‘Be worried about all your favourite characters because everyone is on the line.’
Tonight on Home and Away, the countdown to catastrophe begins.
In what promises to be the most devastating event in the show’s 38-year history, a packed party train, carrying many of Summer Bay’s most beloved residents, is hurtling toward disaster.
And heartbreakingly, one fan-favourite character won’t make it out alive.
Speaking to Sunrise on Wednesday, Emily Weir, who plays Mackenzie Booth, warns that no one is safe.
“Everyone’s life is at stake,” Weir said.
“More than half the cast is on the train. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Weir revealed the disaster brings together characters who rarely share scenes, creating fresh dynamics as the Bay unites under pressure.
“It’s huge, it’s really important to be worried about all your favourite characters because everyone is on the line,” Weird added.
Longtime cast member Ada Nicodemou offered a glimpse behind the scenes of the finale shoot.
“It was a massive shoot,” Nicodemou said.
“You go away — they’re always huge shoots, sometimes over weeks. This one was three or four shoots. It was a big one. There were three or four trains.”
Nicodemou also revealed while filming away from home, she and her real-life partner James Stewart — whose character Justin Morgan is also onboard — got to share a room, cheekily comparing it to “being away for camp”.
After 25 years in Summer Bay, Nicodemou’s character has stared down kidnappings, stabbings, runaway weddings and heartbreaking farewells, earning her the title of the show’s ultimate survivor.
But will she survive this deadly derailment?
For Ally Harris, who plays Dana Matheson, this marks her first Home and Away disaster.
Harris revealed she even had a stunt double for the wilder moments, joking that it felt straight out of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible.
“Instead of a motorcycle off a cliff, it’s a train in a tunnel,” Harris said.
“We all had to do a lot of stunts… I did go from point A to point B with a big bang.”
Ryan Bown, whose character Sonny helps organise the trip to the music festival in Broken Hill, admits he feels responsible for what unfolds.
“I was trying to do the right thing … it’s obviously got us in trouble,” Brown said
“I take full responsibility.”
With episodes filmed months ahead of airing, Shirvington asked the cast how they keep such explosive storylines secret.
Nicodemou simply said: “I just say I’m under contract and can’t talk.”
And tonight’s finale is exactly the kind of secret worth guarding.
Inside the carriage, spirits are high, music is thumping and drinks are flowing.
Speaking on The Morning Show, newcomer Maddison Brown, whose character Jo Langham receives a shock proposal onboard the train, revealed it was “very exciting” to be part of the finale.
“Everyone here is not immune to disaster. So I was pretty excited,” Brown said.
Brown joined the show in June this year and revealed she’s had to warn her family and friends not to post spoilers on Facebook.
But Harris did say one of the biggest twists for the finale is “the train doesn’t make it to the station”.
