Now that “The Way Home” has ended after being canceled, and details have been divulged about what could have happened in season 5, fans still have some questions about how things wrapped up for the various characters that viewers have come to be so captivated by during the course of the Hallmark show’s four seasons.
That’s why the series’ bosses have offered (honest, emotional and intriguing) answers about the various intertwined storylines, including the fact that they’ve provided viewers with some key info regarding what happened between Elliot and Tessa.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Elliot, Tessa, the Clock, the Blast and So Much More
Hallmark“Tessa (Megan Follows) lives,” TV Insider noted during an interview with “The Way Home” executive producers Heather Conkie and Alexandra Clarke. “Why did Elliot start with his mom have to go the way that it did?”
“Well, I love the ending of that story because it is strongly hinted, in fact, I think it’s proof that she survived that blast because the logic of the clock in the wall was always of question, but she did put that clock in the wall just to show him that, ‘Nope, it wasn’t over. I was OK. I put this clock in the wall for you to explain some things after the fact,'” Conkie explained. “So, I think that was a much nicer ending than knowing that she was blown to smithereens. I mean, that would just not be good for a mom.”
Clarke added, “I think just from a story point of view, I think that the Elliot and Tessa reunion that started in Episode 6 and carried through the rest of the season had to be different than what was expected. And we sort of took a step back in the writers’ room and talked a lot about Tessa and the reality of what she’s actually been through, which is clearly postpartum depression, was told she was going to kill her son, which only reaffirmed the fears she already had in her mind about not being a good mom, all in an era when there was no language for that.”
Hallmark“It’s interesting,” Clarke continued. “I think a lot about that scene in Season 2 with Susanna and Kat in the general store, and Susanna’s telling Kat about Jacob and how, as kids, they knew that they were different, but they didn’t have the language for what it was that made them different. And then Kat gave Jacob the words, he’s a time traveler.”
“I think that that still is something very prevalent even in the ‘80s, which is there was no language for that then. And so you have a lot of people around her getting angry with her for being negligent. And if you notice in Episode 8, it’s Griffin telling Colton when they lost the baby, ‘Oh, be strong, be strong for her,'” Clarke said. “No, what they should have done is talk about it and be vulnerable with one another, but that just wasn’t what people did then. And I think that had a lot to do — if you go back and back, it’s a lot to do with why Colton went to that grief group in the ‘90s and didn’t tell anyone because he was raised as a, ‘Oh, you got to be stronger. The head of the family, don’t put your worries and your grief on them. You’ve got to be the foundation.'”
‘…If They’d Had More Time’
Hallmark“All this to say, I think that Tessa went into her life in the 1800s in Port Haven pretty broken and then had to survive on her own,” Clarke told TV Insider. “Yes, the Landrys took her in, but what kind of woman did she become? We find her in the ’20s and she’s a fortune teller that’s using her knowledge of the future to make a name for herself and she’s hardened. She’s a bootlegger. She’s a rumrunner. She’s the big fish.”
“And so I think we had to really think about what that reunion would look like, especially with someone that has been sort of through it, and we wanted it to not feel typical,” she said. “We didn’t want the big running across the field to one another, ‘Oh, there’s my baby.”
She finished by noting, “But I think what’s been really lovely is watching and listening to the comments. Initially, everyone hated her. Everyone hated adult Tessa, but in these last couple of episodes and even [the penultimate], people were realizing that she’s broken, she’s hurt, and seeing those moments of reaching out to Elliot are so tender. The running across the field, big reunion would have happened if they’d had more time.”
