Time travel is emotional, disappointing, complex, and rewarding—sometimes all in the same breath—as we’ve seen through everyone’s various travels across The Way Home Season 4.
The Way Home Season 4 Episode 8, titled “Tainted Love,” was definitely one of the more forthcoming episodes when it comes to providing answers and wrapping up storylines, which makes sense considering that the end is near, whether we want to accept that reality or not.
You can feel the series finale looming over us, as we race against time (the few 50-minute episodes we have left) to pack in everything that will hopefully leave us, the audience, feeling like we got a proper conclusion. (I’m still crossing my fingers that Netflix will come to save the show, though! Many of you said it’s run its course, but I think there’s plenty of story left to tell—plenty they prepped for but couldn’t get to.)
As is the nature of this show, for every answer provided, there are plenty more questions on the horizon, which isn’t changing even as the finale draws near.
The episode picked up by addressing Elliot’s decision to stay behind in 1925 to learn more about his mother, thinking it was what the pond wanted of him. Considering he put in a time-off request at work before his travels to the ’20s, I figured this was a premeditated decision, but the show made it seem like he made it in the heat of the moment when he realized he might not get the answers about his family that he’s been searching for if he goes back to the present. And when Kat was gone, there was no going back—he had to live with the consequences of his actions, which meant creating a life for himself in the ’20s, at least temporarily, until the pond let her come back and bring him home again.
And honestly, there’s something so freeing and beautiful about that.
Kat and Alice’s travels back in time are always brief—they never stick around too long, not enough to actually live there, but Elliot was able to craft a little life for himself in an era a hundred years before his time. He bonded with the people, spent time with them, and worked with them; he became one of them.
We also see why his mother chose to make this timeline permanent, despite it not being her own, after being trapped here for longer than she was ever around in the ’70s. This is all she’s really ever known—the Tessa of the past is a distant memory.
Elliot may not have bonded with his mother the way he hoped, as Tessa was a much tougher cookie to crack, but he was able to connect with her enough to get some questions answered. She’d been through things—she was a survivor—without much of a maternal instinct, though she respected that Elliot wanted to help out the operation (even though he botched it in the first place).
She revealed that she jumped with Griffin Landry, and they made a life for themselves in 1882; however, when she fell ill, he jumped back to get her medication (though we know the pond doesn’t allow you to bring things with you). He never came back, so she sought out help from the Landry family, where she has stayed ever since. She may be an Augustine, but like Elliott, she’s an honorary Landry, so they have that in common. It was also sweet to see the connection between him singing Time After Time (who knew he had those pipes!) and his mother revealing she would sing it to him when he was a baby.
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As for what happened to Griffin, well, that’s unclear. Elliot brought up receiving the note and her wedding ring, detailing her illness and death, which she confirmed she never sent. As Elliot wonders who did, it’s clear Tessa isn’t telling him the whole truth about Griffin.
I think a lot of the outstanding mysteries have one common denominator—a Landry, either Colton or Griffin, or both. We don’t know much about Griffin, yet he’s mentioned quite a lot. And Colton continues to loom over the show years after his death.
In the present-day, Kat and Alice notice that someone erased them from the reel at Coyle’s that Monica plays at the coffeehouse, and Alice’s mind immediately goes to Evelyn. However, a quick (and heartbreaking) trip to the ’80s reveals that Evelyn wasn’t the one who edited the reels, which means she has no idea about the time travel, as Alice assumed. We also begin to see the demise of Evelyn’s relationship with Colton and Del, who is now pregnant with Kat, as she becomes more of a recluse like the Lady of Shallot.
But if Evelyn didn’t edit the videos… who did?
Again, my brain goes to one of the Landry boys.
They both knew about time travel. Griffin knew Alice was a time traveler the moment he met her, while we know Colton lied about not using the pond, as we saw him visiting a previous timeline.
There’s definitely something about the brothers that hasn’t been revealed and connected to the main storyline.
Questions Remain About the Landry Bros, Sam and KC
The same goes for Sam, who may be someone KC connects with in the future, but there’s got to be more to the story, as he didn’t seem too incredibly taken aback by all the pond stuff when they told him about it.
In fact, when he told Del that he knew of the pond’s time-traveling properties, suggesting that she go back to talk to Colton about how her children are happy now, he seemed very comfortable with the idea of time travel overall.
He obviously can’t be Griffin, but he could be a descendant of someone that they were once close to. I’ve seen a theory floating around that he might be a Coyle, who may have found Thomas Coyle’s journal where Port Haven and the Landry’s were mentioned, thus his decision to leave the big city (and we know Thomas settled down in NYC and had a big family) to move right next door.
