
The Way Home
The Way Home: What Happened to Tessa Cooper/Augustine?
There’s plenty of mystery surrounding Tessa Cooper, or Tessa Augustine, depending on who you ask, on The Way Home.
Much of The Way Home Season 4 has focused on Kat’s search for Tessa in the 1920s, along with run-ins she had with Alice in the ’70s, way before she became Elliot’s birth mother.
Here’s everything we know about her—and what happened to her—so far.
Who Is Tessa Cooper/Tessa Augustine on The Way Home?
As mentioned, Tessa is Elliot’s mother, who abandoned him when he was a little boy.
Elliot and his father, Vic, believed that Tessa ran off with Colton Landry’s brother, Griffin, and while there’s some truth to that version of events, it’s a bit more complicated.
Pond travel later revealed that Tessa used Griffin to go back in time, with Alice meeting a teen Tessa in the 1970s. Meanwhile, Alice has been on the lookout for Tessa in the 1920s, coming to the conclusion that she was separated from Griffin at some point and stranded in the roaring ’20s, waiting for someone to come rescue her.
She eventually gets confirmation from her ancestor, Fern Landry, who reveals that she’s known Tessa her whole life, as she’s been referred to as Auntie Coop, a free-spirited woman whom she’d always looked up to.
What Happened to Tessa Cooper/Tessa Augustine on The Way Home?
While we don’t know Tessa’s full motivations for leaving Elliot behind and jumping into the pond, The Way Home Season 4 Episode 6 reveals she also isn’t some damsel in distress that needs to be saved.
In fact, she’s made quite a life for herself in 1925 as “the Big Fish,” a.k.a the big boss running the whole underground bootlegging operation.
She’s also made good on her con-artist ways, as Alice previously saw her stealing from her employer in the 1970s, as she takes on a job as a fortune teller in the ’20s—Contessa Futura, a fortune-teller who has “seen the future.”
A lot still isn’t known about Tessa or the life she created for herself in Port Haven in 1925, but it’s lent itself to a world of hurt for Elliot, first for thinking his mother willingly abandoned him as a baby and second because she has her men clonk him in the head, knocking him unconscious, mere moments after he tells her who he really is and that he came to save her.
The betrayal.
What do you think will be revealed about Tessa? Was she simply not cut out to be a mother? Did she plan on staying in the ’20s the whole time? What drove her decision? And will meeting Elliot change her mind?
Who Plays Tessa Cooper/ Augustine on The Way Home?
Teen Tessa is played by Kelsey Falconer
Older Tessa is played by Megan Follows
The Way Home Recap Season 4 Episode 6 – Welcome to the Circus
Netflix
When Is ‘The Way Home’ Season 4 Coming to Netflix?

The Way Home wrapped up its fourth and final season this summer, on June 21, 2026, on the Hallmark Channel.
Now, three months later, fans who first heard of the show when it was added to Netflix will be able to stream the final season.
When Is The Way Home Season 4 Coming to Netflix?
The Way Home Season 4 is officially available on Netflix starting today, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026.
Fans can stream all 10 episodes in the final installment to find out how it all ends for the three generations of Landry women!
If you want to read our review, you can find it right here—but be warned, it contains plenty of spoilers!
Will There Be a The Way Home Season 5?
Sadly, there is no news about a fifth season of The Way Home.
Many hoped that after Hallmark prematurely cancelled the series, which was intended to run five seasons, Netflix would swoop in and save it, especially after it got such a huge boost following its addition to the streamer.
Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any confirmation that Netflix is interested in another season—though the cast has expressed interest if the opportunity presented itself.
Maybe following the success of season 4 on Netflix, the streamer will have a change of heart?
You can see what the creators had in mind for a fifth season right here.
Main Cast of The Way Home
- Andie MacDowell as Delilah “Del” Landry
- Chyler Leigh as Katherine “Kat” Landry
- Sadie Laflamme-Snow as Alice Dhawan
- Evan Williams as Elliot Augustine
- Alex Hook as teenage Kat Landry
- David Webster as teenage Elliot Augustine
- Jefferson Brown as Colton Landry
- Spencer MacPherson as Jacob Landry
- Al Mukadam as Brady Dhawan
What Is The Way Home About?
Per the official description, The Way Home follows “three generations of Landry women who discover a magical pond that lets them travel through time to heal past family tragedies.”
The Way Home
‘Virgin River’ and ‘The Way Home’ Announce First-Ever News for the Hit Small Town Shows

