We’ve made it to the end of The Way Home season 4 and the series. I’m not ready to say goodbye, but I must. Thankfully, Hallmark signed off on a super-sized finale sendoff, slotting the show at a 94-minute time slot. Hopefully by the end, we’ll have all our loose ends tied up in a nice bow.
Although fans and The Way Home team wanted the show to get picked up by Netflix, it just wasn’t in the cards. So, instead, the writers put all their ideas for two seasons into one. Now looking back at season four, it makes sense why there were so many storylines going on at once. Somehow they all connected. Through each era in each episode, the Landrys connected the storylines through time. It has been beautiful. I can’t wait to see what the finale brings us.
The finale was more than I could have ever hoped for. It was emotionally heart-wrenching in all the best ways through every era of Port Haven history. The cast and crew really outdid themselves in putting this closing chapter together. Somehow, almost every loose end was tied up, but there were a few left open-ended for debate: Who was Claire? Where does Tessa end up? Who are Colton's parents? I'm not mad that those questions (and maybe some more) were never explored because it fits the beauty of the Port Haven world. Our characters always kept secrets, so some will remain with them.
Honestly, I could have watched two more hours with how much I love this story. Alas, the show has ended, and we said goodbye. Enjoy this finale recap and all the memories the Landrys shared with us. Bring tissues because this finale had me crying for all 94 minutes.
Fern faces her future
Kat manages to get Elliot to the pond with Jacob and Alice’s help. Jacob takes Elliot into his arms and jumps into the pond, hoping to save him in time. Alice jumps with Kat, but Kat ends up staying in the 1920s to tend to Fern. Kat finds a dazed Fern at the cove as one of the Auggie boys (the tall one) pulls things out of the tunnel. Once they are back at the house, he’s the one who delivers the devastating news to Kat and Fern. Coop is missing, and Cliff is dead. This news comes after Fern tells Kat she’s pregnant and didn’t have a chance to tell Cliff. She regrets waiting and him not finding her at midnight since he was in the tunnels.
Kat visits Grayson Goodwin at the newspaper office when she goes to get clothes for Fern. She walks in on him finishing up Fern’s article and learns more pieces of history. He’s the one who wrote the clues in the article that says Tessa is gone. He hides the bad parts and shares the good. In turn, he shares that Lingermore’s rightful owners are the Landrys due to Susannah Augustine leaving it to them instead of the Goodwins.
Although Kat learns the truth about how much Cass (his sister) and he loved the pond, she still can’t believe how history plays out. Yet, it is all worth it when she walks in on Fern declining the offer to have Lingermore. She wants to stay at the farm where she feels Cliff’s spirit the most. The Landrys are meant to be on the farm. Grayson’s love for Fern was/is real, and he continues to show that by offering to help Fern with the farm. He may not be her lover, but he is a dear friend now.
Fern has some unfinished business with the past. She tells Kat that for the first time in her life, she wants to jump and asks her to come with her. It doesn’t change their outcome, but it does allow Fern to tell Cliff he’s going to be a dad. So, in those tunnels, in his final moments, he’ll have known of his future. It is beautiful to witness his joy at finding out about the baby. But it is heartbreaking knowing that he still had a job to do that night and didn’t make it out.
After the return, Fern comforts Kat about Elliot’s fate after jumping into the pond as she stayed behind to help Fern. "Misery loves company," as Fern says as she pours Kat something to drink and talks about how she’ll be okay. Kat finally tells Fern that she’s a momma, too. This conversation carries to the next time an older Fern talks to Alice at the pond. A full-circle moment. After all the jumps, those two family moments were so needed. Fern really held the family together even through her own grief.
Fern and Cliff’s ending allows Kat to witness how their love story was hidden. After Fern tells Cliff they’ll go to the courthouse tomorrow (New Year’s), she goes back to the present and hides his love letter. She puts it under her favorite piano piece so it’ll be a little broken like her. Only she will know their love story until Kat uncovers it in her time and travels back to witness it.
After all they’ve been through, Fern walks Kat to the pond. They hope it will let her travel to Elliot this time. Fern tells her she will be brave here and Kat must be brave there. No matter what is waiting for her, she can be brave for what’s ahead. “The only way out is through," and they must endure it. For now, Fern will wait for Kat to return to update her. Meeting Alice will be something for them to look forward to with all the pain ahead for them.
Elliot’s fate revealed
Sam comes over pleading with Del to forgive him. She finally stops him, letting him know she forgave him. Their moment is cut short when Alice and Jacob shout for help. Sam tells Del to call 911 and runs to help Elliot. Del returns to the house to let Alice and Jacon know that Elliot pulled through the emergency surgery and is going to be okay. Jacob can’t get over how Kat is stuck in the past with no knowledge of how Elliot is doing. He continues to be mad as Del comes to tell him he’s going to the hospital. He’s frustrated that the pond took so much for them. It is hard for him to be grateful for the pond; he just wants his sister back and for this all to end.
