As all other fugitives have been hunted, only two teams remain and are set to race to the extraction point in Hunted Australia’s 2024 grand finale.
Hunted’s 2024 Grand Finale premieres on 8 September on 10 and 10 Play.
Seven of the nine teams have been eliminated so far throughout the season and going into the grand finale, only Andy and Deb and Romanee and Chelsea remain.
Deb and Andy
Hunted: Meet Andy and Deb
Married, SA
Andy: Firefighter (Station Officer) Deb: Event Coordinator
A teenage love story, Andy and Deb met and married young, having two daughters early in their marriage. As a couple, they are optimistic and very hardworking – salt of the earth type people, with an energy that is utterly infectious.
Andy is cheeky, diligent, and energetic, with a heart of gold. A career fireman, he coordinates operations for some of the most horrific bushfires this country has ever seen, including the Sydney bushfires, Kangaroo Island bushfires and Sampson Flat bushfires. He organises all things in the operation, including the use of maps, planning routes, and choosing safe alternatives for various situations. It’s the Fire Service brotherhood that Andy and Deb plan on using as their main source of assistance whilst on the run. Andy has also recently returned from a secondment where he volunteered in Ukraine as part of the search and rescue missions through areas that had been bombed, shelled, and covered in landmines.
The other half of this tactical duo, Deb is honest, funny, highly organised and loves people. She is willing to do whatever it takes whilst on the run and is prepared to disguise herself in wild and wonderful ways that include costumes, makeup and even shaving off her long blonde hair. Her father was a career criminal safe cracker, spending 20 years on the run – will she inherently know some tactics that she can use along the way?
Romanee and Chelse
Hunted: Meet Romanee and Chelsea
Friends, SA & TAS
Chelsea: Finance, Romanee: Marketing Consultant/Social Media
Chelsea and Romanee are two down-to-earth country girls at heart, who are best friends brought together by former boyfriends! Bubbly and outgoing, they are confident, funny, and absolutely love a challenge. They both thrive in fast-paced environments and are tenacious and determined with anything they put their minds to.
Both are farmers’ daughters – Romanee’s father is a winemaker and Chelsea’s father is a cattle farmer, so they are not afraid to get stuck in and give anything a go. Going into Hunted with a solid plan, they will use their many contacts, friends, and family around Victoria to assist them on the run in the most efficient and undetectable way.
Season 3 was about making contestants real
Director of content at Endemol Shine Australia Marty Benson and head of creative production and entertainment at Paramount ANZ Tamara Simoneau told Mediaweek the hook for this season was to make the contestants “real” fugitives on the run.
This season opened with a (staged) bank robbery and saw the fugitive teams initially split in half: a team of nine “robbers” and a team of nine “planners”.
The robbers together plotted the grand bank heist and creeped out into the night to steal from a bank in Ballarat in the early hours of the morning. Meanwhile the “planners” planned the all-important getaway.
The Ballarat Bank held $1 million, with the entire loot up for grabs. Whatever the Fugitives could steal, they divided amongst themselves. If they make it to the extraction point, that will be their prize money. While there can be multiple Hunted winners, whoever makes it to the finish line will win $103,000 between their team.
“The inspiration for the new twist came from our UK counterparts, a show called The Heist, which is shot in a similar way but the format is a bit different,” Benson said.
“That show starts with a staged bank robbery, and we thought it would be a great way to add another dimension to Hunted and actually make our contestants be actual fugitives and on the run.”
“Before they were just on the run for the game, now they’re on the run because they break the law,” Simoneau said.
The Hunted Grand Finale premieres on 8 September on 10 and 10 Play.