Neighbours airs an emotional final episode with a big cliffhanger

The final ever episode of Neighbours has left viewers with one last cliffhanger, as the residents continued to debate the fate of Ramsay Street and their future as a community.

Episode 9363 – or the 460th and final episode of the Amazon era of Neighbours – is now available to watch on Prime Video, but as we say an emotional goodbye, did we learn whether Ramsay Street can be saved?

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Australian viewers have a few more hours to wait – they’ll see the final two episodes as a double-bill tonight on Channel 10, kicking off at 8:40pm.

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The final week of episodes felt like they came around very quickly, and the show somewhat hurriedly tied up a number of loose ends.

With JJ (Riley Bryant) captured by escapee Eric Linwell (Brett Archer) and bearded crony Ricky Denham (Danny Matier) at the end of last week, Holly (Lucinda Armstrong Hall) got the chance for one final heroic act, as she spotted Ricky heading towards an ambulance on Power Road.

Approaching to ask for directions, she heard JJ’s screams from the back of the ambulance and quickly alerted his search party.

Meanwhile, Cara’s (Sara West) words finally got through to former schoolfriend Tania Linwell (Zoe Boesen), who refused to get into the van when Eric and Ricky sped through the complex to collect her.

The delay gave Felix (James Beaufort) just enough time to stop the ambulance, rescue JJ, and bring the Linwells to justice once and for all. 

The emotional ordeal was enough to trigger Remi’s (Naomi Rukavina) lost memories to come flooding back to her, as she remembered wife Cara for the first time since her accident back in July.

Her returned memory reunited Neighbours‘ newest and final family unit just in the knick of time.

Tragically, Holly doubled over in pain shortly after her heroic act, and when she was found by Wendy (Candice Leask) and was rushed to Erinsborough Hospital, she learnt that she’d lost her and Andrew’s (Lloyd Will) baby.

She was reassured by Dr Stevie Hart (Jazz Bell) that the loss wasn’t caused by anything she’d done, but was down to an undetected chromosomal abnormality.

A devastating end to Holly’s turbulant time on Neighbours, which only really served to give hope to a potential future Rodwell reconciliation.

Both Wendy and Sadie (Emerald Chan) offered Holly their condolences, and the final episode saw them bump into Andrew on Ramsay Street, where relations were warming between them as they prepared to move on with their lives.

Sadie expressed how it was the first time since the affair revealed that she missed her dad, and how it was weird moving on without him.

Meanwhile, Krista (Majella Davis) discovered that she was pregnant just a matter of weeks after revealing to Leo (Tim Kano) that she had no desire to be pregnant again, or to raise a child.

While Leo was quietly overjoyed, Krista was terrified by the discovery, but when Nicolette (Hannah Monson) presented her with a list of the reasons she’d be a great mum, she began to warm to the idea.

Whether a surprise pregnancy for someone who vehemently didn’t want to be pregnant is a fitting way for Neighbours to end, I’m not so sure.

Thankfully, Nicolette did get the baby news she was looking for. She revealed to ex-girlfriend Kiri (Gemma Bird Matheson) that she’d found a donor, and there was “sperm on ice with my name on it!”

After a difficult few weeks in which Paul (Stefan Dennis) confessed to his kiss with Chelsea (Viva Bianca), he and Terese (Rebekah Elmaloglou) also cemented their love for one another with a touching commitment ceremony in the penultimate episode.

The last ‘final episode’ of Neighbours in July 2022 ended with the wedding of Toadie (Ryan Moloney) and Melanie (Lucinda Cowden), an unusual and slightly rushed pairing, and Neighbours‘ new final ‘wedding’ felt more realistic for the on-again-off-again power couple who first kissed way back in January 2016.

While the 2022 finale ended with a poignant monologue from Susan reflecting on how you ‘begin to describe a street’, this year the role fell to Paul to sum up the importance of their beloved community.

His commitment ceremony speech saw him reference the “people who know about ups and downs, who know about mistake and redemption, about forgiveness, and coming together when it really matters.”

Jane (Annie Jones) and Clint (Jason Wilder) got their happy ending too, as Jane finally decided to give things a go with her younger lover.

