The Neighbours finale featured Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue. Photo / Channel 10
OPINION:
This story contains spoliers
What is nostalgia if not trying to transport yourself back to a different time?
As Jane Harris says towards the end of the Neighbours series finale: "Daring to dream I might recapture a time from the past. Over the years, I started to miss the girl I used to be."
For Australians tuning in to the 8903rd episode of Neighbours, it was an exercise in nostalgia – and the producers knew it.
Maybe you haven't watched the iconic soap opera since Charlene and Scott left, or since Susan Kennedy slapped Karl across his cheating face. Or perhaps you last paid attention when Delta Goodrem was still Nina Tucker or maybe you got as far as the Margot Robbie years.
For most Australians waxing lyrical about the end of Neighbours after 37 years, the goodwill towards the show stems not from having followed it religiously last week but from long-ago memories.
That's the place it holds in Australia. Neighbours is the show we all know and are glad was part of our culture, even if we haven't watched it in years and decades. And joked that only British people cared.
Because when something you took for granted would always be there comes to an end, there's that pang of nostalgia.
And nostalgia was all over the final episode with scant attention paid to the newer cast members – although they all had a little moment – with the bulk of the 90-minute episode given over to legacy characters.
So, where did they all end up? How did Neighbours end?
Jane Harris (Annie Jones) and Mike Young (Guy Pearce) are characters from the first era of Neighbours, contemporaries of Charlene and Scott.
Jane returned to Neighbours in recent years, which gave the producers an opportunity to craft a meaty finale storyline involving her and Mike, her "one who got away".
Mike rides back into Erinsborough on a motorcycle, mysteriously interrupting Clive's attempt to woo back Jane. When he visits his daughter Sammy in Paul Robinson's (Stefan Dennis) office where she works for him, he and Jane fumble their way into an awkward reunion.
They literally bump into each other, there are props involved and later they both reach for a heart-shaped box at the same time, eyes meeting. It's sweet.
She takes him on a tour of all the Ramsay Street houses and there are flashbacks to the olden days when they were still kids.
But there are two complications. One is Clive, who still wants Jane back but eventually cedes to Mike when it becomes clear the two former young lovers keep making googly eyes at each other. And the other are Jane and Mike's own neuroses.
She's convinced her past means she's too damaged to allow herself to hope for a rekindling of their romance while he needs her to understand that he too comes with baggage and that together they can work it out.
He says to her, "Jane, you were the first person I wanted to see when I came back here. The reality is I'm still in love with you. Probably more now than I ever used to be. I realise this is probably a little much but if I was here, we could take things slowly and see where things go."
Oh yeah, because he's decided to stay in Erinsborough. He's made an offer on a house on Ramsay Street (because everyone is selling up which seems like a silly real estate decision) and asked Susan about a job at the high school.
It's love, after all these years.
The main draw for the episode – and how the writers contrived for everyone to return to the show – is the wedding of Toadie and Mel. It's his fourth marriage but at least this one won't end with him driving off a cliff. He climbs out of a car at one point but that is the extent of his vehicular involvement.
But before the wedding itself, Amy (Jacinta Stapleton) returns after Joel (Daniel McPherson) tracked her down to a bar in Cairns (but clearly filmed in the dressed up corner of a studio) where she was drowning in daiquiris her confusion about any feelings she might have for Toadie.
Joel convinces Amy that she doesn't love Toadie and never has, so she legs it back to Erinsborough just in time for the wedding, where she's welcome at the ceremony and street party afterwards.
Toadie and Mel don some alternative wedding threads (he in a striped knitted shirt and Converses and she in some gold-patterned pleated culottes) and exchange vows in typical them fashion.
Afterwards, they're all gathered at Karl and Susan's where some old neighbours who couldn't be there in person send messages across the interwebs.
Here, a bunch of former residents, in character, beam their messages to Toadie and Mel (and Neighbours fans), including Kym Valentine, Jesse Spencer, Carla Bonner, Delta Goodrem, Stephanie McIntosh, Blair McDonough and — its most famous alumna — Margot Robbie.
Robbie, as Donna Freedman, says to Toadie and Mel, "Have an amazing wedding day, Toadie. And I love you guys so much. My years on Ramsay Street were some of the best of my entire life". And you just know Robbie is talking about her time on the show. Awww, that's nice.
