If you’ve been up to date on Home and Away in recent weeks, you’ll know it’s been one trauma after the other, from Theo’s death to Mack’s miscarriage.
As Summer Bay collectively mourns Theo, Emily Weir, who plays Mackenzie Booth, is tackling a challenging storyline after her character Mack just suffered through a heartbreaking miscarriage the day before Cash and Eden’s wedding (and, well Theo’s death).
As Mack struggles to deal with the loss, shutting out her partner Levi and snapping at her roommate and BFF Mali, she’s now taken off to Queensland to help her brother Dean out with his new baby.
With Levi also mourning the loss and understandably concerned, and Mack shutting her friends down, fans are naturally worried about the future of Mack and Levi as they struggle with IVF.
Emily Weir opens up about Mack’s heartbreaking journey to motherhood on Home and Away
“We’ve really wanted to do it justice,” Emily told Chattr on Mack’s miscarriage storyline.
“It’s a very common story. It’s been quite an ongoing thing for Mack with his pregnancy stuff. She had the ectopic pregnancy back a few years ago, so she’s lost a baby before, and a fallopian tube removed, but I think this time she’s just so much more solidified in her relationship.
“It’s an exploration medically, but also emotionally, about how she [Mack] feels and all the ups and downs of hormones, everything she’s going through.”
With Home and Away having its fair share of surprise and accidental pregnancies throughout the series, Mack and Levi’s storyline has captured fans who are really rooting for them to be able to have a happy family unit.
“There’s something about, you know, to a couple intentionally wanting something and being like ‘Oh, it wasn’t a mistake,’ or it’s not like, you know, an affair baby,” Emily said.
“We both want to start a family. And then the heartbreak, because it’s such a common story, it really tests relationships. It really tests women, like, mentally, physically, emotionally, especially around Mack’s age.
“It seems really relevant and topical. So, yeah, I feel very privileged that I get to explore it and all the ups and the downs of what Mack’s experiencing. It’s an honour, but it’s also wanting to do it delicately.”
Will Levi and Mack make it through the miscarriage grief?
“It’s very testing on them emotionally,” Emily says. “What you’ll start to see is the ripple effect, what loss is like. It’s not just grieving a miscarriage, it’s grieving a future, it’s grieving a future that Mack has so solidly planned in her head.
“Look, all I can say is that there’s a true exploration around how a partnership kind of suffers a loss like this. And often people with grief and stress, they can turn on each other and pull away from each other. But I mean, the hope with Mack and Levi is that they love each other very much and [Levi] is the forever guy in her eyes. But you know, it’s not without it’s trials, I will say.”
Home and Away fans thank show for emotional storyline
“A lot of fans have reached out and said, ‘Thank you so much, we’re so glad that you’re exploring this’,” Emily shared.
“That’s the whole great thing about Home and Away, it’s connecting people to process their own experiences and having the show as, like, a best friend that goes, ‘Yeah, we get it. We know, we understand’. Actors do what we do, so people can feel less alone in the things that they go through. You know? Well, that’s why I do it.”
Home and Away airs Mondays – Thursdays at 7pm on Channel 7 and 7Plus.
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