When Home and Away returns later this month, Ziggy and Dean will learn shocking news about a baby, while a suspicious box in the mail raises the possibility that Marilyn is hiding a child.
There have been several ads promising the drama to come when Home and Away returns on Monday, August 8th, while it is presently off the air in Australia until after the Commonwealth Games.
The first depicts a fan favourite in a life-or-death situation. For the people of Summer Bay, a new promo has just been revealed, hinting to what appears to be two baby bombshells!
The first surprise is a positive pregnancy test that Ziggy (Sophie Dillman) and Dean (Patrick O’Connor) are holding.
Since Sophie Dillman was recently spotted filming in Palm Beach while carrying a baby bump, we have already been anticipating this news in the upcoming months.
Dean informed Ziggy in 2019 that he never intended to have children because he was concerned that his mother Karen’s (Georgia Adamson) schizoaffective illness would be inherited from him.
But after learning he already had a son, Jai (River Jarvis), whom he’d never known about, he appeared to rethink his mind. Dean even brought up having more kids after a brief reconciliation with Jai’s mother Amber (Maddy Jevic).
What will Dean think of Ziggy’s pregnancy news, and is Ziggy really prepared to have children? Currently, Ziggy is settled into his job as a mechanic at Justin’s shop and has agreed to serve as Theo’s (Matt Evans) tutor through an apprenticeship.
Prior to Ziggy deciding to stay and assist Theo, Dean and Ziggy had also discussed taking a second road trip, this time up to Cairns to visit Ziggy’s sister Coco. The two can definitely say goodbye to any more similar hobbies in the foreseeable future if they soon have a baby to juggle!
Additionally, a newly single Theo and newcomer Kirby are seen kissing in the trailer (Angelina Thomson). Following Chloe’s abrupt departure from Summer Bay two weeks previously, which Tane (Ethan Browne) had arranged for her own protection, Theo broke up with Chloe (Sam Barrett).
Tane forewarned Chloe not to reveal her location to Theo for the time being while she was visiting her mother Mia (Anna Samson) in New Zealand. Their relationship ended as a result of Chloe’s continuing refusal to provide Theo with any information.
Theo and Kirby’s relationship was previously covered by us after they were often photographed holding hands while shooting scenes in Palm Beach.
But the most intriguing part of the advertisement was on Marilyn (Emily Symons).
Greg Barnett, the commissioning editor for Channel 5, recently hinted that there would be a significant Marilyn plotline, and what appears to be the beginning of this has been subtly suggested.
Greg Barnett, the commissioning editor for Channel 5, recently hinted that there would be a significant Marilyn plotline, and what appears to be the beginning of this has been subtly suggested.
A picture of a baby is seen in the envelope that Marilyn is opening. She seems to recognise the kid, and as she flips the picture over, she sees writing on the back.
“Guess who?”
Has one of the long-time residents of the bay a sinister secret that’s going to be revealed?
Let’s look at a few of the options…
Existence of Byron Fisher
There is a question at hand that we never anticipated debating.
The loss of Marilyn and Donald Fisher’s (Norman Coburn) little boy caused their marriage to disintegrate about 23 years ago.
Even though Byron’s passing didn’t happen on-screen in the US, which would be a clear advantage for storytellers tempted to go in this direction, it would be extremely upsetting to long-time viewers if the programme were to reverse one of 1999’s most moving stories. As a result, we think it’s a fairly improbable choice.
However, given the return of Martha Stewart (Belinda Giblin) in 2018—whose apparent death in 1985 (now revealed to have been faked) provided one of the foundations on which the very beginnings of the show were built—it wouldn’t be the first time in recent years that a retcon had occurred.
Let’s examine what is known about Byron presently.
After marrying Donald in 1996, Marilyn was keen to start a family. In 1997, they became pregnant with a son, Oscar, but Marilyn sadly miscarried the child.
With fibroids indicating that she’d be unlikely to be able to carry a kid to full-term, Marilyn underwent surgery to remove them in 1998, and later that year the pair were overjoyed to find she was pregnant once more.
In order to have her baby delivered through emergency caesarian in February 1999, Marilyn was put under anaesthesia. As a result, she found it difficult to form a bond with her son. When Marilyn went missing for two months due to postpartum depression, Donald gave Byron to live-in babysitter Ellen Porter (Anne Grigg).
Before tragedy struck again when Byron was diagnosed with liver cancer at the age of six months old and had already spread to his lungs, Marilyn gradually came back and adjusted to motherhood.
Donald and Marilyn took Byron to a renowned private facility in the US; two weeks later, Donald returned to Summer Bay to gather additional finances, while Marilyn and Byron stayed in Seattle, initially staying with Colleen’s nephew Charlie.
Byron initially responded well to treatment, which was wonderful news, but things quickly turned for the worst. Donald was horrified to learn that Byron had passed away due to an infection during the last week of the 1999 campaign when he got a call from the hospital.
