Inside Jacob and Del’s reunion

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,’ the Season 3 premiere of Hallmark’s ‘The way home”, which is streaming on Hallmark+.

“The Way Home” is back on the Hallmark Channel, although it took a circuitous route to get here. As for the show itself, the big news from the season 3 premiere is that Jacob (Spencer MacPherson) is back in Port Haven in the current timeline and has been reunited with his birth mother, Del (Andie MacDowell). Yes, the new season kicked off with the long-awaited reunion fans have been waiting for ever since they found out Jacob fell into the pond at the end of season 1 — and it didn’t disappoint. There were tears and hugs everywhere as the Landrys finally welcomed Jacob home.

However, Jacob’s return also meant explaining time travel to Del and creating a story to tell the rest of the world where Jacob had been for the past twenty years. They told news crews that Jacob fell off the cliff near the fall carnival the night he disappeared and was rescued by an off-the-grid couple. His amnesia from the fall prevented him from telling them where he really came from, and the lack of internet left young Jacob none the wiser that his family was urgently looking for him in Port Haven. Kat (Chyler Leigh) told reporters that Jacob’s parents were only on their deathbeds where they came from, and he could go home.

There was a nine-month time jump from the immediate sequels to the story, but the drama is only just beginning. Del receives threatening letters accusing her of lying. Viewers may assume that the letters refer to Jacob’s return, but on this show you never really know. The school year is about to start and Alice (Sadie Laflemme Snow) is determined to make the most of her senior year.

However, the pond beckons. Although Jacob has returned and there is no apparent reason for Alice or Kat to jump in the water again, the family listens to an old Colton demo from the 1970s and Kat realizes that Alice is singing on the record. The realization comes when Alice is mysteriously pushed into the water, presumably to return to the era when Colton and Del first fell in love.

Variety caught up with ‘The Way Home’ creators and showrunners – and mother-daughter team – Heather Conkie and Alex Clarke to talk about that emotional reunion, season 3 in general and exploring a new timeline. And yes, we also asked about the mysterious baby drop-off that opens the season.

Jacob’s return is something fans have been looking forward to for two seasons. What was it like filming and putting that scene together?

Heather Conkie: It’s interesting, because everyone on set was waiting for that moment as long as the fans are now. It was so cathartic and incredible – and even more cathartic and incredible to go back to that footage in the editing room. We were so overwhelmed it was hard to get through. We waited two seasons to finally see it, and it’s so beautifully shot. And the performances are so incredible.

Alex Clarke: It was great to be on set that day because everyone, even from the office, came to see at least the wide shot of the reunion to see the first part of it. When we heard about Andie and Spencer, things naturally quieted down a bit. It was very enlightening for all of us. Everyone on the crew is so invested in the scripts. To see this moment come to fruition and see everyone there – we were all hugging and we were all crying.

Conkie: I love giving them this fairytale moment at the climax of our season, and what’s so exciting is seeing what happens after the happily ever after for the rest of the season. We say in season 2 that the idea of ​​happily ever after doesn’t really exist. Things happen after happily ever after. What are those things? It’s not all happy, so give them a happy moment, but you also give a little pain.

Del accepts time travel and the pond early on, but what will her relationship be like once the shock of having Jacob back wears off?

Conkie: Like any mother, you’re so excited at first that you don’t really care how it happened. Then you start thinking back, and it really helped her family get through it from the beginning. It’s more than love-hate. There’s a lot of hate for it happening at all. The big questions continue to arise: Why did it endanger my daughter and my granddaughter? This thing is not good. It’s not a gift. Maybe it’s a gift for Kat and Alice; every now and then they come home and they’re excited by what they’ve seen and it’s helped them heal, and all that kind of stuff. For Del, it is very difficult to accept, and even more difficult at first to understand and absorb. It is very difficult to accept and forgive.

Clarke: There’s a key line in her first interaction with Kat after she’s told the truth, where she says a mother should have known. I think “I Should Have Known” is a theme for her all season long, as Alice goes back to another part of her life and looks at it from Alice’s perspective versus a Del perspective, and how that affects Del as the things start. to get very personal now that she knows the secret.

