‘The Way Home’ Team on Fern Mystery & Del Defending Elliot to His Father

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Way Home Season 3 Episode 3 “Live and Let Die.”]

The Way Home just introduced possibly the most intriguing character of Season 3. Kat (Chyler Leigh) once again uses the pond on her family’s land to time travel and ends up running into her father’s grandmother, Fern.

“Twenty-five first arrive, 25 never tried. Sixty-five, thought they died, 65, still alive,” Fern says, and when after Kat introduces herself, Fern assures “Kitty Kat” that she knows her way home. There’s something about it that seems familiar. Once back at the farm, Fern points to lemon madeleines, just like Kat’s grandmother used to make. Did Fern’s daughter-in-law make these? “Such a good girl, that one,” Fern shares. “She raised two boys. She kept this farm going all on her own when we lost my son.” She then begins singing “Beautiful Dreamer” and encourages Kat, “you know the words.”

Meanwhile, in the present, Del (Andie MacDowell) tells Alice (Sadie Laflamme-Snow) that Fern used to talk about the pond and said it was magical but also a curse. She told the most outlandish stories — or at least, Del thought they were stories and she was just a sweet old lady whose mind had gone. That’s what Colton (Jefferson Brown) told her.

Back in the past, Fern comments that it’s “so nice to see someone using the pond again.” Does Colton, Kat immediately asks, after finding signs that her father had time-traveled and never told anyone. “I feared he was the one. If not his father or his brother then him, but I was wrong,” Fern says cryptically. “If you want the right answers, you must ask the right questions.” With that, she heads off for a nap.

Related

'The Way Home' Stars React to Kat & Elliot's Big Decision and Tease What's Next

Once home in the present, Kat tells Alice what Fern said about 65. Nothing pops up on Google, but Alice points out it could be a year; Evelyn lived in the town then and she donated a bunch of stuff to the archives that Casey (Vaughan Murrae) catalogued last summer. (Oh, the mystery of Casey.) Casey did leave a Post-it for Kat with “IMPORTANT!!” underlined multiple times … on an empty file. Then Kat and Alice find a notice for a town vote to fill in the Landry pond at a town hall on September 7, 1965.

When it comes to what Fern meant by fearing Colton was the one but being wrong and if she recognized Kat, “it’s hard to answer either of those questions,” admits executive producer Alexandra Clarke. “I think Fern is enigma wrapped in a mystery. We all loved writing for her because I think it’s so easy to write that off as just complete dementia, and instead she is incredibly wise. I think one of the things that really intrigued us about her was this idea of growing in little Easter eggs and kind of snippets of fragments of things that maybe you’re not even going to understand this season that — our dream was always that you go back and really do even write down what she says because it all has meaning in the end. It’s not just the crazy antics of an older woman. She’s incredibly wise.”

She adds, “She’s pretty iconic.”

Elsewhere in the episode, Kat and Elliot (Evan Williams) tell Del, Alice, and Jacob (Spencer MacPherson) she’s moving in with him … to mixed reactions. “I just don’t see how you can abandon your daughter right now. And what about Jacob?” Del argues.

That was “just the overreaction of a mother in the moment,” MacDowell tells TV Insider. “I think it’s human behavior. Her gut reaction was to tell her daughter, it’s not the right decision. It was, you’re not going to leave me. You’re not going to leave your daughter. Just a selfish reaction. A typical reaction of a mother just doesn’t want her daughter to leave and just stay here. Just don’t rock the boat. She’s not thinking about her daughter, [but rather] thinking about herself.”

Peter Stranks / Hallmark Media

But Del is Elliot’s fiercest supporter to his father, Vic (James Gallanders), as he’s heading out of town. As Vic sees it, Elliot got what he always wanted and “joined the high and mighty Landry family.” That’s when Del has enough: “Okay, I’m done being polite. Leave my family alone. You ruined my chance to make amends with my daughter all those years ago, and you have failed over and over again to be the father Elliot deserves, but despite that, he has turned into one of the finest young men I have ever known. If you ever say a disparaging word against him, you’ll be sorry.” She shoves her plate of biscuits (which he insulted) into his chest and turns, only to see Elliot heard all of that. She apologizes, but he assures her, “That was amazing,” and thanks her.

“She just loves Elliot,” says MacDowell. “She’s always had a really close relationship with Elliot because her daughter left and all she had was Elliot for years. That’s the person she relied on. So for me it’s just that she loves Elliot and she doesn’t want to see him get hurt.”

Williams was “really thrilled” when he read the scripts with Victor back. “We get to really learn a lot about Elliot, and we also learn a lot about the Landry family as well based on how things go in the past. And it’s beautiful to see truth being told,” he shares. “Elliot’s always sort of been on the sidelines a little bit. He’s never been a Landry. He has always been kind of looking in the window. And so for him to be able to see Del stick up for him when she doesn’t even know that he’s there —”

Leigh interjects, “and throw biscuits at him.”

Williams continues, “It was beautiful — even as the actor — to be able to go through those scenes and give myself permission to trust. I think that there’s a lot of reasons that Elliot has to not trust based on the way that his childhood has gone. And we see him start to come to terms with some of that stuff, which will make him a better friend and a better partner and a better lover and better overall.”

Leigh praises Williams’ work in the scenes between Elliot and his father. It’s “so extraordinary,” she raves. “It’s so beautiful that we get to see this whole other side of Elliot that is just hurt. He’s got this emotional depth that we knew was there, but we didn’t really understand what the magnitude of it was. And there’s this one scene where Elliot says to Vic, ‘Get out of my house.’ And I cried. I cried watching it because it’s so honest and it’s so this moment of Elliot not reverting back to that kid that was around his dad and that was just so tortured because of how Vic was tortured. I do love that we get to really see the backstory of that as well and what it looks like when we decide to or not to change, and the toll that takes on the people that we end up taking all of those frustrations or hurt or anger, whatever, out on. But that moment was so profound as a fan watching the show, as me Chyler, loving and supporting Evan’s work. I just love it. It’s imprinted in my mind and I felt like it was just extraordinary.”

What did you think of the latest episode? Let us know in the comments section below.

The Way Home, Fridays, 9/8c, Hallmark Channel