Del settles Elliot at home as he comes to terms with his mom being gone. He’s mad at himself for not listening to Kat’s warning. He’s wondering why the pond let him get to know his mom. Del reminds him that everything happened because of the choices she made. He misses her because she was his mom even if they didn’t have enough time together.
As Elliot turns the clock (the one hidden in the wall) to 11:11, Kat walks through the door. After everything, she fell back into his arms as if no time had passed. Following their moment, Kat and Elliot are back at the house with Alice and Del. Nick is coming back to convince Del to sell him Colton’s boat. In the meantime, Kat reminds them they still need to find out who doctored the film reel from 1979’s NYE party.
The film reel mystery solved
Elliot happens to have a missing piece of the film reel’s mystery. Back in his house-sitting days, Evelyn used to talk to him about her golden days at Coyle’s. He saw the label and gave it to Evelyn when he found it in his basement in a box of books. Alice realizes that Tessa must have taken it to hide Alice’s secret but isn’t sure who edited it.
Nick returns to witness not one but two of Alice’s awkward love life moments. Alice has a fight with Max when he confronts her about the song she wrote. She says it isn’t about them, but he doesn’t believe her. After this Nick encourages Alice to find love in her own time. The next day when Max comes back, Alice tells him the song was about them, and they finally kiss. This moment wouldn’t have been possible without Nick telling Alice that he’s back in Port Haven after going out into the world and finding himself and what he wants to do with his life. He hints at her meeting Claire eventually (spoiler: we never meet her, which still leaves me wondering).
Thanks to Nick’s advice, Alice jumps in the pond (after her and Max’s fight), and it leads her to closure. She walks into Lingermore to find an older Evelyn watching the Coyle’s film reel. A newspaper with the headline introducing Kat as the new editor-in-chief lays beside her as she’s putting the pieces of clues together. It’s 2024, and her golden days finally make sense. The white witch was Kat, and Alice is her daughter, who are both time travelers. But they are also Evie’s friends at any time. Despite not knowing the pond’s magic for so long, Evie took on the secret by cutting Kat and Alice’s parts from the film reel. It was Evie all along who kept their time-traveling secret (at least for the last two years).
Although I love Alice’s conversation with old Evie, having young Evie appear to her was everything and more. She stood from her chair and hugged Alice, reminding her she’s lived a full life. As older Evie said, Alice has so much time left to live. After all this time, Alice and Evie said goodbye for the final time. It was heartfelt and bittersweet. It was perfect for them.
With her love life sorted, Alice tends to her mom’s love life moments. She walks with Kat onto the porch and reminds her everything happens in their own time. Elliot is standing under a string of lights, waiting to propose to her. Without any hesitation, Kat says yes to Elliot and slides on Tessa’s ring. Alice strums the guitar and sings as Elliot kisses Kat. Later on, as they are sitting on the couch admiring the ring, they’re wishing they could tell Tessa.
That’s when Elliot realizes that Tessa didn’t buy the house before the tunnel accident. It leads them to believe that the clock was placed in the wall after the accident, letting Elliot know that Tessa survived. All we know is she was gone from the tunnel. Her body was never recovered. So maybe she started over somewhere far away from the illegal business. Those are at least my hopes.
Del’s love life
Kat and Alice’s love lives aren’t the only magical ones. Both Fern and Del share the grief of losing the love of their lives. Unlike Fern, we know Del has another chance at love, but something is holding her back. With Sam and KC’s help, Del finds what is holding her back from moving on.
KC apologizes for oversharing, but Del needs their help now. So, KC takes Del to the pond, and they end up hearing fireworks. It is the summer kickoff party of 1999, the same one that Alice had her moment with Colton and revealed who she was to him. He accepted all the knowledge with grace and supported her. Now, KC runs off, leaving Colton alone with Del. She worries she looks a mess, but he assures her she looks great. After she comes to terms that he’s really in front of her, he tells her about meeting Alice and the news about Jacob.
They kiss and have one final dance. Like they say, their love is magic. This closure allows her to move forward, sell the boat to Nick, and love Sam fully. No, she won’t let Sam tell her too much about her future. It is obvious that Sam will be KC’s grandfather with all we know about the Landys history.
Tessa and Griffin’s truth revealed
After looking at a picture of Kat and Elliot, Alice ends up back in time. She runs into Tessa burying the suitcase she would later dig up. Alice straight up tells Tessa she’s coming from the same place she’s going: the pond. In episode 7, we learned that Tessa left Elliot because she thought it was the right decision at the time. Now, she tells Alice that all her struggles finally caught up with her. She feels like a bad mom due to forgetting her son, Fern’s warning scaring her. Everything hurts too much for her to stay.
Griffin showed her the pond’s magic while making her feel like a real human and not just a mom or wife. She jumped for love, yes, but not to be with Griffin or without Vic and Elliot. She jumped because she loved Vic and Elliot so much and thought they’d be better. Griffin was on her way through the pond, so she took it.