In a bizarre tying-up-of-a-long-forgotten loose end, Jane discovered her lost engagement ring, given to her by Mike Young (Guy Pearce) back in the first week of the 2023 revival.

It had ended up in a vase which she’d long-since thrown out, but which Karl (Alan Fletcher) had saved from hard rubbish and had been hoarding at No. 28.

It was the closure Jane needed, and prompted her to kiss Clint, confirming that the series would end with the pair as an item.

Soon after, Clint was delighted when Addison (Florence Gladwin) asked if she could have a bedroom in his house and split her time between there and her mum’s place, giving the father and daughter a happy ending of their own.

In the one-before-last episode, we saw Paul and Shane – the only two characters to have appeared in the first ever episode in 1985 – reminiscing about jumping the fence at No. 24, getting on their BMXs to create mischief, and Max Ramsay Snr. laying into Jim Robinson for Paul leading his boy astray.

“It’s sad,” Shane knowingly surmised. “It feels like it’s happening for a reason.”

With so many loose ends tied up, today’s episode only left the ultimate question – with Ramsay Street under threat, what was next for its residents?

The finale was set one week later, perhaps a nod to the Amazon era beginning with a time jump to one year after the 2022 finale.

Fittingly, it began with JJ driving the Varga-Murphys into the street by circling the cul-de-sac and parking outside No. 24, just as he did in the first scene of the 2023 revival.

“Is it really over? All the history, all the memories?” Susan pondered in the kitchen of No. 28, just one of a number of meta references to the show’s end. “Feels like déjà vu…”

“We have to plan for our future,” Karl pointed out.

“And you think that’s at Ramsay Hills?” Susan asked – a nod to a potential but very-much-not-currently-on-the-cards future revival of Neighbours away from the iconic street.

As with the 2022 finale, a number of old faces returned. There were fewer 80s icons this time – no Mike Young or Scott (Jason Donovan) and Charlene (Kylie Minogue) – just a series of familiar faces from recent years.

Byron (Xavier Molyneux), Aaron (Matt Wilson) and Rhett (Liam Maguire) all returned to No. 24 for a Harris/Stone/Brennan reunion, with Aaron finally reunited with the daughter he’s supposed to be co-parenting.

Plus, with only limited explanation, Mackenzie (Georgie Stone) and Haz (Shiv Palekar), Lucas Fitzgerald (Scott Major), Levi Canning (Richie Morris), Ned Willis (Ben Hall), Kiri Durant and Roxy Willis (Zima Anderson) were all back to check out the competing proposals for a new Ramsay Street.

Mac and Haz endured 24 hours of travel back to Australia as they were considering an investment property, while Aaron and Rhett expressed their desire for a future move back to the area.

Roxy told Paul and Terese that she’d finally convinced Kyle (Chris Milligan) that Darwin wasn’t where their future lay, while Ned and Levi were both up for a potential move back too.

There was also a brief return for Melanie Pearson, who was introduced with her iconic laugh.

Lucas briefly reconnected with ex-girlfriend Elle (Elise Jansen) – both of them looking a little different than last time we saw them – and was introduced to Elle’s new partner Felix.

Dex (Marley Williams) was also back, reuniting with his parents and brother as they left him with the deciding vote on whether the Varga-Murphys would choose Ramsay Hills or Robinson Towers.

It was very much a goodbye to this era of Neighbours, a tribute to the extra 460 episodes that nearly never were.

All was very much as expected. Shane Ramsay and son Max (Ben Jackson) whisked a number of the residents off to Ramsay Hills, his new proposed suburb, complete with a ‘Kennedy Street’ to get Karl over the line. 

Meanwhile, Paul and grandson Jimmy (Darcy Tadich) whisked their own merry group of friends and family into the Melbourne CBD to show them the plot where Paul plans to build Robinson Towers, his new apartment and hotel complex

But of course, neither plan was a replacement for Ramsay Street.

As a final presentation of the two locations got underway at the Waterhole, Jane asked how either of the two ideas would capture the essence of Ramsay Street and its heart and soul.

That prompted Karl and Paul to reprise Susan’s speech from the last final episode, making clear that it’s not just the houses, the bricks, the mortar, the gardens and the trees – but the people, the families, the friends who become family, and the love which becomes the central theme.