Fan-favorite small-town shows like Virgin River, The Way Home and One Tree Hill are joining forces for a first-ever experience.
As Virgin River fans patiently await season 8, there’s something else they can look forward to.
Ben Hollingsworth, who plays Dan Brady on the hit Netflix drama, took to Instagram for a first-ever announcement that delighted fans.
“Virgin River fans, I know you’re excited. You want to know: is Brady coming back for season 8? You want to know when season 8’s coming out? You want to know if there’s going to be a season 9. Well…” he begins, before a censored sticker covers his mouth and a bleep-out noise cuts off any sliver of news he was going to share.
“I’m just joking, I can’t tell you any of that,” he admits, before revealing something equally as exciting for the fandom.
“What I can tell you is that for the first time ever, me and a bunch of my Virgin River cast mates are going to be doing a convention.”
And it’s not just any convention, as he clarifies that it isn’t like “one of those mall ones,” adding that this one is “tailored just for shows like ours.”
By that, he meets small town shows, which have carved out a place for themselves in the TV landscape.
“It’s called Meet Cute con and the theme is small town television,” he added, noting, “that’s basically Virgin River.”
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The excitement continues as Hollingsworth reveals it’s taking place in Nashville at the Loveless Barn, with Virgin Hotels Nashville fittingly serving as a sponsor.
It will kick off with a rooftop party and run from Nov. 6th through 8th.
People reports it will include “celebrity panels, live music, interactive experiences, and Southern food for an intimate fan experience.”
But it’s not just Virgin River!
Other small town hows included in Meet Cute Con include One Tree Hill and The Way Home.
The confirmed guest list for Small-Town Swoon is as follows: One Tree Hill alum Jana Kramer, The Way Home‘s Evan Williams, and Virgin River stars Alexandra Breckenridge, Martin Henderson, Hollingsworth and Zibby Allen.
Additional celebrities from small town shows will be announced in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, if you want to be part of the first-ever meet up, you can grab tickets here.
The Way Home
‘The Way Home’ Season 5: Creators Reveal What Could Have Been — And We’re Even More Bummed It Was Canceled

The Way Home cancellation stings even more, knowing what was in store for season 5.
Fans of the Hallmark series may have reached the end of the road with Season 4, but new comments from the show’s executive producers reveal there was once an even longer journey planned for the Landry family.
According to executive producers Alexandra Clarke and Heather Conkie, Season 5 would have expanded the show’s time-travel mythology even further, diving deeper into the mysterious pond that connects generations of the Landry family.
Although the series concluded with a four-season arc, the creative team has shared that early plans once included a fifth season that would have continued exploring unresolved emotional threads and expanded key storylines left open in the finale.
Thankfully, knowing that they didn’t have time on their side, they planned accordingly, with Conkie noting to TV Insider, “I think everything we really knew was important we accomplished.”
Had a fifth season happened, however, we would’ve gotten to spend a lot more time exploring our favorite decades and learning more about the characters who felt largely underutilized.
More Time in the 1920s
“So our plan would have been to not introduce a new era. But our model has always been you introduce an era, and then the next season, it takes the B story,” Clarke explained. “And so we introduced the ’20s in Season 4. We would’ve done B story of the ’20s in Season 5, but not delved into another era necessarily. Maybe hinted at things, but really kind of just do a fuller look at the era as we already know.”
Spending More Time With the People We Loved
Jacob may have gotten his happy ending (and a child), but seeing his relationship blossom with Abigail was short-lived, which Conkie admitted she would have loved to have “spent more time with the Jacob love story.”
“And I would have loved to have spent a little more time with the Max Alice love story, and, of course, the Elliot Kat story,” she added. “And I would have loved to have seen the Del and Sam relationship move forward now that she knows she can and wants to. It would have been lovely.”
The story would’ve explored more from Griffin and Tessa, ” leading up to the jump a little more as well as what life looked like for them when they landed, and seeing the Landry family in that era, which is — Susanna [Watson Rose] is gone by then, so it’s the next generation and seeing Tessa be taken into the homestead.”
“We see a little sampling of it in episode 8, but it would have been very cool to basically see why Tessa became Tessa,” she added.
They also would’ve loved to explore the younger versions of Fern, Cassandra, and Grayson, who were mentioned plenty of times in connection with the White Witch, meaning they could’ve come into contact with Kat at one point when they were children.
What Does the Future Look Like?
Many of us clocked the subtle hints from Thomas Coyle about the future, and yes, they were purposeful and intentional.
“I think the questions that we leave unanswered, the questions that we raise in the finale, are fun ones,” Clarke told PEOPLE. “We’re trying to encourage the fans to write the next chapter themselves. Imagine where Kat and Alice jump to. Imagine why Thomas knows the house is blue. Imagine what Nick meant by that last little piece of saying, ‘Oh, I think you’ll meet her one day.’ Those are fun questions to leave dangling because we know everyone has theories, and we love their theories, and we’re so appreciative of those theories.”
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