Spencer Harrington
Spencer Harrington (2013-2015)
Andrew J. Morley
Episodes: 5664–6180
Parent: Ian Harrington
Sibling: Chris Harrington
Occupation: Student, Gym Worker
Spencer arrived at the caravan park with Maddy, who he claimed was his sister, saying they were backpacking around the country fruit picking. Spencer went to the Diner but, after eating, told Marilyn he had left his wallet in the caravan. The pair then did a runner after staying the night there. He later came back and convinced Irene to let him work off the bill and also earn more food. When Roo approached him, he claimed they were orphans whose parents had died in a car accident and they were waiting for the money from the will to come through. However, when Maddy later complained to him about having no money, he suggested they could return home. The pair started sleeping rough at the school, stealing Sasha’s lunch, after which Roo got Sasha to leave them some food and a note offering to help them. When Maddy became ill, Spencer contacted Roo for help. She gave them a meal and, at Harvey’s suggestion, let them stay in a caravan. They disappeared again but had to return when Romeo was locked in a shed and they had to get help.
Spencer helped Alf and Harvey out at the bait shop and let slip that his father was still alive. The pair admitted they were not orphans or siblings but a couple who had run away from home when their parents stopped them seeing each other: Maddy had got a scholarship to the private school Spencer attended but his father didn’t think she was good enough for him and her parents didn’t want her hanging around snobs. Harvey alerted the police when Maddy was hospitalised with meningitis but Spencer didn’t mind since he was beginning to feel they couldn’t go on the way they had been. He suggested to Maddy she go home but instead Maddy phoned her mother Tanya and said they’d run again if anyone came looking for them. Spencer managed to get some casual work on a boat and Celia gave the couple $1,000 from her gambling winnings but then Roo invited Tanya down and, after she and Maddy just argued, told Spencer that their plan would never work. Spencer convinced Maddy they should go home.
Spencer soon returned, revealing his father hadn’t changed and he’d been kept apart from Maddy. Roo encouraged him to go after Maddy instead of staying in town but Maddy turned up as his bus was about to leave. When his father Ian turned up and told Spencer they were finished if he chose Maddy and the Stewarts over him, Spencer still refused to go back with him and said a sad goodbye. Roo and Harvey agreed to let Spencer and Maddy stay at the caravan park and the pair enrolled at Summer Bay High, with Sasha being assigned to show them around, while Spencer began helping Harvey out on the Blaxland. When he found out Jett was being bullied by Tilda Hogan, he advised him to speak to Gina and stand up to Tilda and he and Maddy gave Jett the idea to humiliate her in class.
Spencer wanted Maddy to sleep with him but Harvey warned him that doing so could end a relationship, resulting in him rejecting Maddy when she said she was ready. The pair ended up at odds, which also affected Maddy’s relationship with Roo. Spencer consoled a lonely Rosie on the beach only for her to misread the signs and kiss him just as Sasha and Maddy appeared. Maddy apologised to him but he told her he wouldn’t leave with her if she walked out on Roo, prompting Roo and Maddy to make up.
Then Spencer’s brother Chris turned up and made Spencer feel guilty by telling him how much their mother missed him. He convinced Spencer to go away with him for a few days. On his return, Spencer was distant, missing a date with Maddy and dismissing Harvey when he tried to question him about it. Chris had told him their parents were on the verge of splitting up and Spencer admitted to Maddy he intended to go home with Chris, asking her to go with him. Maddy refused, saying he had to make the choice for himself, and Spencer elected to stay in Summer Bay. Chris then stirred up trouble between him and Maddy, leading Maddy to believe Spencer felt guilty about staying and convincing them both that the other wanted some space, but Roo and Harvey exposed him after inviting the pair to a family picnic. Chris admitted he couldn’t cope with his parents without Spencer so Spencer suggested he stay in Summer Bay.
Spencer and Maddy then had to cope with Chris hanging out with them all the time before receiving the news that Gina had died. They planned to have their first time together on Spencer’s birthday and Spencer convinced Alf to get Chris a different van so they could have some privacy but they couldn’t go through with it. Spencer tried to dismiss the incident despite the awkwardness between them but Maddy felt they only loved each other as friends and ended the relationship, sending Spencer into depression. He was upset to see Maddy getting on with her life and told her they should stay away from each other. He shut himself away in his caravan, refusing to get out of bed despite Chris and Harvey’s attempts to get through to him. When he was cold towards Maddy, Harvey convinced him he needed to lighten up but just as he was accepting her as a friend Maddy told him she wanted to get back together. However, when she looked for excuses to not spend time with him, he soon realised she was only doing it to cheer him up and ended things again.
