This week, one of the most underappreciated shows on television announced details about its forthcoming third season, and while many fans are excited about the prospects of the juicy turns that new episodes are bound to bring, it has led to confusion and frustration among some viewers. On Monday, Hallmark announced that Season 3 of the time-traveling family drama “The Way Home” will debut on Thursday, Jan. 2. However, instead of premiering on the Hallmark Channel, as the previous seasons have, it will be a streaming exclusive on the recently rebranded service Hallmark+, at least until later in 2025.

From how you can watch to what happened in Season 2, I will run you through everything that you need to know in order to catch Chyler Leigh, Andie MacDowell, Sadie Laflamme-Snow, and the entire extended Landry-clan when “The Way Home” returns in the new year.

Everything you need to know about ‘The Way Home’ Season 3:

When will episodes of ‘The Way Home’ Season 3 premiere?

The third season of “The Way Home” will premiere on Hallmark+ on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025 at 3:01 a.m. ET. Hallmark has not confirmed the release schedule for the remainder of the season — or how many episodes it will include — but I would assume that subsequent episodes will be released at the same time on Thursdays for the duration of the season.

The show’s first two seasons consisted of 10 episodes, so it is likely that Season 3 will as well, meaning that I would predict that the Season 3 finale would be available to stream on Hallmark+ on Thursday, March 6, 2025 at 3:01 a.m. ET.

Where will ‘The Way Home’ Season 3 stream?

Unlike the first two seasons of the show, Season 3 of “The Way Home” will not first air on the Hallmark Channel. Instead, it will be a streaming exclusive for Hallmark+ until the fall of 2025 when it will air linearly on the network’s flagship cable channel.

While in years past the show has streamed on the erstwhile Hallmark Movies Now service the day after they aired, the same was true for Peacock. The NBCUniversal streamer launched a partnership with Hallmark over two years ago which brought Hallmark’s brand of comforting, family-friendly movies, shows, and channels to the platform.

While typically Hallmark original films only stream on-demand on Peacock for 72 hours after their initial cable airing (though that was extended to a month this fall as part of an experiment), episodes of Hallmark series including “The Way Home,” “When Calls the Heart,” “Ride,” and “Chesapeake Shores” remained on the streamer for the full season and beyond; every season of those shows is still available to stream on Peacock except for “When Calls the Heart,” only Seasons 8 through 11 are available.

This means that even though many cord-cutters were used to watching new episodes of “The Way Home” on the NBCU service, they will not be able to do that at least until the show airs on Hallmark Channel later in 2025.

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Is there a trailer for ‘The Way Home’ Season 3?

As of the publication of this article, there is not an official trailer yet available for the third season of “The Way Home.” However, Hallmark has released a 15-second teaser the whet your appetite for what is to come.

What happened in ‘The Way Home’ Season 2?

The second season of “The Way Home” was a doozy that far expanded the time-traveling scope of the pond on the Landry family’s property. Kat traveled back in time, not to 1999 where she had been visiting before, but to 1814 where her long-missing younger brother Jacob was now an adult. Throughout the season, Kat worked to find and protect Jacob from a ruthless shipping magnate who Jacob and his friend Thomas ran afoul of. Ultimately, Kat was able to convince Jacob to return home to modern-day Port Haven.

Meanwhile, Kat’s daughter Alice attempts to mend fences between Kat and her best friend Elliot, both in 2024 and the past, and in doing so, they find something that helps bring Kat and her mother Del closer after years of estrangement. It is also revealed that Elliot and Kat never saw Alice again following the events of Season 2. While that does not guarantee that she won’t travel back in time again, it does seem like her direct involvement in her mother’s younger life is over.

And perhaps most shockingly, in the season’s closing moments, we find out that the Landry family patriarch Colton — who died in 1999 — not only appears to be watching his former self from the shadows, but we are shown a flashback to a previous century when a younger Colton is told that the pond and its time-traveling ability will take him where he needs to go, but that it is not his time yet.

This revelation will undoubtedly be at the center of the show’s third season, as it raises questions not only about how Colton is alive, but why has he been apart from his family for the past 25 years. If you need more analysis of Season 2, you can check out this conversation between many of the show’s stars that aired before the second season finale.

Who will star in Season 3 of ‘The Way Home’?

‘The Way Home’ Season 3’s likely stars:

• Chyler Leigh: Modern-day Katherine Landry; Alice’s mother, Delilah and Colton’s daughter
• Alex Hook: Young-adult Katherine Landry
• Evan Williams: Modern-day Elliot Augustine; Kat’s best friend and Alice’s high school science teacher
• David Webster: Young-adult Elliot Augustine
• Sadie Laflamme-Snow: Alice Dhawan; Kat’s daughter
• Andie MacDowell: Delilah “Del” Landry; Katherine and Jacob’s mother
• Jefferson Brown: Colton Landry; Delilah’s late husband and Katherine and Jacob’s father
• Remy Smith: young Jacob Landry, Colton and Delilah’s son and Katherine’s younger brother
• Spencer Macpherson: Adult Jacob Landry

‘The Way Home’ Season 3’s likely recurring characters:

• Al Mukadam: Modern-day Brayden “Brady” Dhawan; Katherine’s ex-husband and Alice’s father
• Siddharth Sharma: teenage Brayden “Brady” Dhawan
• Kerry James: Modern-day Nick Oates; Alice’s boyfriend in 1999 and Elliot’s other best friend
• Vaughan Murrae: Casey Goodwin; Kat’s intern at The Herald newspaper, grandchild of Port Haven’s recently deceased matriarch, might no more about the town’s supernatural abilities than they are letting on
• Rob Stewart: Sam Bishop; the new owner of the land next to the Landry farm, Del’s potential love interest
• Alexander Eling: Noah LeBlanc; a recent high school graduate, Alice’s potential love interest

Why can’t I watch ‘The Way Home’ Season 3 on the Hallmark Channel?

You can, you will just have to be patient. As noted above, the third season of “The Way Home” will break from the release schedule that it had for Seasons 1 and 2. Instead, it will air all of its episodes in early 2025 on Hallmark+, and then in the fall, they will premiere on Hallmark Channel. In my opinion, it is likely to begin airing on the cable network in early September, probably on Sunday, Sept. 7. Not only would that coincide with the traditional launch of the television season, but when I spoke to Lisa Hamilton Daly about the launch of Hallmark+, she indicated that, depending on title, there would be a six to nine-month wait for shows and movies to move between streamer and cable. So, a September premiere would put it directly in line with that timetable.