Ari Parata leaves Home and Away as final scenes air

The latest episode of Home and Away, which aired Monday evening in Australia, saw the death of Ari Parata as Rob Kipa-Williams leaves the show.

It brings an end to just over two years of the character, who made his first appearance in Episode 7269, the 2019 season finale. Rob Kipa-Williams wrote a touching tribute to the show shortly after the scenes aired, which you can read at the end of this article.

We reported on Ari’s possible exit in our latest Arrivals & Departures article last month, with speculation arising from the fact that Rob had been back in New Zealand since at least October. With an Instagram story posted by Sam Frost showing what looked to be a wake taking place in the Paratas’ garden, it seemed very likely that the patriarch of the family was soon to meet his maker.

When Ari arrived in Summer Bay, he was an ex-con who was determined to turn his life around by staying on the straight and narrow. But at the time of his death, Ari was on remand after confessing to murder. So how did it come to this? Let’s take a look back at Ari’s time in Summer Bay to find out…

Ariki Wiremu Parata was first introduced back in the 2019 season finale episodes, when he befriended Marilyn (Emily Symons) as they were both caught up in the siege at Northern Districts Hospital.

Ari concocted a plan with staff Mason (Orpheus Pledger) and Alex (Zoe Ventoura) to distract the gunmen whilst he helped some of the hostages to escape.

Whilst Ari was successful in leading some of the hostages to safety, Mason was killed. Ari didn’t want to stick around following the siege, and soon left when his sister-in-law Gemma (Bree Peters) arrived.

We later learned that Ari had spent 10 years in prison following an armed robbery, and his brother Mikaere had been killed by police six months earlier whilst taking part in another robbery.

Ari had vowed to stay on the straight and narrow to take care of Mikaere’s widow Gemma and son Nikau (Kawakawa Fox-Reo), but there was tension with younger brother Tane who was still involved in nefarious activities. Nik was also resentful of Ari at first, who he felt was trying to take his father’s place.

With Ari off-work, the family were struggling to make ends meet, and when Marilyn spotted them sleeping in their car after being thrown out of the motel, she wanted to return Ari’s kindness by offering them a place to stay.

Although Ari negotiated to stay at the caravan park, Marilyn’s husband John was still less than keen at the idea of having Gemma and Nik around, and after some digging he found out about Ari’s history.

John’s ultimatum to Marilyn didn’t work out as planned though, and he soon found himself being Ari’s neighbour at the caravan park.

Although the Paratas’ history became known, they set down roots in Summer Bay when Tane came to town and bought them a house to live in, much to Ari’s initial frustration.

Ari also managed to make an enemy in the form of local copper Colby Thorne (Tim Franklin), after he started seeing Colby’s ex-girlfriend Mackenzie Booth (Emily Weir).

Colby’s vendetta against the Paratas—and his insistence that Nik had committed a recent attempted robbery at the diner—resulted in him putting a block on their passports, as they attempted to leave the country to return Mikaere’s ashes back to New Zealand on the first anniversary of his death.

With Gemma being the only one allowed to travel, she ended up opting to remain in New Zealand with elder members of the family. Ari, Nik and Tane were forced to commemorate the anniversary in their own way, and in a memorable episode, performed a haka on the beach.

Ari was inadvertently dragged back into crime when Tane got involved with Leon Carruthers (Will McNeill) and his boss Paul (Jack Finsterer). Tane had ended up lumbered with a stolen vehicle after a planned meet-up went wrong, and stored it at Ziggy’s farmhouse.

It wasn’t until Ziggy and Willow took it upon themselves to dispose of the van via Willow’s River Boy contacts, that it was discovered there were $25,000 worth of drugs concealed inside. By that point it was too late, and Leon and Paul started making threats towards the Parata family as Tane struggled to raise the cash.

