Heavy/Hallmark Chyler Leigh, Sadie Laflamme-Snow, Andie Macdowell
Though many Hallmark fans were disappointed by the recent news that its western series “Ride” has been canceled after one season, there’s a new reason to celebrate. According to Deadline, the highly-anticipated second season of Hallmark’s other new series, “The Way Home,” will premiere at 9 p.m. Eastern time on January 21, 2024.
Hallmark released a dramatic preview trailer for the new season, which its stars have already teased as being intense.
Here’s what you need to know:
Hallmark Releases First Trailer of ‘The Way Home’ Season 2
“The Way Home” is a mystical family drama, complete with a secret pond that allows for time travel, and stars Andie MacDowell, Chyler Leigh, and Sadie Laflamme-Snow as three generations of the complicated Landry family.
On November 21, 2023, Hallmark released the first trailer for the second season, beginning where the first season finale left off last May, with Kat Landry (played by Leigh) telling her mom Del (played by MacDowell) that she knows what happened to her little brother Jacob (played by Remy Smith).
Previously convinced that Jacob had died, Kat intensifies her quest to find Jacob and bring him home in the next season, per Deadline. But, the outlet reported, Del and Kat will “uncover unexpected revelations about their origins that bring answers to some questions while new ones are raised.”
Many fans had worried that the actors’ strike would cause the second season of “The Way Home” to be delayed indefinitely. But the series received a waiver from SAG-AFTRA that allowed them to start filming, according to New York Comic Con, where Leigh, LaFlamme-Snow and fellow cast member Evan Williams appeared in October.
During a panel discussion at the convention, the trio said that the second season is intense, with Williams warning fans to “get ready.”
“Sh** gets real,” Leigh told the audience in a video of the discussion published by the U.S. Sun, adding that viewers will start to understand why her character Kat was seen as a witch in a time-travel segment during the first season.
“It’s part of an origin story that we will come to learn and understand in Season 2,” she revealed. “But it’s incredibly significant being able to be in that world. That part of the time travel gave us an amazing opportunity to create a whole other timeline.”
‘The Way Home’ Originally Was Developed at Netflix But Exec Brought It Over to Hallmark
Hallmark“The Way Home”
Filming on “The Way Home” began in the Toronto area on August 21, according to Hollywood North Buzz. Filming is expected to wrap on December 6.
The first season of “The Way Home” had a similar filming timeline, beginning production in August 2022, per a Hallmark press release. The series premiered five months later, on January 15, 2023.
Lisa Hamilton Daly, Executive Vice President of Programming for Hallmark Media, brought “The Way Home” over from her previous role at Netflix.
“The company that developed it actually was going to pitch it to Hallmark,” she recently told Vulture, “and I kind of hijacked it for Netflix, and we developed the pilot over there. So then when I left, I brought it with me.”
“The first season of ‘The Way Home’ exceeded all our expectations on every level,” Hamilton Daly told Deadline. “The hard work of our talented writers, cast and entire crew gave viewers a compelling family drama they instantly became invested in and created a passionate fan base that grew with each and every episode.”
The first season of “The Way Home” is available to stream via Hallmark Movies Now. It’s also now available on Amazon, Apple TV and Vudu.