They come up with a story to explain how Jacob is back, but it’s not like they have a white board in your writers’ room to explain everything. Will it come back to haunt them that there aren’t many details about Jacob’s disappearance?

Clarke: That’s the beauty of the letters Del received in episode 1. There’s already a whole drawer, after nine months. We will certainly pull that string. Yeah, to your point, we were in the writers’ room and we were imagining that path. They sit down with Kat and Elliot and say, “What’s the story?” Kat looks at it from a very journalistic perspective and says, “Here’s what we could say that won’t raise too many questions.” I don’t think they thought it through at all.

They base this on the fact that the best lie is closest to the truth. They told the world that he lived in a very primitive community that didn’t have any access to the internet, sort of Amish style. That’s basically where he was. He had forgotten because of the trauma of falling off the cliff. It wasn’t until one of his parents was on their deathbed that they told him the truth, which is kind of the truth. In season 2, Elijah said that it wasn’t until his wife was on her deathbed that she told him she saw Jacob come out of the pond and that he was from another world. They try to hold on to the things they know, but try to twist it for the modern age. We will have to wait and see whether they will be successful in this.

Speaking of mysteries, this season actually starts with a baby being abandoned at the pond. Is this a season-long mystery or will it expand further into the series?

Clarke: You’ll know more about the baby by the end of this season.

Conkie: We can confidently say that it is a kind of driver, but we often put something at the beginning that allows us to drive into the next season. We are difficult in that area.

Even though we don’t see the new timeline in the premiere, we do know we’re going back to the ’70s because of Alice’s voice on Colton’s demo. What can you say about that timeline and what we’ll find there?

Clarke: In the 19th century you were immediately entranced by the costumes and sets. With ’70s fashion on the rise, it’s more challenging to feel instantly transported. We really leaned into the costumes. All the clothes our protagonists wear are vintage or Patricia Baker, our costume designer, made them herself. We didn’t go to the shops to buy replicas of stuff from the ’70s. We leaned against the cars. We leaned into the music.

Speaking of music, Alice returns from Minneapolis during the premiere and says she’s going to study PR, and that music is just a hobby. Obviously the cliffhanger shows that she’s not quite done with music yet, so how will that relationship develop over the course of the season?

Clarke: We love the idea of ​​spending the summer with her dad, Brady, and Brady coming back feeling like, “I have a five-year plan.” I’m really going to concentrate on school.” We realized that she’s going into her senior year of high school this year, and that’s a bit of a wake-up call. She’s a character who has spent so much time in the past, but what does her present look like? Even scarier: what does her future look like? It’s been really fun to talk about that this season and the idea of ​​her going into Port Haven and saying, ‘I have to be practical. Music is a hobby and I want to do PR. I have to get good grades.” I think the 70s are a reminder to her that she is still young. She can still have fun and be carefree. The time for seriousness may not yet be here. It’s another example of her falling down the rabbit hole. I think the ’70s are going to be a really beautiful, inspiring place for her this season.

Conkie: She learns not to let go of dreams and to hold on to new ones. I think those lessons are learned while she’s there with teenage Colton, a teenage Del, and a teenage Evelyn.

The ’70s are very important to Del and Colton’s relationship, but how important are they to the city of Port Haven?

Clarke: It’s more about the world that revolves around Colton and his upbringing. We definitely have 70s stuff that takes place in that era peppered throughout. But really the 70s story was about our characters and their world.

Conkie: And the development of a true love story between Del and Colton, and looking at it from an outsider’s perspective.

Clarke: That’s what’s so interesting about Alice’s, and to some extent Kat’s, presence in the ’70s. Suddenly Del’s precious memories aren’t just hers, and what does that do? What does that mean? It’s also so interesting to see Evelyn through all of this, and how Alice’s friendship with Evelyn develops, because we know that Evelyn is the one who is being rejected. Alice sees this love story between Del and Colton from a completely different perspective.

This interview has been edited and condensed.