EastEnders flash-forward New Year’s Day episode left viewers with more questions than answers – which is exactly what it was designed to do.
Who is Max Branning (Jake Wood) marrying? Who is the pregnant lady he spent the night before in bed with?
Why are an armed police force after him? Who did he try to have bumped off? Who’s holding his children, Lauren and Oscar Branning (Jacqueline Jossa and Pierre Counihan-Moullier) at gunpoint?
Who is Ethan, the baby left in Jack Branning’s (Scott Maslen) care? Why are he and Denise Fox (Diane Parish) apart?
Who is ‘man’? Who is Lauren cheating with?
And what the hell happened to Nicola Mitchell’s (Laura Doddington) ankle?!
Okay, so chances are that we’ve worked a few things out: the pregnant lady is, more than likely, Priya Nandra-Hart (Sophie Khan Levy), with whom Max has been locked in a sordid affair and impregnated.
Baby Ethan is likely Jack’s daughter, Penny Branning’s (Kitty Castledine) son.
‘Man’ is Mark Fowler Jr (Stephen Aaron-Sipple), and he and Lauren have been dancing around each other for ages like a pair of hormonal ballerinas, though judging by what happens in the flash forward, they’ll be giving in to their carnal desires sooner or later.
As for the biggest points; Max’s bride, the gunman’s identity, and whether or not yet another Branning offspring is going to die, we’re still in the dark, and according to one of the potential brides, so is the cast!
Zaraah Abrahams, who plays one quarter of the bridal line-up, Chelsea Fox, spoke to The Sun on the red carpet of the National Television Awards and dropped some behind-the-scenes tea regarding what the cast do and don’t know about the twists to come.
‘We haven’t even been given the real scripts yet – I know that everyone says this but we haven’t,’ she teased.
‘We have been getting the scripts this time with big blanks in them and there has been different versions of each of the scripts.
‘So all I can say is that I know it will have to be explosive and it is not going to be what people are expecting.’
But that wasn’t all the juice she had: ‘There has been lots of clues teased that the EastEnders fans actually haven’t picked up on yet.
‘There have been lots of clues.
‘It is one of those things in hindsight where the fans will be like, ‘oh so that’s what that is’ and yeah, it will all be very good.’
Girl, come on! Don’t tease us like this!
Chelsea has recently found herself wrapped up in the machinations of her serial killer ex, Gray Atkins (Toby-Alexander Smith), who, even from the apparent safety of his prison cell, has been able to manipulate proceedings.
After Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) landed in the clink for hitting Chelsea’s son Jordan (Jahsaiah Williams) with his car, he found himself on the same wing as Gray, who used him to orchestrate a situation in which Chelsea was held in the prison visiting room, allowing his creepy grandma Sheila (Sheila Ruskin) to kidnap Jordan.
The plan was scuppered, thankfully, and Gray ended up in the hospital after ending up on the wrong end of a knife, giving Chelsea an opportunity to come face to face with the monster that’d brought so much terror into her life.
Finally seeing him for what he’s become – a powerless, angry nobody, incarcerated forever – she tore strips from him in a serious moment of girl-power and bad-bitchery, destroying what remained of his fragile ego before turning her back on him forever and heading home to see her little boy.
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