‘The Method Dwelling’ EPs on White Witch’s Identification, Kat & Elliot, and Extra Season 1 Finale Revelations

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Way Home Season 1 finale “Not All Who Wander Are Lost.”]

After that ending, let’s simply say this: It’s a great factor The Way Home is coming back for a second season.

The Season 1 finale noticed Kat (Chyler Leigh) attend her dad’s funeral then, within the closing moments within the current, understand her youthful brother Jacob time-traveled through the pond! And simply after her mother Del (Andie MacDowell) heard her say she knew what occurred to him, the finale took us again to that 1814 scene that opened the sequence, and we discovered it was Kat who’d been working by way of the woods in white. “I’ll be again, Jacob, I promise,” she stated earlier than leaping within the pond.

Govt producers Heather Conkie, Alexandra Clarke, and Marly Reed break down the finale and tease what’s forward.

I’m assuming the plan was all the time to bookend the season with that 1814 scene.

Alexandra Clarke: Sure, completely.

Did you all the time know that was going to be Kat? Did you think about anybody else?

Marly Reed: No, it was all the time Kat.

We all know that Kat’s going again to 1814, and we’ll presumably see what results in that second in Season 2, however because it’s stated that the pond sends folks the place they should go, it’s not like she must leap round in time, proper? As a result of the pond would ship her there.

Clarke: Once we first got here up with this idea — Marly was the one which introduced this unbelievable thought to the desk — and as we had been beginning to develop out this primary season, the very first thing we needed to do was create these guidelines for the pond. The minute you don’t have that construction, you don’t have that order, you lose your viewers with a present like this as a result of time journey has to have guidelines to be able to even be considerably plausible. And so sure, going into Season 2, we’re leaning closely into these guidelines. We’re not going to interrupt them. So the pond does solely take you the place you must go.

It’s not essentially ever probably the most easy of journeys, however the pond has its causes, is normally the way in which we kind of clarify that. It supplies you with a journey. It doesn’t offer you the reply straight away, however for those who really take a look at the journeys that our characters do take, you do understand that every a type of journeys knowledgeable them ultimately concerning the present standing of the current, concerning the different characters inside their world. There was all the time a motive for taking them to these moments even when within the second it doesn’t actually make sense to the character. Each go to had a motive.

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However might there be legs to the journey, like to at least one time to a different time, then again to the current?

Heather Conkie: I believe it’s sufficient to say that we’re not all the time going to stay with one time and the current.

Clarke: The opposite huge factor is there’s all the time going to be that peeling of an onion of a thriller. Nothing is easy. We’re a present [with] twists and turns and sudden surprises and shocks. That’s going to stay constant by way of Season 2, for certain.

How a lot of what occurred to Jacob and Colton (Jefferson Brown) do you know from the start? All the story or simply the place you wished to finish up in Season 1?

Conkie: We needed to obtain the signposts right through of the place we knew we needed to be to get to the place we wished to finish up, after which a number of the components of the story simply fell aside. Peeling the onion made us understand on the writing stage that we had to return and amend sure issues within the earlier episodes to make that work actually, rather well. However for probably the most half, we actually did have our tent poles, and we additionally had these intermediate targets, particularly for the arcs of the characters.

Clarke: We all the time knew the midpoint carnival episode can be precisely the place it was. That’s when issues would actually flip for the primary time for our viewers and the temper would shift. Up till then it was a little bit of a nostalgic romp, which is incredible and what we wished to point out. Episode 6 is the place that it hits a little bit of a actuality verify and we’re coping with an eight-year-old going lacking, and from then on the previous doesn’t look as golden and glory days because it used to. We knew that by the top we might be the place we had been, as a lot as possibly the viewers hates us for it.

Conkie: What we are saying within the room is that the present started with time touring being a present, and it went right through Episode 6 and on to develop into a curse. Hopefully we reverse that in Season 2.

I saved watching Del all season for indicators that she would possibly know what’s happening, should suspect, or acknowledge Alice, then we received that scene with the 2 of them on the pond. I’m nonetheless on the fence about that. So what are you able to say?

Clarke: We will say that Del has lots of secrets and techniques of her personal. It’s been actually enjoyable and nice to see all of the theories. … Which means we’ve performed our job as a result of we’re letting folks theorize and possibly we’re answering one factor, however that reply very equally to actual life opens up a heck of much more questions. That’s the MO of this present.

Reed: With each Del and Colton, there’s much more story to inform there. And we do have a plan for future seasons to inform extra of each of their tales.

