Home and Away Spoilers – Logan Bennett leaves Summer Bay
Today’s Australian episode of Home and Away saw another character departure, as Logan Bennett quietly slipped out of Summer Bay…
Logan has had an eventful few weeks, which saw him discover the truth about Mackenzie’s (Emily Weir) debt troubles, days before he was wrongly charged with dangerous driving occasioning death.
It seems the drama has become too much for Logan, and he made the shock decision to leave Summer Bay to return to his old life.
Early in Monday’s Australian episode, which UK viewers will see in mid-July, Logan paced around in his office, deep in thought.
Finally making a decision, he made a phone call, and told the person on the other end that he’d like to speak to someone about re-listing in the medical corps.
At the same time, Mackenzie was talking to Jasmine (Sam Frost) over a coffee, where she told Jasmine that although things had been bad recently, she hoped that she hadn’t broken things so badly that they couldn’t be fixed.
Jasmine told Mac that Logan had been “all over the shop” at work, which made Mac decide she needed to head to the hospital to clear the air.
However, by the time Mac arrived at Northern Districts Hospital, it was too late.
She asked a passing doctor if he had seen Logan, but he explained that Dr Bennett had just resigned – he didn’t have any further details, but he’d been given the call to replace him!
It seems Logan got his wish of re-enlisting in the army, and had unceremoniously left Summer Bay behind without so much as a goodbye.
Mackenzie called him and left him a voicemail message. She later received a voicemail back, where Logan apologised that he didn’t let her know he was leaving, but that he didn’t know himself until he was on his way.
“You’re an amazing woman Mac, I mean that,” he said as he ended the message. “Be happy.”
Although Logan’s swift exit has come around without fanfare, it’s been known for some time that the character would be departing.
Seven took the unusual move of announcing Harley Bonner’s exit from the show back in January, stating that the actor wouldn’t be returning following the Christmas production break.
“Channel Seven can confirm Harley will not return to Home and Away when filming returns in the coming weeks. Seven said in a statement. “Harley leaves with our best wishes and sincere thanks for his work on the show.”
Although no further details were given on Harley’s decision to leave, the statement was made two days before Seven’s mandate for all employees to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 came into effect.
Logan arrived in Summer Bay only ten months ago, after making his debut as part of the medical response unit attending Dean (Patrick O’Connor), Mia (Anna Samson) and Nikau’s (Kawakawa Fox-Reo) car crash.
Transporting a criticially injured Dean to the hospital, Logan soon butted heads with head of emergency Tori Morgan (Penny McNamee) as they disagreed on the best course of treatment.
Based in Reefton Lakes at the time, Logan made a dramatic entrance into Summer Bay on his jetski the following week, immediately bumping into old acquaintance Christian Green (Ditch Davey). It transpired that the two had previously met overseas, whilst Logan was serving as a medical officer in the army, and Christian as part of the Doctors without Borders programme.
Things became somewhat awkward when Christian invited Logan over to dinner, only for Logan to find that Christian was engaged to none other than Tori.
Logan soon took a shine to Dean’s sister Mackenzie, who thanked him for saving Dean’s life, but she turned him down when he asked her for a drink. He left his number with Ziggy to give to Mac, and Ziggy took it upon herself to reply to Logan on Mac’s behalf in an attempt to bring them together.
Tori had to deal with Logan as a patient, when he was brought into the department with concussion sustained during another rescue. Frustrated at his determination to find something to do on the ward, rather than stay in bed resting, Tori reluctantly agreed to Christian’s suggestion that Logan come home with them overnight for observation.
Logan continued to wind Tori up, but made up for it somewhat the next morning by cleaning up and making them breakfast… before he then headed back out to work.
After the initial stumbling blocks, Logan and Mac kissed and later slept together. As the two got to know each other, Mac found Logan to be evasive about his past.
When Dean refused to take his pain medication, concerned that he would have issues after previously having a bad experience with sleeping pills, Logan came to his aid and suspected he had PTSD. He eventually convinced Dean to let him administer a morphine injection to help him sleep, and monitored him throughout the night at the farmhouse, before talking him into taking his medication.
When Logan learned that his unit was relocating from Reefton Lakes to somewhere further up the coast, he took the decision to resign in order to stay in Summer Bay and continue his romance with Mac, and luckily managed to score a job as a visiting doctor at Northern Districts Hospital.
Logan was on hand to assist with the gas attack at Salt, which saw dozens of people exposed to toxic organophosphate, and he performed an emergency tracheotomy on Tane Parata (Ethan Browne).
He treated and discharged Marilyn (Emily Symons), but was later forced to put her into an induced coma when she suffered with paralysis.
Offered the job of head of emergency after Tori’s recent departure, Logan successfully revived a comatose Tane with some experimental drugs, but was confused to learn of Marilyn’s personality change when she was woken from her own coma.
With Marilyn refusing to return to hospital after walking out, Logan used a tarot card session to quiz her, but she quickly saw through him and made an official complaint, claiming that his initial discharging of her was neglectful.
