Once bubbly, happy and bright, Rebecca "Bex" Fisher returned to her family a hardened, world-weary young woman after running away. She had a traumatic time in the eighteen months she had been missing, and was reluctant to tell her family the truth. Bex's experiences had left her scared and traumatised, as shown when she accused Kyle Stack of touching her up, after initially refusing to attend her first day back at school.
Series 6[]
Bex is first shown when she was younger in her mother Karen's flashbacks, portrayed by Alcyia Booth. Present-day Bex is portrayed by Tina O'Brien.
It is clear that the entire Fisher family are plagued by Bex's disappearance. Her sister, Jess Fisher, goes off the rails, her brother, Harry Fisher, becomes bulimic and her dad, Charlie Fisher, has an affair.
An older Bex first appears in Series 6 Episode 10, much to the shock of her family who assumed she was gone for good. Jess first catches Bex in their house, where she begs her to return. Bex is next seen reuniting with Karen and Harry in Karen's office.
In Series 6 Episode 11, it is clear that Bex has seen a lot - too much - in her time away from her family, and it's left her brittle. Bex is a survivor. Maintaining a veneer of positivity, she tries her utmost to pick up where she left off with her family. To do this, Bex decides her best tactic is to wipe out the past eighteen months, and asks her family not to ask what happened to her while she was away, but to simply be glad she's returned. This is hard for Jess, as with Bex disappearing it made the family's life complicated, and Jess just wanted to know where she had been and why she left.
Bex knows that Karen will struggle with this, and is aware that her return is creating tensions in the Fisher household, especially between her and Jess. As Bex flounders in her efforts to establish normality back at home, her relationship with Jess deteriorates as she becomes once more the focal point for her mum's attentions as her rows with Jess increase.
Waterloo Road offered a new hope for Bex, with its single-sex segregation policy. It's an opportunity to leave behind the seedy world of porn and Dylan Hodge, the man she met two years ago who led her astray and then betrayed her. No longer able to trust men, initially Bex enjoys the more innocent world of all-girl classes, without the distractions and impositions of the opposite sex. Bex wants more than anything to forget what happened to her, but if she were being honest with herself, she'd admit that she really needs to come to terms with her ordeal. As Bex battles to keep Hodge away from her and her family, exposure comes from an unexpected angle when boys at school stumble across a porn video of Bex on the internet. With her secret out, a humiliated Bex feels she'll never escape the mistakes of her past, so she decides to return to Hodge, but this is only because she found out that Jess was dating him and Hodge had also made a video of Jess, and if Bex didn't go back to Hodge, the video of Jess would go online, so Bex went back to Hodge, because she cared so much about her sister. But Karen only just got her eldest daughter back and she certainly isn't giving up again without a fight. Karen doesn't care what Bex has done - she just wants to help her through it.
In Series 6 Episode 17, after Hodge is finally caught and arrested, Bex is finally freed from his control. She spends the rest of the series getting involved in the school fashion show and spending time with Jess and Vicki MacDonald. After the end of Series 6 Episode 20, Bex finishes school and goes to university.
Trivia[]
- Bex is a fan of Joy Division and Bloc Party
- Bex is never seen on screen with her father Charlie Fisher; she does however briefly mention him, and visits him off-screen.
- Bex's actress, Tina O'Brien, was formerly in a relationship with her former Coronation Street co-star Ryan Thomas, brother of Donte Charles actor Adam Thomas. Ryan and Tina's daughter, Scarlett Thomas, joined Waterloo Road in Series 11 as Donte's daughter Izzy Charles.
- Tina O'Brien is best known for portraying Sarah Barlow (née Platt) in Coronation Street, a part she played from 1999 to 2008 and since 2015. Coincidentally, O'Brien and Dylan Hodge's actor, Ciarán Griffiths, reunited to once again play an on-screen couple when Griffiths joined the cast of Coronation Street in 2022 as Damon Hay, who embarked on an affair with Sarah in 2023.
Quotes[]
- "You count to ten, Mummy, and then come and find me." (first line, as a young child in Karen's flashback)
- "You still can't find me, Mum." (first line by Tina O'Brien as Bex, in Karen's imagination)
- "Alright, sis?" (first line after returning)
- Karen: "Tell me I'm not dreaming."
- Bex: "No, you're not. It really is me."
- "No, honestly, Mum, I'm just gonna leave it, I'll come tomorrow."
- Adanna: "What do you mean he touched you?"
- Bex: "He touched me up, d'you want me to spell it out for ya?"
- Kyle: "She's lying!"
- Bex: "Get me away from that pervert."
- Bex: "Whose is that car?"
- Jess: "How am I supposed to know?"
- Bex: "Oh my god no, how has he found me here?!"
- Hodge: "What did you do that for?!"
- Bex: "Because I don't need your money, and I don't need you!"
- "Mum, I'm serious, if you go to the police, I swear to god I'll run away again."
- "You know, it's no wonder you have to sit in your bedroom on your own watching porn, cos no real woman would ever wanna go near you."
- "Mum. I lied. Running is best." (on a note left for Karen)
- "I loved you so much, I woulda done anything for you. I don't love you any more. And if I go wi' you now, it's gonna be against my will. And I'll laugh and smile, pretend everything's alright, but it's all gonna be a lie. So if you're happy with that, then fine, come on, let's go now. But I'm not gonna be happy. And I bet it'll be the same for you."
- "C! I can't believe it!" (final line)