del opens up to Kat about wanting to work on their relationship. Once again, she expresses a desire to let go of a past she can’t change. There’s also a flashback to young Elliot (David Webster) bonding with Colton (Jefferson Brown). Elliot hears a twig snap, and we see someone watching from a distance. Could it be a visitor from the future? And if that’s the case, is it Kat, Alice, or perhaps another time traveler we haven’t met yet? 

Del might lose the farm; Kat is shot 

Kat shows Alice a photo of the painting she found. She’s convinced that it means she travels again to the past. Only this time, instead of going back to the 1990s, she goes back to the 19th century. Alice convinces her mom to make one more jump. As they walk to the pond, Elliot sees them. He knows where they’re headed, which means that Kat lied to him about giving up time travel. That prompts him to delete the text he’s about to send about how he shouldn’t have stopped kissing her. 

As Kat and Alice prepare to head back in time, Del receives a visitor. The man who’s been leasing some of the Landry family’s acreage is selling his farm. The buyer doesn’t want to take over his lease on Del’s land. Del’s in a tricky position financially, but she’s not going to sell. “These fields have been in this family for generations,” she says.

Back at the pond, Kat and Alice prepare to jump. “Don’t worry, mom. It will take us where we need to go,” Alice says. But it won’t take them where they expect. After they leap into the water, they’re separated. Alice resurfaces in the late 1990s, face-to-face with a stunned young Elliot. But Kat is somewhere else entirely. Moments after she climbs out of the water, a shot rings out and hits Kat. She falls back into the pond, unconscious. Will she be OK? And where in time is she – and will she be able to make it back home? 

New episodes of The Way Home Season 2 airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on Hallmark Channel. Episodes also stream the next day on Hallmark Movies Now. 

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