He looked after Rosie when she fainted at the Diner, leaving Harvey worried that he needed someone to need him. Sasha fobbed him off when he tried to ask after her. Spencer ran into Rosie when she left class upset and realised she was pregnant. He and Sasha supported her and accompanied her to a check-up at the hospital. Rosie told them she was keeping the baby and Spencer hugged her on the beach, leaving Maddy, who witnessed the moment, worried something was going on between them. Spencer told her of the pregnancy and both Maddy and Sasha warned him Rosie might mistake his friendship for more but Rosie assured him she could cope with only being friends. Spencer said goodbye to Chris when he decided to head back home. He and Sasha tried to get Rosie to look at her situation realistically while he continued to ignore Maddy when Sasha and Rosie were around. Harvey got the pair to walk to school together in an attempt to build bridges but when Spencer went looking for Rosie again, Maddy went to see Natalie for counselling. Spencer comforted her over her supposed problem and she admitted she’d been trying to make him feel sorry for her, agreeing to stop playing games. Spencer invited Maddy to join him and Sasha at the Diner but neither of them included her in the conversation. When Maddy befriended Holly Chapman, Spencer and Sasha told her she’d been bullying Rosie but Maddy refused to believe them and defended her. Although Maddy realised her mistake, things remained strained between the former couple and she accused him of liking Sasha.
Dexter also suspected Spencer had feelings for Sasha when Sasha got him an interview at the gym, since he was no longer working with Harvey, and confused him by telling him to make a move. Indi told him the same after he and Sasha shared a charged hug when she told him he had the job but her intervention just made the pair feel awkward and they both claimed they only wanted to be friends, although Spencer did ask Harvey if it was possible to develop feelings for someone without realising. Sasha later followed him down to the wharf and told him how she really felt and they kissed. They decided not to do anything else until they’d told Maddy but couldn’t bring themselves to come clean, especially when she apologised for jumping to conclusions about them. Instead, they began helping Maddy with a protest to get Bianca reinstated as principal after she was demoted for publicly defending Zac against sexual assault allegations. Roo told Spencer she’d seen the kiss and warned him not to keep Maddy in the dark. After the protest was a success, Spencer and Sasha approached Maddy but still couldn’t bring themselves to tell her.
Despite this, they resumed their relationship in secret, resulting in Holly videoing them kissing. Maddy tried to be fine with it, but ultimately walked out on an awkward breakfast. They met up again when Sasha threw a farewell party for Rosie but Maddy again left upset after telling Sasha not to expect Spencer to sleep with her. Sasha quizzed him about the comment and he told her he’d never felt comfortable enough with Maddy to sleep with her, then slept with Sasha. Maddy turned up at the house in the aftermath and realised what had happened and Spencer failed to reassure her.
Sasha then announced she was moving to Broken Hill with Sid. Spencer failed to turn up to say goodbye and began rebuilding his friendship with Maddy. Sasha then returned but Spencer was reluctant to get back with her, having been hurt once. However, he was upset when Indi told him Sasha was planning to return to Broken Hill and Maddy convinced him to talk to her. Sasha invited him to go to the movies but he wanted to check on Maddy instead. However, Harvey convinced him to make Sasha his priority and he went round to her house and swept her off her feet.
Chris then returned and Spencer was surprised to discover he and Indi had had a relationship last time he was in town. He was pleased to have his brother back only for Sasha to take a dislike to Chris. He joined Sasha in trying to dissuade Maddy from befriending Casey and helped her clean up Bianca’s office, which she had decorated prior to Bianca’s disastrous first attempt to marry Heath. When Chris got together with Indi again, Spencer told him he had to find somewhere else to live.
When Sasha joked about the appeal of bad boys after Maddy started spending time with Josh Barrett, Spencer felt slighted. He began behaving erratically, telling Sasha there were things about him she didn’t know, and threw away some pills. Chris noticed his behaviour and asked if he was still on his medication, which Spencer claimed he was. He attacked Josh after mistakenly believing he was attacking Maddy, then got into a fight with Chris when he confronted him before collapsing. He was taken to hospital where he was evasive, forcing Chris to reveal he had bipolar and wasn’t taking his medication in front of Sasha, Indi, April and Doctor Peta Bradley. April convinced him to talk to Sasha, after which he returned to hospital for treatment. Despite this, he continued disposing of his medication.
