Rachel Hardy
Rachel Hardy is a fictional character from the British soap opera Hollyoaks, portrayed by Jennifer Brooke. She made her first appearance on 26 October 2015. Rachel was introduced alongside her fiancé Nathan Nightingale and his family as a new family unit that would run the local pub. Executive producer Bryan Kirkwood revealed that he introduced Rachel and the Nightingales to bring a sense of community to Hollyoaks. Brooke characterised Rachel as free-spirited and not caring about what others think of her. She gets itchy feet in the village as she wants to go travelling with Nathan. Rachel and Nathan were portrayed as being a perfect couple and childhood sweethearts. However, their relationship is tested several times throughout Rachel's stint on the soap, including when Nathan kisses Porsche McQueen and when Rachel hides Alfie Nightingale's cancer returning from Nathan. Rachel was then killed off in a car explosion caused by Holly Cunningham and she last appeared on 29 March 2016. Rachel's departure had not been announced prior and Garfield later explained that the character was always meant to be short-lived. Rachel's death impacts Nathan and was used to show other sides of his character. Rachel's death was seen as emotional and tragic by critics.
Casting and characterisation
On 21 September 2015, it was announced that six new cast members would be joining the cast of Hollyoaks as the Nightingale family as part of a "shake-up". The Nightingales were labelled as an "exciting new family" that would take over the running of the local pub The Dog in the Pond. One of the members was Rachel Hardy, portrayed by Jennifer Brooke, who arrives with her fiancé Nathan Nightingale, Nathan's siblings Ellie and Alfie Nightingale, their father Mac Nightingale, who had already appeared on the soap as a guest earlier that year, and Mac's girlfriend Neeta Kaur. Easter teased that the family would be moving in with "a bit of a bang" and that there would be drama due to Mac still being married to established character Cindy Cunningham. Hollyoaks executive producer Bryan Kirkwood explained that he had introduced the family to "create a sense of community" in the soap, adding, "We're delighted with the Nightingales. They're a family of warm, rich, loving characters - a very positive group. What we're keen for them to do is to make friends and for them to reach out and cross over with different clans". To promote the family, Hollyoaks released a series of videos titled "Meet the Nightingales" to explore the characters and their portrayers.Rachel's role was a series regular. Brooke made her first appearance as Rachel on 26 October 2015. Rachel and the Nightingale family's fictional backstory revealed that they are from Brighton. Rachel was reported to be the childhood sweetheart and "soulmate" of Nathan who "quickly gets itchy feet in the village". Brooke described Rachel as "quite cool" and "free-spirited" and not caring about other people's opinions, which Brooke liked about the character. The actress explained that Rachel fits in well with the Nightingale family and called Rachel and Nathan "a match made in Heaven" and "best friends". Brooke revealed that the couple "adore" each other and attributed their relationship working so well being due to the fact that they were best friends first. Brooke teased that Rachel, along with the rest of the family, would have some "big" storylines, which she was excited about. Brooke also explained that Rachel thinks of Hollyoaks as a waiting room before she goes to travel the world, and that Rachel somewhat likes the village but does not think she needs to settle there as she believes that she is not staying. Brooke also teased that there could be more members of the Nightingale family to arrive in the village.
Development
Ellie and Nathan move to Hollyoaks for a fresh start and their initial storylines see them having relationship issues, with their relationship later becoming strained. Garfield revealed that some characters would show romantic interest in Nathan but he would not reciprocate as he is "bound for life" to Rachel, adding that Nathan is "absolutely mad about her and she's mad about him. They're deeply in love and dedicated to each other". Garfield enjoy working with Brooke and explained that they built up a great working relationship and spent time together preparing for scenes and talking about their characters as most of their scenes were together.Ellie tries to push Nathan together with Porsche McQueen at the Christmas bar crawl, which infuriates Rachel and leads to a fight between the couple due to Ellie's manipulation. Following the falling out, Nathan ends up getting drunk and going to the McQueen household with Porsche, where they kiss. The next day, Rachel gifts Nathan an apology present as she feels guilty for arguing with him the night before, but they are interrupted by Porsche, who has come to return Nathan's wallet. Rachel is furious to learn about Nathan's cheating and decides to get revenge on him by pouring water on him when he is sleeping, giving him a "rather unpleasant wake-up call". Nathan tries to make things up to Rachel by hiring a Limousine to take them to the airport but Rachel tells him that she is still hurt, which threatens their holiday.
