Neighbours confirms major death fears as two legends return in spring preview

 

Neighbours have released their Spring trailer – and there’s a number of new faces arriving in Ramsay Street as well as a shocking poisoning incident.

The Amazon Freevee soap will introduce Jane Harris’ (Annie Jones) ex-husband Vic, who is set to cause a storm for son Byron (Xavier Molyneux).

A family member of deepfake hacker Haz Devkar (Shiv Palekar) shows up in the wake of his devastating car crash, and JJ Varga-Murphy (Riley Bryant) is handed an exciting new opportunity, but will he mess it up?

On top of that we’ll see Ian Smith make a welcome return as Harold Bishop, and as he settles into Eirini Rising, it’s not long before another iconic Erinsborough resident joins him.

There’s new loves for Aaron Brennan (Matt Wilson) and Nicolette Stone (Hannah Monson) and a disastrous event at the Yorokobi winery.

So postpone that wedding to Paul Robinson (Stefan Dennis) – you have enough unmissable drama to be excited about this Spring, as Metro.co.uk takes a look ahead…

Nicolette is thrilled when her dad Vic arrives in Ramsay Street, but it seems that Byron and Jane are less than impressed to see him.

As the Street stalwart confides in Toadie Rebecchi (Ryan Moloney), Terese Willis (Rebekah Elmaloglou) and Susan Kennedy (Jackie Woodburne), we see Byron fume at his father for showing up in his life after being estranged.

Played by actor Craig Hall, we’ll see him arrive unannounced at No. 24 on 14th May, but had the show not been cancelled in 2022, he could’ve been on our screens a lot sooner.

In a chat with Chatterbox Radio at the time, script producer Shane Isheev said: ‘We even know who we wanted to play that role. Vic would have come in and been a bit of a charmer. I think, if Clive and Jane had stayed together, he probably would have tempted Jane away from Clive. Maybe putting the moves on Wendy and charming Vera.

‘Karl and Susan lost all that money with the Montana storyline. He would have hooked into that and maybe even made things worse for them.’

With Jane’s fiancé Mike Young (Guy Pearce) currently travelling around Europe, its left us wondering whether she could be tempted to stray to her ex-husband!

As we know, nobody arrives in Erinsborough without an ulterior motive, so what brings Vic back to his family?

We meet Haz’s sister Amira – and sparks will fly

In December, it was announced that Haz Devkar’s sister Amira would be joining the show but we’ve had to wait five months before actress Maria Thattil makes her first appearance.

There’s a huge lead time on filming the episodes before they reach our screens, a far bigger gap than any of the UK soaps.

In today’s (2nd May) episode, Mackenzie Hargreaves (Georgie Stone) accidentally hits Haz with her car after discovering he’d fled the suburb to work alongside cyber criminal Wade Fernsby.

The trailer reveals that Amira will be quite the domineering presence as she orders Mack out of the hospital, where her brother still lies unconscious, and later embarks on a new relationship with Nicolette.

Nic has been single ever since she broke up with Kiri Durant (Gemma Bird Matheson) off-screen, and in recent weeks we’ve seen her dwell on her love life as Byron hooked up with Sadie Rodwell (Emerald Chan).

Harold’s back!

The long-awaited return of Harold Bishop kicks off at the end of the month, as he moves into the new Eirini Rising retirement development that has been set up by Terese and Jane.

He’ll also feature in the soap’s opening titles for the first time in fifteen years from 28th May.

Aaron moves on following David’s death

In some of the show’s most tragic scenes, we saw David Tanaka (Takaya Honda) be struck by a rock and fall off a cliffside in February, and husband Aaron and brother Leo (Tim Kano) had to carry his lifeless body through the woods back to their car.

This week, Nic dealt him a devastating ultimatum after learning that he’d been engaging in drink and drugs benders with Krista Sinclair (Majella Davis) – get clean, or have no contact with their daughter Isla.

It’s about time he gets some happiness, isn’t it?

Things look set to change for Aaron as Melanie Pearson (Lucinda Cowden) introduces him to Logan (Matthew Backer) and the two seem to hit it off!

He looks set to help the barman tackle his demons, as after exercising together (no pun intended), the difficult subject of David’s death is addressed.

JJ’s troubles continue

It’s been a turbulent few months for JJ as he became embroiled in the dodgy criminal activities of Felix Rodwell (James Beaufort) – and in a further blow he discovered that he was his dad!

The trailer reveals his mums, Cara (Sara West) and Remi (Naomi Rukavina), telling him to make a good impression as he arrives at the Yorokobi vineyard.

Has Leo given him a job opportunity after being expelled from school?

However, it doesn’t seem to be long before he returns to his old tricks and Nell Rebecchi (Ayisha Salem-Towner) is spotted skiving from school to join him.

During a tense conversation with his parents, Toadie calls JJ a bad influence.

A poisoning rocks the Eirini Rising launch

As tensions rise between Leo and Krista, he prepares to serve up his finest wine for the retirement experience launch.

However, in a sick twist we see someone inject a substance through the top of the bottles and Andrew Rodwell (Lloyd Well) later informs him that there’s been a poisoning incident.

We see a number of key characters sample the ruined produce, with Jane commenting on an unusual taste.

Who will be affected by the cruel move?

As Nell shouts over for help, the residents look on in horror – and there’s a familiar face in the crowd!

Hilary Robinson, played by Anne Scott-Pendlebury, was a series regular between 1987 and 1990 and has made a number of guest appearances since 2015.

Could she be moving into the development?

Neighbours streams new episodes Monday to Thursday from 7am on Amazon Freevee, with a wealth of classic episodes also available to watch now.