He was annoyed when he realised Sasha had told Roo about his condition, but after Indi and Maddy got them talking again, he took her skinny dipping. However, when Roo tried to get him to stay in Maddy’s room while she was away, he lost his temper and overturned a table. He received a serve from Alf who convinced him to take Roo up on her offer and told Alf about his bipolar. He told Sasha he was going to try and manage it without medication. After he misread the situation when Sasha was upset about Romeo dying and tried to get amorous with her, he began looking into the Sanctuary Lodge retreat..He attended a seminar there where he met Evelyn MacGuire, who gave him a letter for her brother Oscar who had just moved to Summer Bay. When he delivered the letter, Oscar insisted Sanctuary Lodge was a cult but Spencer refused to listen to him or Sasha. The group’s leader, Murray Granger, offered him a place at the lodge and he moved there, ignoring Sasha’s pleas. Murray quickly invited him on a discovery weekend along with Evelyn. Chris came to the lodge to check on him but when he questioned Murray’s teachings, Murray convinced Spencer to reject Chris and punch him. At the discovery weekend, he learned he was expected to marry Evelyn. He refused so Murray struck him and had him taken away to be beaten. Evelyn tried to get him to safety but in his weakened condition they were caught by Murray and Ethan. However, they were rescued by Zac and Hannah and he was taken to hospital, where he convinced Evelyn to hand over her recording of the ceremony to the police. After reconciling with Chris and talking things over with Sasha, he agreed with Nate Cooper’s advice to go back on his medication.
When Irene invited him to move in, he was furious, realising Chris had told her about his bipolar. However, when Chris helped engineer a reconciliation between him and Sasha, he agreed. He also convinced runaways Jett and Nina to return home. When Sid wanted to take Sasha back to Broken Hill when Indigo and Dexter left, Spencer, at Chris’ suggestion, convinced Irene to let her move in with them. He was furious when Chris tricked Heath into giving Chris Spencer’s shifts, claiming Spencer needed to concentrate on his studies, but Irene solved the matter by forcing Chris to resign in favour of Spencer and work at the Diner instead.
He and Sasha began helping Tamara with her plan to use a concert to bring the Summer Bay High and Mangrove River students together. Roo asked him to keep an eye on Maddy, who was attending the festival with Josh. He tried to warn Maddy off when he overheard Matt making crude remarks about her to Josh, but changed his mind when he heard Josh telling Matt to get lost and made his peace with Josh, as well as smoothing things over with Sasha over the attention he’d been paying Maddy.
He sneaked into school after hours with Sasha, Maddy and Josh, but a game of truth or dare left Sasha feeling he didn’t have any happy memories of her. He tried to change this by organising a candlelit dinner at the Diner but, after leaving her alone blindfolded while he went to turn the music on, he returned to find her accidentally kissing Chris, who had returned for his jacket. He was upset enough to cancel the dinner and it took Chris to smooth things over between them. He was frustrated when Chris let Phoebe stay in his room, meaning he couldn’t get a change of clothes. He tried to comfort Evelyn after her father died. When Jett and VJ arranged to throw a party at the beach house in Irene’s absence, he was convinced by Sasha and Chris to go along with it, only for Irene to come home in the middle and make her displeasure known. The trio were sentenced to wait on Irene hand and foot as punishment before she let them off with cooking dinner. However, all four of them were then taken hostage by Sean Green, who mistakenly believed a doctor lived at the house, until Chris overpowered him.
Soon after, Spencer learned from Maddy that Harvey and Roo were having marital problems and unsuccessfully tried to track Harvey down. He then received a call from Harvey, who was at John’s place, and tried to talk him into seeing Roo. When he learned Roo and Harvey were divorcing, he angrily accused Harvey of walking out on them. He rejected Harvey’s attempts to talk to him but managed to say goodbye to him. Sasha asked him to be her campaign manager when she stood for school captain but he quickly surrendered the role to Tamara. He was with Sasha when she turned up at the election speeches after being dumped in the middle of nowhere by Josh and Matt.