They all tell Toadie he can't leave Ramsay Street – because he was going to – and based on that, he decides he won't.
Everyone gathers outside on the cul-de-sac and there are lots of loved up couples whose New York-bound plans are scuppered to stay in Erinsborough.
At the end, Toadie accidentally lets a balloon into the air and it pops, showering glitter on everyone.
Even Erinsborough's longstanding villain gets a happy ending.
Having sold Lassiter's to Shane Ramsey (Peter O'Brien), Paul is all ready to leave and fly off to New York.
But he still has regrets – namely that things didn't work out with his sixth wife Therese (Rebekah Elmaloglou). He says he left it too late.
Inspired by Mike's attempts to reunite with Jane, things got real for Paul and Therese at Toadie's wedding. Every guest is asked to write down the one word they associate with love and Paul's is "respect". When he reveals this, Therese runs out from the wedding.
He follows her and they talk on a park bench about where it went wrong but also his fears that he will only hurt her again because he knows he's a scoundrel. And it's because he respects her that he won't put her through it again.
That's when Therese reveals what she'd written down and it was "acceptance". She tells Paul that she accepts him for who he is and that she doesn't always like him but she always loves him.
With that, they're back together and the New York plans are off. Paul cancels the deal with Shane, who's totally fine with it, and was busy shacking up with Izzy (Natalie Bassingthwaithe).
The Kennedys have long been the emotional centre of Neighbours and there wasn't going to be a Neighbours finale without their heavy presence.
After older son Mal (Benjamin McNair) had sprung it on his parents that he was with Izzy earlier in the week, it all implodes when it's revealed Izzy had only hooked up with him as an excuse to return to Ramsay Street - and she cheated on him with Shane.
Izzy confesses to the Kennedys that she desperately wants their approval because if the Kennedys could see the best in her, then everyone else will too. Mal is devastated and Karl and Susan do their best to not say "I told you so".
In a moment alone together, Susan is generous towards Izzy, telling her that until Izzy finds a way to like herself, she'll never truly be happy.
While this is happening, the Kennedys are dealing with the fact they're about to be the last Ramsay Street residents left standing. They're the only ones who aren't selling their house. In every scene, Susan gets misty eyed, a physical manifestation of every long-time, diehard Neighbours fan.
Harold tells them they're the last custodians of this community.
When other events transpire and everyone decides to stay, it's like they have their family back.
At the very end, Susan looks around at all the familiar faces, including some ghostly ones (Madge is back, again!), and she takes stock of the special place so many people have called home. And that's where it ends.
Karl, noticing his wife in a trance, says to her, "Where were you just now?"
She responds, "I was home".
Oh yeah, did you think we'd forgotten about the much-mooted return of Erinsborough's favourite son and daughter, Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue?
It was hyped as A VERY BIG DEAL but ultimately had zero impact on the actual story. But it's nice for the old-school fans.
In an appearance that could only be classified as a cameo, Charlene and Scott drive up in a green Mini Cooper with Queensland plates, while a snippet of Minogue and Donovan's song "Especially for You" can be heard in the background.
They step out onto an empty cul-de-sac, look around and he says, "Wow, wow, wow, look at this, crazy, we made it" to which she replies, "Home sweet home".
After realising no one is in any of the houses, Charlene spots an open window and gets a mischievous look on her face. The implication is she's going to break in, a nod to when they first met.
Cut to later, and the party is in full swing on the street – the same party that would definitely have been setting up when they drove up to an empty street at the same time as Toadie's wedding.
Charlene and Scott aren't among it though, they're at the side of one of the houses and Jane and Mike are told they're there. The four run towards each other for big bear hugs but it's also obvious that Pearce wasn't shooting the same day as Donovan and Minogue.
While there are shots of both sides looking at each other, they're never in the same shot together. Same goes for later on when Charlene and Scott are perched on a balcony with Jane, Paul and Harold, overlooking everyone with smiles on, and Mike is there too but he's always shown in a separate shot.
It's kind of weird that the prodigal son and daughter of Ramsay Street would come all this way but not mingle with anyone below.
But hey, that's the challenge of production schedules and very special guest stars.
• The final episode of Neighbours airs in New Zealand on September 1 on TVNZ
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