Ari and Tane agreed on doing a job for Paul and Leon to repay the debt, but they went back on their word when they revealed they’d secretly photographed Ari and Tane moving stolen goods, using it to try and blackmail them into committing an armed robbery at Reefton Lakes. It was only an intervention from Heath Braxton (Dan Ewing) and the River Boys which saw Paul and Leon back off… for a while.

Meanwhile, Nik had been on a trip to New Zealand and bumped into Chloe, who he brought back to Summer Bay with him. It transpired that Ari had been in a relationship with Chloe’s mum Mia before he was sent to prison. Mia had moved a then 9-year-old Chloe away from the area, and away from the only father figure she’d ever known, as she attempted to start afresh.

Mia soon followed Chloe to Summer Bay where she had an awkward reunion with Ari. When both Chloe and Mia decided to stick around, Ari began to feel conflicted as his old feelings for Mia were brought to the surface. Eventually realising what his heart desired, Ari broke up with Mac, unaware that she had just found out she was pregnant with his child.

Ari and Mia’s reunion was then marred by the reappearance of Paul and Leon, who kidnapped Nik, Chloe, Bella (Courtney Miller) and Ryder (Lukas Radovich).

Seeing Ari mixed up in crime again saw Mia call things off quickly, scared of seeing history repeat itself. But when Ari was later run down by Paul and left in a coma, she couldn’t leave his side, and the two were later reunited with Mia and Chloe moving into the Parata household.

When Mia saw Mackenzie at the hospital, she learned that she had just miscarried Ari’s baby. When Ari himself later witnessed Mac collapse following a further infection, Mia was forced to tell him the truth.

The incident brought up memories for Mia and Ari over their own losses. Back in the day, they had suffered three miscarriages before Mia gave birth to their son, Kauri, in 2010. Tragically, Kauri died when he was only 10 days old, and it was this that caused Ari to descend into a downward spiral that ended with his imprisonment a year later.

Ari and Mia eventually decided to try for another baby, and were delighted to learn that Mia was pregnant back in June. But the couple were destined for more heartbreak when Mia lost the baby following a car crash two months later.

With Mia unable to face another pregnancy, the couple looked into adoption, but realised Ari’s criminal past would count against them.

When the opportunity arose to buy the gym from Jasmine (Sam Frost), Mia used money she’d hidden away from Ari’s robbery ten years ago to put down a deposit, much to Ari’s anger.

In the end, hoping that being business owners would win favour for their adoption application, Ari took the risk of using contacts to ‘legitimise’ the remainder of the money and the two soon completed the transaction.

It was to no avail though, when the adoption agency still rejected their application.

When Mia started receiving unwanted phone calls, she was forced to tell Ari that they were from Chloe’s father, Matthew. She went on to explain to Ari that Matthew had sexually assaulted her at a party when she was 19 years old, and she hadn’t seen him since.

When he later showed up in Summer Bay and introduced himself to Chloe, Mia was desperate to keep her daughter away from him, all the while protecting her from the truth about her conception. In the end, Mia and Ari were left with no choice but to tell Chloe of Matthew’s true nature, preventing her from heading off to live with him in the city.

With Ari and Mia finally in a good place again, Ari thought it the perfect time to propose at a family gathering in the garden.

Mia gladly accepted, but little did they realise that the return of Matthew the following day would be the beginning of the end….

As tensions flared between Mia and Matthew in an argument outside the house, Chloe accidentally killed her father after hitting over the head with a brick.

Mia was arrested after being found by Cash driving Matthew’s car with his body in the boot, but Ari later told Cash that it was him that had committed the deed, in return for Mia’s release.

As Chloe suffered with her guilt, Ari forbade Mia and Chloe from giving any form of statement about Matthew in order to avoid implicating themselves. Awaiting Ari’s sentencing, Mia has been determined to go ahead with the wedding in prison.

But even that was in jeopardy when Ari was rushed into Northern Districts Hospital last week, suffering from intense abdominal pain. Although Logan (Harley Bonner) diagnosed the issue as appendicitis, it wasn’t until he started performing keyhole surgery that he realised the diagnosis was far more sinister.

