Shortland Street 2024 finale recap: Major characters depart as old favourites make surprise return

The doctors of Shortland Street tried their best, but they couldn't save one of their colleagues in this year's Christmas cliffhanger. Photo / South Pacific Pictures

Warning: The following recap contains spoilers for the Shortland Street 2024 finale.

Several surprise returns, a tragic accident, and the departure of two of the longest-serving characters have marked the end of the 2024 season of Shortland Street.

As with last year’s episode, the show went without the dramatic explosions that often dictate the Christmas cliffhanger, letting the episode instead be driven largely by the characters and their relationships.

Though you can’t get much bigger than a nearly-complete Warner reunion. The episode picks up in an airport hangar, where we left Chris Warner on Friday greeting his three sons (Finn, Frank and Harry) and brother Guy (the first in-person appearance from Craig Parker since 2008) as they disembarked from a private plane.

After double-killer Harry Warner went on the run earlier this year, Chris found himself in a dark space that has taken months to get himself out of (though he’s kept the relatively untamed beard). A phone call last week resurfaced some of this darkness, but, as was revealed on Friday, his family have tracked down Harry and returned him to New Zealand.

The five Warner men reunite: Guy (Craig Parker) (left), Harry (Xander Manketelow), Chris (Michael Galvin), Finn (Lukas Whiting) and Frank (Luke Patrick). Photo / South Pacific Pictures

However, the question of what to do next remains unanswered. Chris and Finn want Harry to answer for his crimes, but Frank and Guy both doubt that the New Zealand justice system is the best place for his mental health. They want to use the extensive Warner family trust fund to fly Harry to a private facility where he can atone properly.

After a continuous back and forth, Harry snaps and holds a screwdriver to Chris’ throat, planning to take him hostage as a means of escaping. After the four Warners talk him down, Harry agrees to hand himself in.

Chris blames the pressure of the trust fund on the issues the Warners have faced, and vows to disestablish the trust and give the money away. Due to his instability during the year though, Guy and the adult children vote to remove Chris’ control over the trust.

Back at the hospital, Esther has been stood down and suspended from practising medicine after illegally giving nurse Steph an unapproved drug. Hospital shareholder Julian has taken over as chief executive, and already appointed a new nurse in family member Te Manawanui. While his soft takeover poses a threat for Esther next year, his big speech announcing the change is interrupted by an ED emergency.

And so we come to the annual Christmas tragedy in Ferndale. For the past week, Harper has been going back and forth with husband Drew about whether or not to accept a job running the emergency department at a prestigious New York hospital.

Despite years of difficulties in their marriage, renewed in recent months by Harper’s affair with surgeon Phil, the two reconciled over the last week and prepared for the big move.

In the last episode, the couple headed off on a motorbike road trip on Boxing Day to enjoy some company together beforehand, but the episode picks up with them coming across a car crash, the victims a young family who they had treated previously.

Sending them safely off in an ambulance, the incident throws Harper, and while they return to their journey, they end up crashing themselves shortly down the road.

Harper (Ria Vandervis) tends to husband Drew (Ben Barrington) after a motorbike accident. Photo / South Pacific Pictures

In a great performance from Ria Vandervis, Harper ignored her own injuries in order to treat Drew, including improvising with a motorbike spoke to help his breathing, before collapsing herself.

The two are rushed to the hospital, where their colleagues struggle to stabilise both of them enough to get to surgery. Drew makes it in, but Harper crashes again on the way. We see the two lovers staring at each other through the walls, everyone else disappearing, and for a moment, it seems possible that both characters won’t make it out.

Instead, Drew is saved by Chris, while Harper fails to regain consciousness, and the ED crew she served alongside are forced to call it. We then get a montage with flashes from the last 11 years, before a title card appears, confirming Harper’s death.

It’s a significant loss for the show, with Harper one of the longest-serving female characters in Shorty’s history. And it’s a double blow coming one episode after the departure of Nicole Miller after 15 years on the show.

After a stint in jail and a trial last week, Nicole had been found not guilty for the murder of the unstable Louisa earlier this year. Yet after an argument with Cassie a few days later, Nicole finally remembered that she actually had used her mother’s urn to kill Louisa. After a tearful farewell with her wife Maeve, Nicole was led away by police.

I initially thought that this storyline would carry on next year, or we’d at least see some appearances from Nicole giving her wife and son are still around, but Instagram posts by Shortland Street and Nicole’s actress Sally Martin confirmed that this is the end of her decade and a half on the show.

Last week, Nicole and Harper had been the second and third longest running characters currently on the cast, and the loss of both characters – and the talented actresses behind them – are perhaps the most significant departures since Rachel McKenna left for good back in 2016, and their absence will be felt for some time.

So what’s next for Shorty? Asides from uncertain futures for Chris, Drew and Esther, the big cliffhanger that will need to be solved when it returns on February 10 is how the reduction in episodes will change the show. Fans will only be getting three episodes a week from now on after the rising cost of production led to a smaller episode order for next year.

It’s part of a global trend for soaps, with many in the UK seeing big changes to their production schedule. Hollyoaks notably reduced its cast by a third and included a one year time jump to work around its changes.

There’s no signs yet that Shorty will do anything quite as radical, but there’s no question that it’ll be a new era for the nearly 33-year-old show, and it’s one it’ll be entering into without two of its biggest characters from the last decade.

Shortland Street is available to watch now on TVNZ+. The 2025 season begins on February 10.