The Way Home Season 3: Everything you need to know about Jacob’s return

The missing Landry son finally returned home in The Way Home Season 3 – but now everyone knows Jacob isn’t dead, what on Earth actually happened?

Hallmark’s binge-worthy TV show might follow three generations of women on the surface, but it’s actually a time-travel saga split between multiple timelines. Del, Kat, and Alice have figured out that their pond is essentially a portal, leading to adventures in the 1990s, 1800s, and now 1970s.

The person in the middle is Jacob, Del’s son and Kat’s brother. He went missing when he was eight years old in 1999, and none of them know what actually happened… until now.

It’s a world away from fellow Hallmark smash hit When Calls the Heart, and the mystery is only just beginning. Here’s a full rundown on exactly what’s happened to Jacob so far in The Way Home Season 3.

Where has Jacob been this whole time?

This will be unsurprising to hardy fans of The Way Home, but Jacob was essentially stuck in the past until Kat was able to successfully meet his adult self in Season 2 (well, almost).

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The actual nuts and bolts of Jacob’s journey are a bit complex, so I’m going to break down his movements into season recaps for the simplest explanation possible.

Season 1

In Season 1 Episode 2, we first learn of Jacob as Del holds a memorial service for him. He’s been missing since 1999, and she presumed he’s dead. It’s not until Episode 6 that we find out more detail, with the town deciding to hold a carnival on the anniversary of Jacob’s disappearance. It’s been canceled for years, and we simultaneously watch Kat and Alice try to prevent it in the 1999 timeline.

A then eight-year-old Jacob had been at that year’s Port Haven carnival with Kat, and had dropped his stuffed animal on one of the rides. He got it back before being snatched by Danny, who chases him through the woods. Jacob comes back, but is discovered missing the next morning. The same stuffed animal is located by a fisherman near the pond.

Del realizes the whole town is in mourning, though she is struggling to work through her feelings and relived memories. We get the big reveal in the Season 1 finale – now Alice and Kat both have a better idea of how the time-traveling pond works, Kat works out Jacob has actually been trapped in 1790 the entire time (more on this later).

This seems random, given how The Way Home’s past timeline has been focused on the 1990s, but there have been clues. The opening shot in Season 1 is of a young woman in the 1800s abandoning a baby while being chased by an angry mob. We still don’t know exactly who these people are, though.

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Season 2

From this point on, Kat essentially makes it her personal mission to find out the truth about what happened to Jacob. We see Jacob surface in 1790, with ancestors Rebecca and Elijah Landry taking him home. They take him in as a son, and by 1813, he’s an essential part of the Landry family.

Kat immediately discovers a portrait from 1814 that looks like her, which she later realizes actually was her in Episode 2. By the time she gets there, Jacob is engaged to a local woman called Susanna. Kat keeps her identity hidden but later learns Susanna found out regardless.

In the present day, Kat can’t find any ship records containing Jacob’s name but does find “Thomas Coyle,” who is Jacob’s friend in 1814. She manages to intercept him on his journey, which later leads to Jacob being captured by Mayor Cyrus Goodwin. They don’t get to be reunited, and it seems as though the journey to rescue him starts all over again.

How Jacob made it back to 1790

Of course, the pond holds all the answers. At the end of Season 1, Kat remembers Jacob following their family dog Fynn to the pond, meaning he fell in and accidentally transported himself into the past.

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It’s an absolutely crazy theory, but one that is soon proved to be correct. After the Landry family fail to prevent Jacob’s disappearance in 1999, a private investigator is hired by Colton. Struggling to cope with his emotions – even while attending therapy – the grief plays a vital role in Colton’s death in 2000.

We see him lose control of his car while driving home, with Kat once again failing to stop his death by traveling back in time. Kat goes back to the present to find a soaking-wet Fynn, triggering a memory of Jacob finding Fynn’s ball when he was by the pond barking.

She returns to the Almanac (aka the area of land with the pond), finding “JK: The explorer found a home, but still looks at stars when he feels lost” scrawled nearby.

This once again triggers a memory for Kat, remembering Jacob saying he believed the stars would always guide him home. It’s a leap, but she begins to piece together that the pond has something to do with it.

Will we find out what happened to Jacob in The Way Home Season 3?

By The Way Home Season 3 Episode 1, Jacob has arrived home and nine months have passed. We’ve currently got no idea how any of this happened, but we’re set to find out more as the series progresses.

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Here’s what we definitely know so far: Jacob didn’t want to come back voluntarily and was more than happy with his life in 1814. Instead, he was forced to come back thanks to the run-ins with Cyrus potentially leading to jail time.

Nine months have passed since the reunion, and obviously a lot has happened since. It’s all led to the town thinking Del is a liar, putting on her grief since the start of the show. The Landry family has also received an overwhelming amount of letters, though it isn’t clear if they are directly linked to Jacob or not.

Showrunner Alex Clarke told Variety: “They’re leaning on the fact that the best lie is the closest to the truth. They’ve told the world that he lived in a very primitive community that didn’t have any access to the internet, kind of Amish-style. That’s actually where he was. He’d forgotten because of the trauma of falling off the cliff.

“It wasn’t until one of his parents were on their deathbed that they told him the truth, which is actually kind of the truth. In Season 2, Elijah said that it wasn’t until his wife was on her deathbed that she told him she found Jacob coming out of the pond and he’s from a different world.”

She added: “They are trying to cling to the things that they know, but trying to skew it for the modern day. Whether or not they are successful in that, we’ll have to wait and see.”

You can find The Way Home Seasons 1-2 already on the app, with Season 3 streaming weekly. For similar vibes, check out Virgin River Season 7, Sullivan’s Crossing Season 3, and shows if you like Virgin River.