This week on Home and Away in Australia, Tane finds himself under fire from Mackenzie and Harper after dumping Jo. Will he change his mind?
After finally being proven innocent and surviving a near-fatal prison attack, Tane (Ethan Browne) and his loved ones should now be breathing a sigh of relief and looking to the future.
But instead, he this week faces a backlash over his actions from both before and after his hospitalisation.
After being set up by Harper’s (Jessica Redmayne) embittered mother Kerrie (Sara Wiseman) on a drugs charge, Mackenzie (Emily Weir) had helped Tane skip bail to hide in Western Australia with Brax (Stephen Peacocke) and Ricky (Bonnie Sveen).
The decision had been a difficult one for Tane. With no way of proving his innocence and a long prison sentence all but confirmed, Tane couldn’t face spending years away from his infant son.
As a result, Tane said an emotional farewell to Archie as he opted to take up Mac’s offer and go on the run (we know, it doesn’t make much sense to us either).
Harper was blindsided when she learnt that Tane had given up his fight for justice and willingly abandoned them, and tensions remained high after Tane eventually gave himself up.
Tane later made a phone call to Harper whilst in remand, asking her to never bring Archie to see him. Having seen nephew Nikau (Kawakawa Fox-Reo) grow up with his father in prison, Tane didn’t want his own son to see him in that position.
Meanwhile, having gone to WA to track Tane down and bring him home, expressing how she loved him and wasn’t going anywhere, Jo’s (Maddison Brown) first visit to Tane in prison was far more confronting than she’d expected.
As she looked around at the bleak surroundings after being searched on arrival, Jo wondered whether this was really all they could expect for their relationship if he were to be found guilt
“Jo is completely in love with Tane and would do anything for him,” Maddison Brown told TV Week. “But visiting him in prison forces everything into reality very quickly.”
“Jo is honest with Tane about how she is feeling, and it comes from a place of trying to be real rather than pretending everything is fine. But Tane takes that honesty as rejection.”
When 10-year-old Casey (Austin Cutcliffe) made Yabbie Creek police a laughing stock by finding footage of Kerrie planting the drugs on Archie’s nanny cam, it finally brought the proof they needed that Tane was innocent.
But as the DPP dragged their feet on sorting Tane’s release, the inevitable happened when he came across Prison Officer Peterson (Cameron Jones) being cornered by inmate Knox (James O’Connell) and his cronies. Tane intervened, and ended up rushed to hospital after a severe beating.
It was touch and go as Tane faced the risk of multiple organ failure, but Thursday’s episode saw Tane brought out of his induced coma after Levi (Tristan Gorey) found his kidney function had returned to normal.
Tane woke up to find Mackenzie, Jo, and David (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor) in the room alongside Levi. David gave Tane the news that Kerrie had finally admitted to her crimes, and apologised for what he’d been put through.
Best mate Mac was overjoyed that Tane was out of the woods, and made known the deal she’d made with him whilst he was unconscious—if he woke up, she would ask him to be her baby’s godfather.
Tane’s reunion with Jo wasn’t quite as touching however. Jo had already admitted to David that part of her was dreading seeing Tane on his release from prison, purely for the fact that she felt guilty over abandoning him.
It would seem Tane felt the same. After asking what she was doing there, he reminded her that she wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to see him again.
Jo apologised as she tried to explain she was overwhelmed by the situation, but Tane wasn’t buying it.
“I was in the worst place I could be, and you gave up,” he responded. “How about I make this easy for you? You weren’t sure, well now I am. I don’t want to be with you.”
“Jo is trying to hold space for something quite complex,” Maddison continues. “Whereas Tane sees it in a much more all or nothing way, and unfortunately that leads him to push her away instead of working through it with her.”
“Tane cannot move past Jo’s moment of doubt. He has been through something incredibly traumatic and is in a place where he needs unwavering support, so when Jo for the first time in all this has a very human moment, he takes it quite personally.”
This week, a newly single Jo is devastated as she returns to Summer Bay.
Lacey (Sophea Pennington) does her best to support her sister, urging her to head back to the hospital and fight for her relationship.
Meanwhile, Mac is furious to hear of the latest development, as she storms into Tane’s hospital room and demands an explanation for his dumping Jo after everything they’ve been through.
Back in the bay, John (Shane Withington) has spent the past couple of weeks concerned about the closure of the gym, feeling it doesn’t reflect well on the surf club as a whole.
When he and Mali (Kyle Shilling) agree to work together to try and reopen the gym whilst Tane’s recovering, they’re thrown when Tane denies them permission to do so.
If that wasn’t enough, Tane also has an angry Harper to deal with.
As Harper calls at the hospital, the tension between the two is palpable.
Harper knows she can hardly launch into a furious tirade in the ICU, but later explains to Dana (Ally Harris) that she was so angry at Tane that she could barely look at him.
The following day Harper brings Archie to see his dad. Tane is thrilled to see his son after so long, but Harper seethes as she watches the interaction between them.
Eventually, Harper can’t hold back any longer as she rails at Tane over his actions.
“You abandoned your son!” she yells.
“I was trying to protect him,” Tane insists.
“By disappearing from his life?!”
Tane points out that now all the charges have been dropped things will be good again, but it’s clear from Harper’s reaction that she’s not as willing to forgive and forget!
