Tonight’s Home and Away saw the long-teased return of Brax and Ricky after Dean called on them for help with protecting Tane from prison.

Months after their return was first announced, tonight saw the highly-anticipated return of Brax (Stephen Peacocke) and Ricky (Bonnie Sveen) for the first time since their exit in 2016.

In last week’s episodes, with Tane’s (Ethan Browne) court case looming, Mackenzie got in touch with Dean (Patrick O’Connor), her brother and former leader of the River Boys, which was previously headed up by Darryl “Brax” Braxton.

She wanted to know if Dean could help someone disappear. Cash (Nicholas Cartwright) had been working hard to clear Tane’s name after he was set up by Harper’s (Jessica Redmayne) mum Kerrie (Sara Wiseman), but his plan had backfired.

Cash managed to track down Kerrie’s dealer ‘Uncle’ Fred Byen (Matt Bosenberg), hoping it’d be proof that Kerrie was the one who planted the drugs in Archie’s bedroom, and prove that Tane wasn’t dealing drugs himself.

However, Kerrie had got to Fred first. He claimed to Cash and David (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor) that he’d not seen Kerrie in years, before ‘revealing’ that he was just small fry in a bigger operation, headed up by Tane Parata!

With evidence mounting, Tane’s solicitor then encouraged him to plead guilty. When he refused to, insisting that he hadn’t done anything wrong, his solicitor quit.

Tane was left fearing that pleading not guilty would result in a longer jail term, with the prospect that he wouldn’t get to see his son grow up.

With the court date set for the following week, and with David unable and unwilling to ask the DPP for more time to prepare the case, Tane was ready to admit defeat.

“Once I set foot inside that courtroom, I’m not coming home,” he told Mackenzie as the two had a heart-to-heart.

At the end of last week, prompted by their emotional conversation, Mac called Dean (Patrick O’Connor), one of the former leaders of Mangrove River’s infamous River Boy gang, to ask for his help.

She asked Dean if, theoretically, someone needed to disappear for a while, whether he would be able to help.

In tonight’s episode, as Tane came to terms with the fact that he faced near-certain jail time, we saw the ramifications of Mackenzie’s call to Dean – thousands of miles away on the other side of Australia.

In a remote cattle ranch somewhere in Western Australia, we reunited with Brax and Ricky, who are now living a very different life from the one they left behind in Summer Bay way back in 2016.