Is Harry Warner (Xander Manktelow) Shortland Street's next villain? The 2023 cliffhanger suggests that might be the case.
Is Harry Warner (Xander Manktelow) Shortland Street's next villain? The 2023 cliffhanger suggests that might be the case.
One character dies while two lives - and a marriage - hang in the balance as Shortland Street’s finale takes the action right up to New Year’s Eve.
How exactly are you meant to top burning down an entire hospital?
That’s likely the conundrum that hung over every conversation in the Shortland Street writers’ room this year. After last year’s finale saw much of Ferndale - including the titular hospital - destroyed in a raging wildfire, it left one of two options for this year’s cliffhanger. Either find a way to go even bigger (Magnitude 10 earthquake? Tsunami? Asteroid?) or go in the opposite direction and keep things low-key.
The latter option prevailed on the day. While Chris Warner’s decision to host a last-minute New Year’s Eve boat party suggested we could have seen the cast bobbing in the Waitematā after getting clipped by a cruise ship, there was no big accident or disaster this year. Yet, unlike other low-key finales from years past, Thursday’s one-hour cliffhanger focused on bringing together several of the year’s big storylines, letting them all reach their crescendo and teeing up new twists to be addressed in 2024.
Michael Galvin as Chris Warner and Bella Kalolo-Suraj as Selina in the Shortland Street 2023 cliffhanger.
The episode began with the big focal point of the past fortnight. Rugby coach Owen emerged as a last-minute villain for 2023. Introduced as Drew and Harper’s son’s coach, it was quickly revealed he was a child abuser and the one responsible for assaulting Vili when he was a kid. In a matter of days, though, Owen had pushed Harper down the stairs and tried on several occasions to murder her in hospital, then was beaten to near death by Drew when this was all revealed.
Owen has been held hostage in Drew’s basement all week, with Vili aiding in watching over his former abuser. The finale picks up from last night’s cliffhanger, with Owen trying to strangle Vili with an IV tube. While he fails, the problem of what to do with him becomes crystal clear to his jailers.
To try to cover up what they are doing, Drew wants Harper to stay in hospital, but a hoard of drug seekers storm the centre, looking for the soap’s latest fictional yet highly addictive miracle drug, Zeclastion. Former love rivals Rahu and Harry team up to take one of them down, but Harper determines the hospital is too unsafe and goes home - uncovering her husband and colleague’s crimes.
Given the intensity given to the storyline over the past few weeks, you’d be forgiven for having tuned in tonight expecting this would be the cliffhanger’s big focal point.
And it seems that way, until Rahu learns from Harry’s China-based ex that the young Warner never completed his medical degree, and is not actually qualified as a doctor. While Harry is treating the same drug seeker they took down earlier, Rahu confronts him about the revelation and seems dead-set on outing him.
Conveniently, the drug seeker then wakes up and brutally attacks Rahu, stabbing him repeatedly in the stomach, while also conveniently completely ignoring Harry. Harry simply watches and does nothing to intervene until Maeve and a security guard walk past. Treating Rahu in ED, he sedates him, insisting the two will help each other out. Stella, Harry’s ex and Rahu’s current girlfriend, insists on performing the surgery to save his life, but when she struggles, Harry steps in.
During the surgery, in a moment fans will undoubtedly debate all summer long, Harry hesitates, long enough for Rahu to start bleeding out. Was it an accidental lapse in judgment, or a deliberate move to cover his tracks? Either way, Rahu dies on the table, and the episode ends with Stella weeping over his body, as Harry watches silently from the sidelines, emitting big villain energy as his list of crimes and cover-ups grows. Given this is the same character who a decade ago was taking dick pics on the family cloud account, things have definitely changed for little old Harry Warner.
Rahu (Zak Martin) met his demise in the biggest moment in the cliffhanger.
Not to be ignored completely, in the final moments, as Drew, Harper and Vili debate what to do about Owen, the coach breaks free and hits Vili over the head with a cricket bat before seemingly escaping.
Across town, Madonna, having interpreted Vili’s absence since their wedding last week as being a result of her kissing the overly pushy Father Gabriel, ends the episode going all the way with the priest right on the living room couch, which is frankly the most questionable decision of the episode.
Meanwhile, the writers probably enjoyed toying with viewers’ expectations that Chris’ boat party would turn to chaos, but it turns out to be a relationship-heavy location. In amongst a bevy of cameos from former characters, and some new ones already teased in the official cast photo, Monique and Logan end their short-lived engagement on good terms, while Chris and Selina reconnect after an uncertain few days in their blossoming relationship.
Aside from Desi’s energy drink-fuelled stomach woes - “Do not tell him I’m back on the guarana” a late contender for Quote of the Year - it does seem our partygoers will end the year free of drama. That’s until we learn Marty has relapsed on Zeclastion and overdoes it, collapsing only seconds into the New Year.
Thank goodness half of Ferndale’s medical staff are on hand to treat him, but we’ll have to wait and see next year if Marty and Vili survive, and if Harry will turn into the full-fledged villain he was teased to be today.
But the absence of any obvious bad guy directly pulling the strings as you’d normally expect from a Shortland Street cliffhanger puts the burden on the characters. There’s a big “actions have consequences” theme to this finale, with the four major cliffhangers all resulting from bad choices made by the characters.
There may not have been an exploding ambulance, bach or hospital this year, but this relatively calmer (poor Rahu aside) and more character-driven cliffhanger was all the better for it.