When Matt told him he’d kissed Sasha, Spencer got into a fight with him at the Diner. He accepted Matt had initiated it but felt things weren’t working between him and Sasha and broke up with her. Irene insisted no-one could talk about the break-up in the house without paying a dollar but he and Sasha ended up paying to have an argument before he moved back in with Roo. Then Matt baited him about it during his school captaincy speech and Spencer told him he was welcome to Sasha. He later overheard Sasha admitting to Maddy that she cared about Matt and told Leah that Sasha had accessed the files in her office without permission. He began spending time with Maddy and Josh and ended up kissing Maddy. She responded by telling him to stay away from her. Since Chris was still living with Sasha, Spencer avoided him until Alf made them work at the bait shop together and soon after decided to move back into Irene’s. Josh later overheard him and Maddy discussing the kiss.
He began spending time with Evelyn again and tried to convince her to stop hating Zac. He escorted Evelyn to the launch of Gina’s memorial writing competition but ended up arguing with Matt. He took an interest in Evelyn and asked Oscar if she was single. Chris encouraged him to spend time with her so he and Denny could have the house to themselves but she kept ignoring his calls and he was annoyed when Chris forced him to spend the night in a caravan. When Evelyn snapped at him, he began to suspect she was worried about something. He also tried to get Chris to smooth things over with Denny and warned her when Chris prepared some cheesy chat-up lines to use on her. After finding out Evelyn had tried to cover up the fact Oscar had run over Tamara, he convinced her to get out of the house. They went to the mid-year dance together where he defended her when she got into an argument with Matt over Sasha’s article. Back at home, they shared a kiss.
He helped look after Oscar when he had a panic attack and Evelyn asked him to talk to him about his own problems. He agreed to help Maddy out by joining a study group she’d organised with him, Josh and Evelyn but had difficulty holding a conversation with Evie. He tried to move things on with her but she admitted she had feelings for someone else. He realised it was Josh after overhearing them talking and agreed to keep quiet, although he admitted it to Maddy when she guessed. He was annoyed to find Sasha had spent the night with Matt and ended up in an argument with Matt about it at school. He celebrated with Josh and Evelyn after passing his exam. When Denny failed to turn up for a special dinner Chris had prepared, Spencer ended up sharing it with him, then chided Denny for her treatment of him.
He supported Maddy when Roo was hospitalised and told Chris he thought Casey and Denny were going to get together after seeing their interaction at boot camp. While clearing up the caravan park, he and Chris found a package of drugs under Andy’s van. He confronted Josh about it and, when Evelyn begged him not to go to the police, gave him 24 hours to get it out of the caravan park. Evelyn convinced him to keep quiet but when Andy was arrested anyway he was punched by Josh. He was annoyed to learn it was Chris who had reported Andy.
He told Maddy when he saw Josh and Evelyn hugging and tried to support her after their break-up but failed to talk her out of quitting school. Maddy asked him to put a good word in for her at the gym and he told Casey he was worried she’d run away again if she didn’t get the job. He took part in a business discussion at school and ended up as a finalist with his idea for a bridal boot camp. Sasha helped him with the research and despite fumbling through their presentation he won the competition. Roo volunteered herself, Irene and Roo to try out the idea. He worried when Oscar started obsessively exercising at the gym and warned him he was going to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn’t overdo it. He helped Andy check the gym log and learned Oscar had been visiting the gym twice a day.
He and Maddy spent an evening watching horror movies together, after which he asked her to get back with him. When she rejected him, he accused her of still being interested in Josh and told her that Evelyn had spent the night at Josh’s. He asked Maddy to the school formal but she turned him down. When she subsequently asked Oscar to go with her, Spencer accused her of playing with Oscar’s feelings. Despite Chris offering to accompany him, he went to the formal alone. Evelyn was also there alone and he ended up talking to her outside and nearly kissing her, but they were interrupted by a phone call from Josh about Casey being shot, so he settled for accusing Maddy of wanting to use the information to get back with Josh. When Evelyn and Josh split up, he made overtures towards Evelyn again but she bluntly rejected him.