The couple are able to move on from Nathan's cheating but Rachel later begins to have doubts about their relationship and fears that they are drifting apart. Rachel turns down a permanent teaching assistant job at Hollyoaks High in order to go to travelling with Nathan, but she then ponders over her decision when she realises that Nathan may not not want the same thing anymore. Rachel becomes upset and ignores Nathan's calls and he realises that he needs to prove himself to save their relationship, so he asks Diego Salvador Martinez Hernandez De La Cruz to give him Spanish lessons to show that he wants to go travelling to South America with Rachel. Sophie Dainty from Digital Spy questioned whether it would be enough to ease Rachel's doubts. When Diego catches Nathan showing Myra the sexy underwear that he bought for Rachel, he gets the wrong idea and tells Rachel that Myra and Nathan are having an affair.
Nathan later begins preparing for their trip to South Africa and is excited for it, but Rachel is put into a difficult situation when she finds out that Alfie's cancer has returned when she overhears him confiding in Jade Albright. A "shocked" Rachel "desperately" tries to help Alfie and offers to go to the hospital with him for his biopsy and urges him to tell his family, but Alfie is determined for his family to not know, which forces Rachel to keep the truth from Nathan. Alfie wants to keep the truth from Nathan in order to not "stand in the way" of the couple's travel plans. Rachel accompanies Alfie to get his biopsy results, where it is confirmed that Alfie's Hodgkin lymphoma has returned, and he refuses to change his stance and makes Rachel promise to not reveal the secret until she and Nathan have travelled. Rachel faces backlash when it is revealed that she kept Alfie's cancer secret and a shocked Nathan harshly rejects her when she begs him to hear her side of the story, which upsets her. Nathan then tells Rachel that she should go travelling alone and so Rachel packs her bags and prepares to leave, with it appearing as the "end of the road" for the couple.
Rachel and Nathan then get back together and leave to go travelling, but on the way there they are involved in a car crash with Holly Cunningham and Cleo McQueen. Nathan – who was fixing their car at the roadside after experiencing engine troubles – is able to jump out of the way but Rachel is still inside the car when Holly drunkenly crashes into it. It had previously been reported that Holly would get in a drink-driving crash, but it was not revealed that it would involve Nathan and Rachel until transmission. The fate of the characters were not revealed immediately and viewers had to wait until the next episode to see the cliff-hanger resolved, although spoiler pictures showed Nathan trying to help Cleo. It was also reported that an explosion would occur. Daniel Kilkelly from Inside Soap teased that Holly's dangerous driving could cause issues for Nathan and Rachel's happiness. It was later reported that one of the four characters would be killed off.
Rachel was then confirmed to be the victim and she made her last appearance on 29 March 2016 after being killed off, becoming the first member of the Nightingale family to leave the soap. Following the crash, Nathan becomes worried when he cannot seem to wake Rachel up, but she eventually comes round and tells him to save Cleo and Holly. However, the structure falls down and Nathan's car explodes; he tries to put the flames out but is unsuccessful and Rachel dies. The cast filmed the scenes from 4pm to 4am and had to deal with a lot of rain from Storm Imogen. Garfield enjoyed being part of the stunt but called it challenging and "physically draining", but was glad to be part of the stunt as he still felt new to the soap. He added that it "was a real team effort between cast and crew to get all the material we wanted and to make the stunt look really strong. It was just such a pleasure".
Discussing Rachel's death, Garfield revealed that he and Brooke had known from "day one" that Rachel would be moving on "in some way", adding, "It was some way along the process that we received the full story, but we'd been gearing up for it from the start. Although that doesn't mean it was easy to see her go!" Garfield explained that producers had set Rachel and Nathan as an ideal couple and thus her death would really shock the audience and Nathan. Garfield revealed that he would miss Brooke, calling her a "a really good and honest actor who works really hard" and a good friend that he and the other Nightingale cast members would miss.
In the aftermath of Rachel's death, Nathan grieves for Rachel and is "struggling" for the first time of his life. Garfield found filming the scenes challenging but interesting, and explained that it allowed him to learn more about Nathan's character. He added that there is now a "massive void" in Nathan's life due to Rachel being gone. Cleo initially takes the blame for the accident and Nathan blames her for Rachel's death and even kidnaps her. However, Garfield explained that Nathan really blames himself as he wonders whether he could have done more to save Rachel, which is making getting over her death the most challenging. Garfield teased that Nathan would become darker through his grief and that his "fragility" and vulnerability would be shown to the character. He then begins to distance himself from his family and spends time with Holly, unaware that she actually caused the accident. Months later, Holly is exposed as being behind the accident and there is a police investigation, but the charges are later dropped and Nathan forgives Holly. Following her departure, Brooke returned to the Hollyoaks set several times as she had friends that lived in Liverpool.