I love the idea of Del time-traveling once more. It’s nice to see how understanding Sam is about everything when it comes to the hold Colton has on Del’s heart, plus, it would be nice to see Del get some closure by seeing Colton from the past one last time.
I don’t know if we’ll find out anything more about KC, or how far in the future they are from, but I do think they are either Abigail and Jacob’s child or their grandchild. There’s definitely a connection there, as KC was integral in getting them to look past the family feud between the Goodwins and the Landrys.
While Del may not be a fan of Abigail, Jacob is smitten, and there’s something about them that just feels so right. And oddly, Abigail’s energy kind of reminds me of a young Del, who left her life to live on the farm for the man she loved.
Plus, Abigail helped Jacob find his purpose in the present and future, so he’s no longer living in the past, which primes the series well for a dive into the future for everyone.
The Police Raid of the 1920s
A lot happens in the 1920s — and honestly, props to them for packing so much into an episode — as everyone gears up for a huge job to appease Capone (this is probably the funniest storyline to me). Moments before, Grayson Goodwin clocks that Cliff Kane isn’t going to accept some swanky award, as he lied about the hotel he’s staying at. The Regis has been closed for three years, which means it’s a cover, and he’s likely known about the job this whole time. Fern and Kat, who finally got the pond to reunite her with Elliot, book it to warn everyone, but they’re too late. An undercover cop blows the whole operation, and when Cliff arrives, he’s disappointed to see that everyone he’s grown close to (and developed feelings for) was involved. He was wrong about Grayson the whole time. Fern begs him to let her family go, so he obliges, which proves his love for Fern, but the next day, he explains that he’s leaving town, which forces Fern to finally confess her feelings for him.
It’s dramatic, just like you’d expect from a 1920s romantic film. As we all expected, Fern never loved Grayson, not fully. Her heart was always with Cliff, the one man she could be herself around.
Of course, in the future, Cliff isn’t around, and no one seems to know who Colton’s real grandfather is, meaning something happens to him/between them. Does he get in trouble for turning a blind eye to the bootlegging?
I initially feared that he was one of the five who didn’t make it out of the mines, but back in the present, as Kat and Elliot look for answers about Tessa and Elliot’s return to 1926 on NYE, they realize that they have the “key” to unlocking the note Fern left with Cliff, which was a cypher. She used her columns to communicate with the bootlegging ring, which allows them to solve the puzzle, which reveals that the NYE job was botched and that the person who doesn’t survive is actually Tessa.
Elliot expresses, “I think I just invited my mother to her own death,” as he told her to meet him on NYE since he knew he’d make it back and get arrested as the Big Fish, where it seems he sacrifices himself again to protect her.
If it’s true, hopefully, Tessa gives us all the answers we’ve all been seeking before her death.
And seeing how much was preserved from the past at The Harold, and how integral Fern’s columns were to everything, I’d hope that Kat would rethink shutting the paper down.
Many Questions That Need to Be Answered
In addition to all the ones mentioned before—how the Landry bros connect to everything, who Sam really is, and KC’s identity and future—one outstanding mystery includes the clock at Elliot’s, which Tessa expressed she had no idea about.
I don’t really have a theory on it, but I did see this one on Reddit that stuck with me: Elliot left the clock for himself to make sure he goes back. Everything that’s meant to happen will, but it would explain why he has no memory of it yet—he hasn’t done it yet, but it tracks with his building skills and the T.S. Elliot quote, which his mother always loved. A riddle for himself, guiding him to a moment he’s supposed to see or remember, and possibly, a way to travel to the future. I don’t think that including a scene from a future timeline of the Landry ladies was an accident; I think it was a clue that time traveling is possible both to the past and the future, just possibly through a different medium.
As for the final two episodes, they will likely spend time tackling the incident in the mines and taking us to the future, but there’s also a handful that I need addressed, even if briefly.
Whose wedding are they attending in that premiere scene? Is it Elliot and Kat’s? It didn’t feel like it.
Did Grayson Goodwin have any knowledge of the pond (I can’t shake the mention of his mural with the pond and the White Witch, along with his sister’s death)? And who did Del see—Colton or someone else time traveling—before she fell off the horse? And better yet, where did the horse come from?!
It would also be nice to see what happens to Alice, as things between her future, particularly Max and Noah, have been largely put on the back burner since she deferred.
What did you think of the episode? Share your thoughts, theories, and hopes for the final episodes in the comments!