“We need to celebrate it all, the good and the bad. All of that makes us who we are…” Karl concluded, before the two finished in unison: “The perfect blend.”

Two perfect blend references and counting… and that wasn’t the last of them.

It all got very meta at times. There may have been one two three too many references to “the perfect blend” that the residents had been – and we’re going to assume that the revellers at the Waterhole wasn’t actually partying to a dance version of the Neighbours theme – but it wasn’t overpowering, and the final episode remained a touching and understated goodbye.

In the final scenes, we saw Wendy approach Andrew at the Waterhole party and warmly touch his arm – a small hint that there could be a future reconciliation for the Rodwells, but one that we’ll never get to see.

Yet with two options on the table, the big question remained – what would Susan (Jackie Woodburne) do?

She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Ramsay Street, and got a renewed energy for saving the cul-de-sac when Annalise Hartman (Kimberley Davies) revealed that there was increasing resistance to the plans for the new freeway.

Annalise’s revelation provided an opportunity for a subtle reference to Home and Away, which now remains as the only Australian soap opera in production.

When Annalise explained to Susan that there was a precedent for saving the street, she referenced “a little community about an hour outside of Sydney, not dissimilar to this” who’ve “found a way to keep going”.

Back in 2006, ‘Project 56’ was Josh West (Daniel Collopy) and Amanda Vale’s (Holly Brisley) plan to build a bridge right through Summer Bay, threatening the future of the community. Eventually, the plans were scrapped when Morag (Cornelia Frances) blew the lid on the project’s corruption.

Fittingly, Neighbours‘ Executive Producer Jason Herbison was a script editor at Home and Away at the time.

Of course, it’s also a nod to the fact that Home and Away has kept going in the fast-changing TV landscape, which has massively shifted since the advent of streaming platforms.

The Summer Bay soap has retained its 7pm slot on Channel 7 in Australia and is still the country’s most-watched original drama.

In the final scene, Karl and Paul found Susan alone on Ramsay Street, taking in the six houses which have graced our screens since 1985 – seven if you include the rarely seen Number 34, which was first referenced in Episode 8000, and was home elderly recluse Val Grundy, before later being home to Vera Punt.

As she walked around the street and memories flooded through her mind, we heard the voices of Shane Ramsay, Lyn and Joe Scully, Madge Bishop, and of course the iconic character of Toadie Rebecchi (Ryan Moloney), who was invited back for the finale but was unable to make it.

Paul expressed that both Ramsay Hills and Robinson Towers were both viable options, and that there was no reason that everyone had to move to the same place.

However, Susan made it clear that she didn’t want to move to either of them; she wanted to stay and fight for the street – “Other communities have beaten the odds, we could be one of them!”

Get ready with the ‘Perfect blend’ claxon… 🎉

“I love our friends, I love our neighbours, and I don’t wanna find a new perfect blend, I wanna stay in this one!”

It was on Paul Robinson to utter the final words: “So what do we do?”

And with that, the camera panned out, giving us no definitive answer, just one last glimpse of Ramsay Street…

Is it really the end? The likelihood is, yes. Security is now gone from Pin Oak Court, the real-life cul-de-sac where Ramsay Street’s external shots were filmed, the sets have already been taken down, and the iconic Nunawading Studios – home to the internal sets and the Lassiters backlot – has been decommissioned ready for redevelopment.

‘Neighbours as we know it is done. That’s the harsh reality,” Alan Fletcher told TV Tonight in an interview published yesterday. But a future revival? Well, who knows.

There’s still some hope for the future, and that’s exactly why Executive Producer Jason Herbison crafted a final episode which left multiple options open for a future revival.

If there’s no hope of returning to filming at Pin Oak Court, future execs now have the option of a swanky apartment block in the city, or a new hillside suburb elsewhere in Melbourne.

“I’m sure that Fremantle, being a huge company, haven’t given up on the possibility of selling a Neighbours concept. I mean, they’d be foolish not to be out there working on it,” Alan continued.

“But who knows what it would look like? Who knows who would be in it? Who knows if it would even be recognisable as Neighbours?”

Just like what the future holds for the fictional residents, the question of whether a Neighbours revival will ever come to fruition currently has no answer. But stranger things have happened on Ramsay Street…

Goodbye for now, Neighbours.