The Way Home Cast Reacts to Season Finale’s ‘Exciting’ Colton Twist — Plus, Did He Recognize Adult Kat and Elliot?

Like the characters on The Way Home , the stars of the Hallmark Channel drama also did some time traveling during Season 2, filming the finale’s big twist at the start of the season.

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As co-showrunners Heather Conkie and Alexandra Clarke previously told TVLine , logistics required production to work out of (episodic) order. All the summer kickoff scenes, including the season ender’s pivotal reveal that Colton was a time traveler, were shot at the top of production, when it was actually summer on location in Canada. As a result, the show’s cast was aware of the Landry family patriarch’s secret, but wasn’t clear on all the details.

“We knew that he knew something about the pond, but we didn’t know where that was headed,” Sadie Laflamme-Snow, who plays Colton’s granddaughter Alice, told TVLine at an Emmy Awards For Your Consideration event for the series. “It was crazy because we actually shot that at the beginning of the season, but we didn’t know how we ended up there. We just knew there was this big reveal. It was really hard not to make our own theories throughout the season.”

As for star/executive producer Chyler Leigh (aka Kat Landry), her reaction to the twist “was like, ‘I knew it!’ But did I?” the actress says.

The season finale was especially meaningful for Evan Williams, whose character Elliot got to travel back in time and have his “five more minutes” with his pseudo-father Colton. In the past, Elliot helped Colton set up the barn that would become teen Elliot’s hangout and safe space away from his troubled home life with his own dad. The unique experience helped Elliot better understand Kat’s desire to time travel and allowed him to finally start to move past his father issues.

“That episode was fantastic. When I read the script, I was crying,” Williams says. “It’s such an impactful episode for Elliot, so much learning, and we get to see the character change… [Colton’s] the mythical father figure. He’s like the archetypical dad. And so, I love that we got a chance to sort of lean into that.”

Plus, the Colton twist is “just exciting because it also opens up avenues for the future,” Williams adds.

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Given what viewers learned about Colton’s time-traveling abilities, it’s not crazy to wonder if he actually knew who adult Elliot was when he was talking to him in the barn. Williams was well aware of that possibility and discussed how to play the scene with Colton’s portrayer, Jefferson Brown.

“You always have to ride a fine line in this show because you don’t want to tip your hat. You don’t want to give anything away,” Williams says. “But you also, sometimes, don’t even know what the possibilities for the future are. So you don’t want to lock off potential opportunities. We knew we had to thread the needle, and I think we did. And I think that there’s still sort of a question there. It’s not clear either way.”

But it does seem much more likely now that a dying Colton recognized adult Kat as his daughter when she cradled his body in Season 1.

“They didn’t tell us at that point what he was actually referring to when he said, ‘My Katherine,’ as he was dying,” Leigh says. “I was kind of like, ‘Oh wow, maybe it’s just that he recognizes me. Maybe he’s delusional.’ We didn’t actually know what that meant until we started Season 2.”

(With reporting by Megan Vick)

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