Spencer discovered Sasha had smuggled Matt into her room after he fell out with Leah and agreed to keep quiet on condition he stayed away in future. He was taken with Shandi Palmer when he met her at the Diner, even though Chris was already interested in her, but was left feeling despondent when everyone but him paired off at John and Marilyn’s wedding. Chris signed him up to an internet dating site and he began conversing with a girl called Amy, who cancelled a Skype appointment but then said she was coming to town to see him. He went to the surf club but she never turned up, later texting to say she had a flat tyre, and instead he ended up chatting to Keith Potts. When he went to meet Amy at a motel, he instead found Keith, who claimed he was Amy’s dad. However, Keith’s excuses began to get more flimsy until he locked them in and approached Spencer, saying he hoped they would be close friends. Spencer punched him, causing him to fall and hit his head. He was found by Alf and Chris but refused to tell the police what had happened, even when Keith charged him with assault. However, when he visited Keith and found that he expected them to carry on like when Spencer had thought he was Amy, Spencer accepted he’d been tricked and made a statement, resulting in the charges being dropped.
Spencer had trouble coping with what had happened and lost his temper with Chris. He was convinced to go away on a boating trip with Alf and Zac, only to find out Matt was going as well. They ended up bickering and when Matt brought up Amy, Spencer punched him. Alf chided him and Leah suggested he tells his story to school. He didn’t feel able to but Evelyn convinced him to tell his story over the school PA system and he earned a round of applause.
Chris insisted on taking Spencer out to pick up girls. Spencer got on well with Monique Wu but she had to leave when Chris upset her friends. She later asked for Spencer’s number but he decided she wasn’t his type. He was annoyed when Chris threw a party at the house and invited Monique but Sasha managed to stop him hiding away in his room. When Evelyn told him that Maddy was pregnant, he felt more isolated than ever that he hadn’t been told and ended up sleeping with Monique. He felt bad the next day that he’d used her to make himself feel better but Chris managed to get his spirits up.
When he learned Chris was considering rejecting a job on a cruise ship to stay and support him he angrily told him to go. He later calmed down and assured Chris he would be fine. He accompanied Sasha, Matt and Josh on a trip to the beach where he and Matt bonded slightly. He overheard Alf, Irene and Roo saying Maddy wasn’t pregnant but had had a mass on her ovary and went to see Maddy, accompanying her to the hospital where she was diagnosed with cancer. He had a go at Oscar for not being to see Maddy and kept Josh away from her. When Chris returned to town, Spencer was angry to realise he had returned for him and also learned Maddy had gone into surgery without telling him. He was left with Josh waiting for news but was reassured by Chris.
When he learned that Maddy had run away, he initially blamed Oscar but Chris told him Oscar was their best chance of finding Maddy. Spencer accepted it when he called Maddy but failed to get her to tell him anything, so convinced Oscar to take Maddy’s scrapbook and go to the city, while working with Irene and Roo to provide him with clues. He was co-opted by Chris into helping gather up all the newspapers referring to a sex tape of Phoebe on the internet. He was horrified to return to school and find Matt repeating a year, soon becoming the target for his jibes again. He stayed overnight at the caravan park so he could accompany Maddy to her first chemotherapy session but found himself sidelined when Oscar showed up and ended up getting into a fight with Matt at school. He was upset to learn Maddy and Oscar were together and ended up losing his temper with Chris. He felt better after a chat with Maddy.
Eager to do something for Maddy, he made plans to organise a Colour Run and gave Josh and Evelyn a lengthy list of tasks to prepare a proposal for Zac, which was accepted. He helped Maddy out with her catch-up assignments and was annoyed to learn Oscar had broken up with her. He convinced Maddy to go back to school but inadvertently humiliated her by blasting Oscar for the break-up in class, with the situation not helped by Matt siding with Oscar and deliberately exacerbating the tension. He was reluctant to let Oscar get involved when he turned up to a meeting about the colour run, but Irene and Chris warned him not to make the event about himself. He and Chris spent the night in separate rooms after an argument and realised one of them should move into Sasha’s old room, but disagreed over which one. Chris ended up moving all Spencer’s belongings into the other room while he was out and arranging them for him, and Spencer decided to accept the room after accidentally breaking the window in their own room during an argument with Chris. In the end, the colour run was a success and Maddy thanked him.
He tried to help Andy by prompting him during his fitness instructor’s test but only made him more insecure. When he received news his father was in a coma after a car accident, he initially refused to see him but Maddy convinced him to go. He returned after a few days and was reluctant to talk to Irene but admitted to first Roo and then Chris that he felt he needed to return home and reconnect with his family. He paid a final visit to the Diner and said private farewells to Roo, Maddy and even Matt before leaving.