Ethan MacGuire
Ethan MacGuire (2013-2014)
Matt Minto
Episodes: 5821–5827, 5861–5868, 5883–5886
Sibling: Zac MacGuire
Spouse: Sarah Wilson (deceased)
Children: Denny Miller (deceased), Oscar (deceased) & Evelyn MacGuire
Ethan was Zac’s brother, who reported Zac to the police when he was involved in drugs. Although Zac would later agree Ethan had done the right thing, it left them estranged, to the point that Zac was unaware that Ethan’s wife Sarah had died for over a year, until he was contacted by her sister Hannah. She told him that Ethan and his twin children, Evelyn and Oscar, had joined a “self-empowerment” group that she considered dangerous, mainly because of an initiation ceremony teens had to go through on turning sixteen.
Zac and Leah found a video of Ethan on the Sanctuary Lodge website, where he credited them for turning his life around. Zac went to the commune for an awkward but friendly reunion with Ethan, who immediately guessed Hannah had sent him. Ethan took him to see Oscar and Evelyn and they shared a meal together, with Ethan and Evelyn insisting Hannah was paranoid and didn’t understand the place, while Oscar mostly remained quiet. After Zac had left, Ethan rang someone and said it had all gone to plan.
Ethan later discovered Oscar had been talking to Zac in secret, using a phone Zac had slipped him. He allowed Oscar to be beaten by the group’s leader Murray Grainger as punishment. When Zac turned up, Ethan refused to let him see Oscar, backed up by the rest of the group, and then filed a restraining order against Zac, claiming he had threatened them. Zac later came to see him and kept him distracted while Brax, Heath and Kyle removed Oscar and an unwilling Evelyn from the dwelling, with Zac restraining Ethan to stop him pursuing them.
Evelyn was quickly convinced of Zac and Hannah’s point of view but decided to go back to the cult to keep an eye on Ethan. However, they were kept apart, with him even sending Murray when Hannah requested a meeting, and Evelyn did not see Ethan again until he and Murray tried to stop her and Spencer leaving the commune, after they’d refused to take part in a forced marriage ceremony. Zac arrived and took the two teens away before calling the police. Murray was arrested for child abuse and Ethan was arrested with him. He was quickly released and went to see Evelyn and Oscar, asking them to move to the city with him. Although Zac allowed him to speak to them alone, they rejected the offer, unsure if they could trust him, and Ethan left alone.
He returned a few weeks later, insisting he was ready to have the twins back, but was met with scepticism by everyone. Evelyn and Oscar declined to go with him, saying they felt like they’d found a home in Summer Bay. Ethan appeared to accept the decision but followed them to an open air concert with three other men and confronted them when they were alone, revealing he had taken over the cult. He and his men forcibly removed the pair from the scene, also taking Kyle when he tried to stop them and locking all three of them in a shipping container. He then went to the hospital and told Hannah she didn’t have to worry about the twins anymore.
However, moments later, a bomb planted by Jade Montgomery in Bianca’s bag went off nearby. Ethan suffered a punctured lung and blood loss, dying without regaining consciousness. Zac and Casey found Kyle’s phone in his belongings and they, Hannah and Tamara used the information on Ethan’s phone to rescue the prisoners.
It wasn’t until after Ethan’s funeral that it was discovered he had had another daughter, Denny, conceived when he was seventeen with his girlfriend Olivia Miller. Ethan had been aware of her existence, having a photo of her as a baby in his belongings, but seemingly never made any attempt to be a part of her life.