In the hours following Byron’s passing, Marilyn was reportedly drugged, but just as Donald was getting ready to leave for abroad, he found that she had vanished.
When Marilyn was not to be found upon his arrival in the US, Donald spoke to Father MacGuire, a chaplain she had become friendly with and who had been asked to conduct a service in the event that Byron perished. Only Donald and Charlie were present for Byron’s funeral in the United States, as per Marilyn’s wishes. Later, Marilyn wrote Donald a letter saying it would be too difficult for her to go back to Summer Bay, thereby ending their union.
If this information turned out to be false, it raises the question of how it could have been accomplished in a plausible manner—could there have been some bizarre baby-swap/cover-up at the hospital?
There is also the plotline from 2010 to take into account, in which Marilyn had a dream in which she saw an 11-year-old Byron. Although it may be claimed that this proves nothing about whether Byron is alive or dead, the sighting was only possible because Marilyn had a dream about Miles Copeland’s (Josh Quong-Tart) late daughter Amber, fondly known as Rabbit.
Prior to seeing a sketch Miles had created, Marilyn was unaware of Rabbit’s true identity. Miles had been experiencing glimpses of Rabbit during a depressive episode. She recognised her right away as the same girl from her dream, proving that it hadn’t only been in Marilyn’s head.
Does Marilyn have a secret child?
A less extreme hypothesis is that Marilyn has at some point given birth to another kid during her years away from Summer Bay, which is nonetheless potentially problematic.
Marilyn made her Summer Bay debut in 1989 as Lance Smart’s girlfriend (Peter Vroom). Marilyn, who was then 20 years old, had been raised by her aunt Jean (Maggie Kirkpatrick) for the last few years of her youth after her parents had taken her out of the children’s home.
In 1991, Jean dropped the bombshell that George and Heather Davidson (Doug Scroope and Lynn Rainbow), Marilyn’s lazy parents, were actually alive and had simply taken Marilyn into their home because she didn’t fit their life as carnival workers. However, at no point did Jean mention Marilyn having given up a child.
Marilyn would be between 34 and 37 years old if she had a child before Summer Bay.
After rejecting Lance’s marriage proposal in 1989, Marilyn took a three-month hiatus from Summer Bay, but she didn’t leave the community again until she left in 1992 with her fiancé Phil Bryant (Vince Martin) and his daughter Toni (Kathryn Dufty).
Marilyn left Phil as soon as she realised he was cheating on her and didn’t come back for almost 3 years, arriving in 1995. There was no indication of her having left a little child with Phil, and if she had, we think he would have arrived in Summer Bay.
It would be almost two years after Marilyn left in 1999 before we saw her again. Was Marilyn carrying a child when she departed Summer Bay with Donald Whom did she decide to give up—children? That seems like it would be unfair to Donald. We’ll rule that one out because it would contradict their later discussions about how she was coping with her grief over Byron.
Marilyn was with two primary school age children and one in a pram when Donald met her in London in 2001 after spotting her at the book launch for “A Letter to Byron,” but she soon revealed to him that she was a childminder.
When Marilyn was living in the UK in the early to mid 2000s, did she eventually have a child, who is now in their late teens or very early 20s?
Given the timelines, this alternative could seem the most likely. Between Marilyn’s initial meeting with Donald in London and her final return to Australia in 2010, there were 812 years. During that time, she could have found a new spouse and had a child, or she could have had a kid placed for adoption.
Any child would have most likely arrived before then because Donald had also paid Marilyn off-screen visits while she was battling illness in 2007.
Again, it’s not rare for a long-running character in Home and Away to have a secret child. In the previous 34 years, Alf (Ray Meagher) has learned about two of his children—Quinn and Owen—while also learning that his wife Ailsa (Judy Nunn) had a daughter, Shauna (Kylie Watson), in the 1970s while she was incarcerated.
Even more recently, Irene (Lynne McGranger), a pillar of Summer Bay, admitted that she had a long-lost kid, who was later identified as Mick Jennings (Kristian Schmid), whom she had been forced to give up after being abused by her uncle in her adolescence.
A Wicked Hoax?
Could it be that someone is attempting to trick Marilyn into believing that Byron is still alive because they have something against her?
Given her precarious condition at the time of Byron’s passing, particularly if she had to be sedated in the hours that followed and hadn’t gone to his funeral, it’s understandable why Marilyn might begin to doubt herself. However, could Marilyn really have an enemy out there who would be so cruel as to watch her suffer like that?
Whatever the cause, we’re certain that something major is going to happen that will rock Marilyn’s world, and it won’t be long until the person who took (or is in) the picture appears in Summer Bay.
On Monday, August 8 at 7 p.m. on Seven, Home and Away will air once more in Australia.
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