Summer Bay favourite Ray Meagher has revealed in an exclusive chat with What To Watch that the pre-Christmas break episodes of Home and Away will leave UK viewers on a shocking cliffhanger.
The soap is due to take its annual Christmas break after a tense season finale on Friday 18 November that will leave viewers wondering if some of the characters will be killed off for good!
When the mysterious Heather Frazer (Sofia Nolan) turned up in the bay, fans were stunned to learn that Heather is the secret daughter of Marilyn Chambers (Emily Symons).
Feeling abandoned by Marilyn who gave her up as a baby, Heather is out for revenge, as a conflicted Marilyn keeps Heather’s real identity secret from her friends.
“Heather is a pretty talented piece of work as she’s virtually conned everybody,” shared Ray.
“Leah (Ada Nicodemou) saw through her and Marilyn brings Leah into her confidence and tells her that this woman is her daughter.
“Palmer (Shane Withington) also suspects there’s something not right with Heather.
“When Marilyn takes the blame for Heather slashing Palmer’s tyres, Alf can half comprehend that Marilyn has stopped taking her medication to act as crazily as that.
“But he realises there’s something else going on that’s not right.”
Heather does a surprise flit but later returns, claiming she wants to apologise to Marilyn and her friends by throwing a lavish brunch at her old boarding school.
It’s soon clear that she has something much more sinister in mind when she kidnaps Marilyn and ties her up. When guests Alf, Leah, Roo Stewart (Georgie Palmer) and Irene Roberts (Lynne McGranger) arrive she spikes their drinks, leaving them in danger!
“She grabs us all! She wants Marilyn to confess in front of everyone that she’s her daughter,” explained Ray.
With Alf getting weaker and weaker, it’s not clear whether he will survive — or what Heather will do to them all…
Although Alf is not having the best time of it, Ray admitted that he really enjoyed shooting the location scenes.
“It was about four and a half hours drive from Sydney and it was quite a grand old house. Beautiful grounds and lawns,” he revealed.
“We were there for I think three or four days filming. It was great!”
After 35 years on the soap, Ray has really made his mark on television drama. In October this year he was shocked to be presented with TV’s famous ‘red book’ when Australia’s Channel Seven network screened a special episode of This Is Your Life.
“They surprised me on set and on the day all the crew and everybody knew. Not one of them let on the whole time!” Ray admitted.
There were many tributes from past and present cast, including Home and Away’s most famous alumnus, Thor star Chris Hemsworth, who played Kim Hyde from 2004 to 2007.
“Chris was filming in Broken Hill at the time, which is about 1000 km away, so he recorded a video,” revealed Ray.
“Also, FBI: Most Wanted star Julian McMahon [Ben Lucini], singer Dannii Minogue [Emma Jackson], radio host Kate Ritchie [Sally Fletcher], of course. There was a lot of them.
“It was incredibly flattering and incredibly humbling and incredibly emotional.”
Home and Away airs weekdays at 1:45 pm on Channel 5 and 6:00 pm on 5Star followed by a 'first look' episode on 5Star at 6:30 pm.
