Why Offspring dad Darcy Proudman had to die in season six premiere

ANOTHER Offspring favourite has been killed off in the season six return of the series. And the show’s writers have a very good reason.

Asher Keddie returns as Nina Proudman in season six of Offspring.

WARNING: Spoilers below

OFFSPRING caused a nationwide outcry when Patrick was killed off — and the writers have done it again with another key character in the season six return.

Hitting screens after a two-year hiatus, Wednesday’s premiere picks up 18 months after season five.

Nina’s relationship with colleague Leo hasn’t survived and, while they’re still friends, she feels the pain that comes when an ex tells you they’re dating someone new. It’s in that same moment Nina rejects a phone call from her dad, Darcy. Soon after, the bombshell drops that Darcy has died of a heart attack while overseas on a cruise ship.

Killing off another character wasn’t a decision the writers made lightly, but Offspring’s script producer and head writer Jonathan Gavin told news.com.au it had to be done.

“Because it’s been two years since the audience last saw Nina and the Proudman family there was a feeling that we needed a major event to bring everybody back together,” he said. “And also, in a way, to set up all of the momentum and collisions that were going to give an arc to series six.

“We realised the death of a parent is, of course, a major event in anybody’s life — but in that family the place that Darcy holds can’t be filled by anybody else. So it’s an incredible change to the geography of the family and it sends everybody off into new directions.

“The characters are in their 30s now (and) that becomes a fear when you’re in your 30s and you start to realise that your parents might not be there forever.”

John Waters, as Darcy Proudman, in an earlier season of Offspring.

One of the first decisions made when work began on the new series, Gavin says he and the writers considered “millions of options” that could replace Darcy dying. And a lot of those ideas involved Nina.

“If you think of what if something happened to Nina? What if Nina got sick? Or Nina was in an accident? Or Nina was suddenly faced with some kind of health crisis,” he said. “And the thing is that those ideas are interesting things and they do affect everybody in the family but there’s nothing that has quite the same gravity as the idea that we went with in the end.”

Darcy’s death also provided the perfect opportunity to roll out the second major revelation of the episode: a secret sibling.

Drama unfolds when news leaks that the lawyer in charge of Darcy’s will, Will Bowen (played by TJ Power), is actually Darcy’s son.

The idea of the Proudman patriarch having another child was something the writers had been wanting to do for a long time.

“There was a time when we talked about there being a new child of Darcy’s that shows up at the end of every season,” Gavin said. “Then, of course, we went, ‘That’s maybe a kind of storytelling from a different kind of show’. But we always thought it would be so great to have an adult sibling turn up — someone who they never knew about. And we finally had the

opportunity to do it.”

Billie kisses a dream before putting it in her “wish jar”.

Rushing home from the UK, where she’s been working as Mick’s tour manager, Nina’s older sister Billie returns to her mourning family with a more holistic attitude. She’s determined to use the grief management skills she’s researched on the internet. And she now also writes down her dreams and puts them in a “wish jar”.

“Billie’s aspirations are always going to be a little bit at war with her own nature,” Gavin laughs. “That’s what’s great about her as a character. She aims high and generally ... she’s not very good at hitting the mark. But she’s really good at a spectacular miss.”

Offspring continues Wednesday night at 8.30pm on TEN.