Alice is able to tell her Elliot grew up happy and that he had people there for him always. Although Alice doesn’t reveal how she knows Elliot, Tessa understands she and Alice have kept each other’s secrets. They keep one more as Tessa rips the photo and puts her half in the suitcase. She buries it in hopes Vic will believe she left town and not this time because it is easier to deal with his hate than his worry.
Alice leaves Tessa after promising to protect Elliot always while Tessa protects who Alice really is. After parting ways with Tessa, Alice hopes to land in her own time but ends up finding Griffin. He’s sticking a paper in Tessa’s front door in 1984. She’s as confused to see Griffin as I am since he’s supposed to be in the past with Tessa. Sadly, the pond shut him out, and he’s stuck in his time hoping Tessa’s okay. When he jumped to get help for her illness, she gave him her engagement ring to bring back with him. He wrote a note in her likeness and stuck it and the ring in the door. She wanted her son to have the ring as if she knew she wouldn’t make it.
We already know that Fern wanted to meet Alice in 1926, but what we didn’t know is what older Fern knew. At the pond in the 80s, Fern finally reveals that she’s known all along who Alice was and what the pond did. Even with all that knowledge she still told Tessa that she would end up killing her son. Fern is shocked but also not surprised that Elliot survived because no one is really ever gone thanks to the pond. She considers Kat and Alice heroes in their own ways and hugs Alice, her great-great granddaughter. Just as she sent Kat off in 1926, she sends Alice on her way as she sings on her way back to the farm house.
Jacob’s journey to love
Hoping to end up in 1926, Jacob lands in 1820. Although he’s mad at the pond, the pond took him where he needed to go. Susannah and Thomas are there to greet him as they’ve been tending to Elijah. When he sits down with Jacob (his son, since Jacob went missing in the 1990s), he reveals he’s been praying for this for four years. He only wanted one more talk with his son. Even though he’s in rough shape, all he wanted was to know that Jacob was happy.
The most heartwarming part is when Jacob tells Elijah that the farm and fireplace still exist because of him and all he did. Elijah believes it is actually because of Jacob. If Jacob never fell in the pond, I wonder what Port Haven would be like. It turns out, Jacob getting lost created what he loves most: generational love.
He gets to tell him about Abby, although he doesn’t tell his father that she's part of the Goodwin family. He does reveal this fact to Susannah and Thomas. She’s proud of him, hoping there’s peace for the founding families ahead in his time. Jacob even finds out Thomas was having dreams where he spends them with Jacob but mostly with Kat. One detail sticks out to him. Jacob never told Thomas the house was blue in the future, but somehow Thomas sits on a porch at a blue house in his dreams with Kat. Even though he obviously still loves her, he’s glad to know she’s happy.
Jacob’s visit home helps him overcome his fears of making things work with Abby. Back in his time, he opens the Landry Family Almanac to discover Elijah passed on February 16, 1820, the same month the pond answered his prayers. He closes the book as Abby walks in and apologizes for just walking in. He tells her he’s the one that needs to apologize for everything happening. He hopes she doesn’t leave and lets him prove he will never take the gift of her for granted. She comments on how beautiful the book is, and it leads him to tell her he can’t wait to tell her about his family.
Jacob meets with Lewis Goodwin (Abby’s dad) to discuss the will that caused them to argue. Lewis tells him about his childhood and growing up around the Landrys. He may have been young, but he remembers that time with his mom and the others. As he grew up, he pushed it all away. Jacob tells him he wants to leave Lingermore with him because he understands the history. Evelyn (Lewis’ mom) is in these walls; her spirit is everywhere in the estate. It would be wrong to let it go to another family when their memories are elsewhere. They call a truce and shake on it.
The Way Home ending explained
Jacob talks to Alice about what kind of ring Abby would expect. She’s a Goodwin after all, so it has to be unique. Alice gives him her ring, the same ring Alice asked KC about one of the times they ran into each other. KC wore it on a chain around their neck and said it was a family ring. Jacob and Alice realize that KC is his kid. We see a glimpse at all the times KC stuck around to see Jacob and Abby fall in love.
In Port Haven’s future, we finally know what event was foreseen at the beginning of the season: We have a glimpse into the bittersweet future of the Landry women standing at the pond. They seem sad, but Alice assures them it is going to be the best day, as it is almost time for the I do’s. Lewis Goodwin walks his daughter, Abby, down the aisle to Jacob. Surrounded by all small groups of family, they’re ready to say their I do’s.
As the ceremony is going on, we see the best surprise. As each family member looks into the trees, they see someone from one of the eras in time. Susannah, Thomas, Elijah, 1999’s Colton, 1970/80’s Evelyn, Fern, Cliff, and KC watch the ceremony as memories from the past and future.
With Alice bound for New York in January and Kat engaged, the mother-daughter relationship is stronger than ever. The pond has done some crazy things, but it also brought them closer. After the wedding ceremony, Kat and Alice take one more jump into the pond. Where they end up, no one knows.
All seasons of The Way Home are now streaming on Hallmark+.
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