However it does look like Kat and Alice (Sadie Laflamme-Snow) are going to have to inform Del every part, after that closing scene within the current. What are you able to say about that dialog to return and what the household dynamics can be like? There must be a shift after every part that’s occurred.

Clarke: I believe forward of that second is an equally vital one on the desk the place Del does have a second of claiming, “You’ve opened up my world, you’ve allowed me to like once more.” She did go to the grief help group and has realized possibly that’s not the highway she desires to take herself. She’s a really non-public particular person, however the truth that she’s opening herself up even to her household is such a large step by the top of first season. We’ve seen it coming along with her relationship with Alice, however now she’s prepared to open herself as much as a relationship with Kat. I believe that scene is essential for Del. What’s going to launch her right into a second season is that this allowance of letting folks in and acknowledging damage and acknowledging grief and acknowledging errors. And sure, then now we have this revelatory assertion from Kat that’s going to ship us into our second season. However it doesn’t matter what Del will get after that, in the beginning of subsequent season, what we have to deal with is the place she’s at from a private standpoint, when this data or not comes, if that make sense.

Conkie: Clear as mud.

We now have to speak about Kat and Elliot (Evan Williams) as a result of nice first kiss. What did you wish to do with that relationship all through the season to guide as much as that, then Elliot’s choice within the finale to start out a brand new chapter?

Conkie: Yeah, it was a sluggish burn for certain.

Reed: We wished a sluggish burn, however not such a sluggish burn that it was like three seasons in earlier than [the kiss].

Clarke: That may simply be merciless.

Conkie: Certainly one of my favourite moments is once they’re on their stroll by the waterfront in episode 7 when he says, “I’ve waited so lengthy to kiss you and once I do…”

Clarke: Takes off the glasses and every part!

Conkie: Evan is so fantastic at these moments that you just completely count on one thing after which he turns it on a dime and performs it completely.

Clarke: Actually, we had been all so in awe of that kiss. It turned out even higher than all of us thought it will. Marly was on set that day and to get the solar setting…

Reed: Essentially the most demanding day of my life!

Clarke: Chyler and Evan are such unbelievable actors they usually did actually develop into actually good buddies throughout taking pictures. I believe everybody was ready for that second and simply prepared for it, and it was so wonderful when it really went off and not using a hitch as a result of so few issues really do work out while you’re filming issues. That one simply felt very destined and kismet-y that it really did occur and was good. It was solely, what, two takes, was that proper?

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Reed: Two takes was all we had time for earlier than we misplaced the sunshine. I believe we all the time wished that second to be Kat initiating it due to the truth that Elliot has beloved her for thus lengthy. I believe it was vital that once they lastly did get collectively, it was Kat chasing him, it was Kat that made that step after Elliot loving her his complete life.

Clarke: Additionally it says rather a lot about Elliot. [He] might be, for those who really give it some thought, one of many extra fascinating characters on this present as a result of he doesn’t time journey, however he is aware of about time journey and it has affected him very personally from the yr ‘99 by way of to the yr 2023. He’s the gatekeeper and he’s additionally the knower of all secrets and techniques.

And chatting with his alternative that he makes on the finish of Episode 10, he’s been frozen in time somewhat bit by these very offhanded, off the cuff feedback that Alice makes in Episode 2 of, “Nicely, no, you’re simply my science instructor, dude, you’re not my dad.” After which later, “No, my mother and my dad are getting divorced.” He has been instructed his future in these moments and he’s trapped in consequence till it’s performed, and that’s the place he’s coming from in that second that’s so heartbreaking.

We initially wished the viewers to see that his journey was a journey to Kat — he’s waited all these years to lastly have his likelihood — however actually in the long run, if he really thinks about it, it’s a journey to freedom. It’s a journey to being again within the driver’s seat of his personal life, making decisions that haven’t been predicted to him at a younger age. He has to dwell past that and whether or not that takes him again to Kat or not is as much as him and her. However there’s a freedom there that he hasn’t had since he was 16 years previous.

So who’s Elliot with that freedom?

Clarke: That’s a great query. We’ll discover out. He’s all the time going to be Elliot and I believe he’s a really introspective, considerate particular person. Possibly he thinks [freedom] is likely to be a technique and possibly it isn’t, or vice versa. Or possibly he’s going to adore it. Clearly we’ll go there in Season 2. However it’s been enjoyable to speak about within the writers’ room what that freedom appears like for Elliot.

Reed: He’s going to attempt some issues and see in the event that they work out for him.

The Method Dwelling, Season 2, TBA, Hallmark Channel