If you’ve been watching The Way Home (and if not, get on it right away!), you’d know that there is an epic love triangle that is one for the ages. Think of a love triangle so smoldering it could literally set your insides on fire…and on Hallmark of all channels. Said love triangle is between Kat Landry (Chyler Leigh), Elliot Augustine (Evan Williams), and Thomas Coyle (Kris Holden-Ried).
The basic premise of The Way Home follows three generations of women (Del, Kat, and Alice) dealing with family, love, loss, secrets, and time travel (using a magical pond on their property). But the more Kat and Alice time travel, the more complicated things get.
Plus, should Kat end up with her childhood friend, Elliot? Or with the smuggling bad boy with a heart of gold, Thomas Coyle?
As far as stories go, it seems Kat and Elliot are the obvious end game – and I love them together – and have no problem with this as a storytelling choice. Plus, there is the little bitty problem of Thomas and Kat being separated by a couple of hundred years. It’s a bit of an obstacle!
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But I’m here for the TomKat ride as long as it lasts!
One thing I particularly love about this series is that you can’t find a show more currently steeped in Romanticism than The Way Home. There’s time travel, references to The Lady of Shalott, beautiful love stories, deep friendships, familial entanglement, a love of nature, magic, and so much more.
But for today, I wanted to put the romantic moment spotlight on the underrated romance between Thomas and Kat.
BEWARE OF SPOILERS!!!
THE BUILD-UP
In season 2, Kat travels back to the 1800s searching for her long-lost brother and finds him living in a completely different time. But she also finds something else unexpected: meaningful kindred spirit connections with people from the past: Susanna Augustine (a local young woman with dreams of becoming a writer like Jane Austen) and Thomas Coyle, a smuggler but loyal friend to her brother, who’s fighting against the corruption and evil (notably Cyrus Goodwin) in the town.
Poldark fans will love Coyle, who has a smoldering presence similar to Ross Poldark, not to mention the gorgeous shots of the water – as beautiful as Cornwall.
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While Kat and Thomas initially start with tension and dislike, the sparks quickly fly between them.
But she needs to return to her time, and he needs to escape the gallows and the likes of Cyrus Goodwin. Kat returns home – with her brother Jacob not far behind. Thomas, of course, remains in the past.
Katherine, however, finds herself drawn again to the past in the Season 3 premiere to thank Elijah Landry (Jacob’s adopted father in the past) for taking care of Jacob and also to say goodbye to Susanna.
There, she once again crosses paths with Thomas by the pond. They kiss, he wishes her well, and they part…seemingly forever.
They are “impossible,” after all.
THE ROMANTIC MOMENT – THOMAS AND KAT AND “FARE THEE WELL”
Skip ahead to Season 3, episode 5, “Reeling in the Years,” when Kat and Alice time-travel to the 1970s and see Kat’s father, Colton Landry, singing a folk song with intriguing lyrics. Whether or not you are a fan of Thomas and Kat, Elliot and Kat, or both or neither, it’s hard to deny the beauty and romance in this haunting song.
Kat is initially drawn to seeing her young father perform, but she’s soon drawn into the lyrics—lyrics that tell a story she knows—her story.
The Lyrics – Verse 1:
Won’t you carry a part of my broken heart
As you slip from these cold hands of mine
For Fate has divined…
And a Smuggler and Sprite
Are divided by water and time
—
So you drift in your world while I wander mine
Now I sing what is too sad to tell
Though we loved you and me
We were never to be
So fare thee, fare thee well
Kat asks Jasper Coyle (the man who owns the café – likely a descendant of Thomas) about the song. “What is this?”
Jasper reveals that he taught the song to Colton and that it’s a “folk song from Port Haven’s founding days. A hymn to heartbreak…lost love.” He then published (along with this song) a “book of old songs from the area” he collected. He points out that if you really want to know history, “you won’t find it in stuffy books. It’s in the art…of the time. Paintings, poems, songs…that’s where the truth of an era will always lie.”
Kat continues to be lost in the song. Jasper asks if she’s good. “Yeah, yeah, no…” she responds. “…just reminds me of someone. It’s a past love.”
“Not surprised,” Jasper says. “That’s the beauty of a great song. Transcends time.”
He then gives her a free copy of the folk songs collected from the area.
Later, Kat (in the present day) looks at the song again. It’s titled “Fare Thee Well,” written circa 1816. She reads the lyrics and explores her memories: Thomas carries her on the water. He asks her to carry a part of her heart: their kiss and goodbye.
The Lyrics – Verse 2:
Carry a part of my broken heart
In yours, when the waves call you home
For when I walk a shore
I know I’ll carry yours
And I’ll take it wherever I roam
—
So you drift in your world while I wander mine
Now I sing what is too sad to tell
Though we loved you and me
We were never to be
So fare thee, fare thee well
Kat continues to have Thomas on her mind throughout this episode. When she kisses Elliot, she tries to convince herself that their love is just as epic and is worth writing songs about. When she meets Elliot’s ex-wife, her thoughts again turn to Thomas.
To Elliot, she contemplates, “Yeah, I guess there always is the one before the one, huh?”
This moment then leads to a spicy (yes, spicy) romantic dream sequence between Kat and Thomas by the pond as they reunite and share passionate kisses.
She wakes up from her dream before anything too graphic is shown (this is still Hallmark – although barely with this show) with a sigh of surprise. I don’t think Kat was the only one surprised by this “dream.” I admit my jaw may have dropped a little.
Last week, Kat and Elliot had a surprisingly steamy kissing scene pushing Hallmark’s boundaries – and this week’s kissing scene went even further.
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While Colton Landry (we discover in this episode) is supposedly a rule breaker, one thing is clear: The Way Home is not afraid to break the typical rules of Hallmark either. Everything about this show likes to break the rules. So, while it seems that Kat and Elliot are endgame, maybe everything isn’t as it seems. And there’s some hope for Thomas and Kat fans, after all.
By the end of the episode, Kat and Jacob decide to travel once again back to the 19th century when they hear another folk song from the songbook collection: a song that makes it sound like Susanna is in danger. So, they travel back in time, only to find that Susanna has just married the villain, Cyrus Goodwin.
As Kat and Jacob watch in horror from the shadows, another figure watches them:
Thomas.
While Thomas and Kat are seemingly over and impossible, they are again drawn together. He arguably wrote a second song that brought Kat back across time – and I, for one, can’t wait to see what happens next.
But for now, I will enjoy the romantic folk song “Fare Thee Well,” a song full of Romanticism echoing the courtly love songs of old. Now, that’s a romantic moment to remember.
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