Logan was further frustrated when Dean jumped on the bandwagon and wondered if Tori’s initial plan after the car accident, which Logan went against, would have meant he’d be further along with his recovery and therefore able to surf again.
Alf eventually talked Marilyn into talking with Logan where she saw the error of her ways, and Logan made up with Dean over beer and pizza. He went on to secretly assist Dean in preparing to surf again, and was later cleared of any wrong doing in Marilyn’s complaint.
Mac invited him to move in with her and Bella at the pier apartment, but was shocked when only a week later his ex-girlfriend Neve Spicer (Sophie Bloom) turned up in Summer Bay.
The two had been stationed as army medical officers in Afghanistan two years previous, but Neve had gone missing when they were removed to Germany. Logan had presumed she was dead, and had eventually left the army after being constantly questioned over her whereabouts.
Neve explained that she couldn’t have faced going back to Afghanistian, and it soon became clear to Logan that she was suffering from PTSD. With Neve facing prison if she was discovered, Logan resolved to try and treat her himself.
Neve initially refused to accept she had a problem, and had only come to Summer Bay to resume her relationship with Logan. She was heartbroken to discover he had moved on with Mac, and planned to leave the bay, until Logan threatened to go to the military police unless she let him help her.
Mac quickly offered to have Neve stay with them at the apartment, the plan being to keep her ‘enemy’ close, but it eventually became too much for Mac who issued Logan with an ultimatum. Unwilling to give up on Neve, Mac was shocked when he moved into a motel room with Neve.
Although his intentions in sleeping on Neve’s motel room couch were innocent, Logan faced the wrath of Dean when he received a punch to the face for hurting Mac.
Neve was eventually convinced by Mac to hand herself in to the military police, knowing that Logan would never forgive himself if he had made the call. He promised to always support her as she faced a probable seven years in prison.
Logan was forced to tell the Paratas that Ari (Rob Kipa-Williams) was suffering with an aggressive cancer, and following his death was confused by Mac’s reaction. Ziggy was the one to tell him that the messy relationship Mac had spoken of previously, in which she lost a baby after being dumped, was in fact with Ari. Logan suspected that Mac was still in love with Ari, but after she came up with her own way to find closure, she confirmed that wasn’t the case.
Logan was surprised when a debt collector called for Mac, and she quickly explained that it was a mix-up over a direct debit. Logan offered to help financially, but Mac insisted she had it covered. She was annoyed when Logan paid off the debt anyway, and promised to pay him back.
Little did Logan realise that Mac was seriously in debt after an insurance claim for the gas attack at Salt had been denied, and Mac spent several weeks deceiving Logan as she ran illegal poker nights at Salt.
The increasing amount of secret conversations Mac was having with her colleagues raised suspicions, but Mac covered by claiming she was organising a surprise for him. He was placated when she later presented him with a trip to the Hunter Valley, the tickets for which had been sacrificed by Ziggy to help out.
Logan continued to support the Stewarts through Martha’s decision to go ahead with her kidney transplant, but had to tell them that Martha was no longer strong enough. He worked with Roo on a positivity program designed to lower Martha’s blood pressure.
The same week, Logan was involved in a serious car accident on the Reefton Lakes road. Neither Logan or the driver of the other car, Millie Hudson (Zara Zoe), could remember the details of the accident, which had killed Millie’s best friend Jo.
When the police investigation concluded that Logan was speeding at the time of the accident, it seemed a foregone conclusion that he was to blame, and that he could soon lose everything.
It was the beginning of the end when Logan was called to Salt to help Tane, who had been stabbed. Not wanting the police involved, Mac asked Logan to trust them as she and Tane requested he not call an ambulance. Logan sent Dean off with a list of supplies to ‘acquire’ from the hospital, during which time Mac confessed this was all a result of her being $50k in debt. Logan stopped with Tane all night, and transfused his own blood, before Tane finally turned a corner the following day.
Logan moved out of the apartment, wishing to have some space from Mac, and took to sleeping in his office at the hospital.
After conman PK (Ryan Johnson) was found dead, Flick told Logan that PK had tried to get Mac into bed, and that she’d nearly gone through with it in order to clear her ‘debt’ to him. This was all too much for Logan, who reminded Mac that he’d offered to help her numerous times, and he announced that their relationship was over.
If that wasn’t enough, it was only a few days later that Logan was charged with dangerous driving occasioning death. His life slowly being ripped apart, Logan turned up drunk at the surf club demanding to speak to Mac.
Although Logan later learned that he was not to blame for the accident after all, after Millie finally confessed that she’d taken her eyes off the road to look at her phone, his spirit had been broken. He was abrupt with Roo when she was brought into hospital having burst her stitches, and when Jasmine pulled him up on his attitude, he refused to listen.
When Jasmine reminded him to not lose sight of what he loved doing, Logan realised what he had to do, and made a call to the army…