Ari was suffering with a very rare cancer named pseudomyxoma peritonei, which had started in his appendix and spread to his entire abdominal cavity. A grim-faced Logan admitted to Ari’s family that anything they could do would only delay the inevitable—Ari was dying.

Although one surgical option was suggested to Ari, Logan advised that it was brutal 16-hour operation which would have to be repeated every three months as tumours returned. With no guarantee that the procedure would extend his life, Ari opted against it.

Mia and Nik took Ari’s decision the hardest, feeling he was giving up, but Ari explained that he wanted to die on his own terms, with his family by his side.

Ari’s final episode saw Mia grant him his dying wish of marrying her, and she made a late night call to a celebrant to come into Northern Districts Hospital that morning for a surprise ceremony.

 

Nikau, Chloe and Tane watched on as the pair wed in Ari’s hospital room, after convincing Logan to briefly move the equipment out of the way.

“I’m not very good at this speech stuff,” Ari began, before briefly doubling over in pain.

He found the strength to continue, adding, “when I first met you, I told my big brother I was going to marry you one day.”

“Mikaere told me I was punching above my weight, which I was. That I was drunk, which I was,” Ari continued, to laughs from those around him.

“With this ring, I marry you,” Mia began. She needed some help from the celebrant as she choked up while saying her side of the vows. “Let it be a symbol of our everlasting love and commitment to each other.”

Ari told Mia to forget everything that’s happened before, and everything that’s about to happen. “This is all that matters.”

Just seconds after they were pronounced husband and wife, the heartbreaking moment came.

Ari doubled over in pain a second time, and Logan grabbed him and pulled him back to the safety of the hospital bed.

The celebrant asked Chloe, Tane and Nikau to speak to Mia about getting the paperwork signed, stressing that she couldn’t finalise the marriage until everything had been signed.

Ari had suffered a major bleed and was in shock. Logan was trying to stabilise him with a blood transfusion, but warned them that it may not be enough. Thankfully, there was just enough time for Ari to sign the paperwork, making his marriage to Mia official.

As Logan looked through Ari’s medical paperwork at some changes to his ECG, Ari tried to rip the oxygen mask off and jump out of bed. He made an impassioned plea to spend his dying moments at the beach, telling Logan, “I don’t want to die like this.”

Logan was unable to grant him this final wish, and instead he spent his last moments lying in the hospital bed, quietly singing a Maori song, before passing away peacefully surrounded by those closest to him.

The final scenes of the episode saw Tane return to the Parata house to break the news to Felicity and Bella, while Nikau demonstrated his newfound warrior strength as a coping mechanism.

At the beach, Chloe watched on as Mia walked into the water, still wearing her wedding dress, makeup smudged from having said goodbye to Ari, the love of her life.

Rob Kipa-Williams posted to Instagram on the eve of his final episode as Ari, commenting “One last walk down memory lane.. Tomorrow’s gonna punch ya right in the goolies ???.”

The video, which saw him walking through a number of Home and Away’s sets, interacting with Ethan Browne, Kawakawa Fox-Reo, Patrick O’Connor (Dean) and Emily Weir as he did so, finished with the words, “See you on the other side. It was something. One more. See you tomorrow night.”

Then, shortly after his final episode aired, he made an additional post, thanking fans for their messages of support, and adding a touching tribute to the show, its cast and crew.

Thank you to the fans, for all the love and crazy amounts of messages and support..

Thank you to all the cast, crew, camera, directors, production, writing, makeup, art department and everyone else in between, that make the wheels spin.

This Iconic Ozzie TV show took risks. I’m honored to have co-created Māori cultural storylines, and will forever be proud of those scenes that made it to screen.. it was true teamwork.. My hope is this opens the door for more diversity..

Thank you for everything Ariki Wiremu Parata, you taught me a lot.

I’m gonna miss you.

Goodbye, Ari Parata.