Home and Away actress Anna Samson has admitted that her character Mia Anderson’s relationship with Ari Parata is going to be severely tested following the horrific car accident that causes her to miscarry their child.
Mia ends up being trapped in the car alongside a critically injured Dean Thompson (Patrick O’Connor) after they swerve off the road and are left hanging on the edge of a cliff.
Mia’s nephew Nikau Parata (Kawakawa Fox-Reo) is thrown from the car as it flips and is left injured by the side of the road.
After Mia comes round, she sees that Dean is in a very bad way. She heroically manages to escape the wreckage and secure the car from falling from the ledge by tying it to a post with cut pieces of the seatbelts!
The paramedics arrive by helicopter, headed up by Dr Logan Bennett (new Home and Away signing Harley Bonner). But it’s clear to Mia that something terrible has happened to her…
“She’s in such shock and she’s discombobulated that she’s not entirely present when she first meets Dr Logan,” explained Anna.
“She is so worried about Dean and she’s gone to great lengths to keep him alive.
“When she sees Logan she says, ‘I’m fine, look after Dean’. Then she says she’s pregnant and she has one moment when she asks, ‘the baby?’
“I think she knows straight away that she’s lost the baby, although she’s hoping that it’s not her worst fear.”
Mia is taken to hospital, where the heartbreaking news is confirmed and she sobs next to partner Ari Parata (Rob Kipa-Williams).
The couple were hoping for a fresh start and a baby to complete their family, that also includes Mia's grown up daughter from another relationship, Chloe Anderson (Sam Barrett).
Sadly, in the past their attempts to have a baby of their own ended in several miscarriages and the death of baby Kauri when he was just a few days old.
As the news of her miscarriage sinks in, instead of finding comfort from Ari, a grief stricken Mia pushes him away. After all, she would never have been driving to pick up Nikau if Ari hadn’t fallen out with his nephew over Nik’s recent behaviour...
“She doesn’t pull away from Ari because she blames him for the death of their baby,” Anna insisted.
“It’s because he represents what she was so looking forward to – a child that they now don’t get to have.
“She can’t look at him. She can’t look at love, she can’t look at hope, she can’t look at the father of that child. She’s in so much pain that she has to deal with it internally, not externally.”
But despite the huge task of coping with yet more loss in their relationship, Anna thinks that Mia and Ari are made for each other.
“They’re the love of each other’s lives and there’s never really been another option for them.
“In the last year of my life I’ve spent more of my time with Rob Kipa-Williams than anyone else, including my actual partner!” Anna added.
“He’s my family and, as with family, they drive you nuts and you love them unconditionally.
"We enjoy our work together very much and we’re very proud of the relationship we’ve created for Ari and Mia. I think it’s a very believable story of love and bickering and romance.”
When whattowatch.com asked Anna what’s next for Mia’s story, she teased that there is MUCH more to come...
“I’ve just had some of the most intense filming of not just my time on Home and Away, but my entire career!” Anna shared.
“It’s some of the most beautiful, heartwarming, and heartbreaking things I’ve ever had to perform.
“I would say it’s even bigger and more traumatic and more intense than the episodes about the car crash.”
Home and Away airs weekdays at 1:15pm/6:00pm on Channel 5.
