The Year Was… 2001

The Shooting
The entire nation wanted to know the answer to the question but, to get to it, we obviously have to go through all that evidence, and DCI Marsden arrived to dig through it. Cue a long-standing grudge again Phil and the Mitchells that would last for 15 years! The problem was that Phil had managed to isolate himself, drinking himself stupid and making enemies of virtually everyone on the Square.

It all stemmed from Christmas Day and Mel and Phil’s moment of passion. She was naturally, as was right, disgusted with herself, for her choice as well as her betrayal of best mate Lisa. Phil decided that Melanie was the best thing ever, and, partially to wind Steve and Lisa up and definitely because he wanted another shot, started following Mel around the Square making crude comments about their tryst. He also continued his horrid treatment of Lisa, who wound up pregnant again.

Mel was worried for her friend though and – in a rare moment of truth – told Lisa about her sordid mistake. Lisa had it out with Phil, who at this point was unaware of the baby and he rubbed her nose in it. It was at that point she left him, straight into the safe and dependable arms of Mark where she should have been all along! And Mark’s over-protectiveness went from quiet Labrador to vicious Rottweiler when it came to interactions with Phil.

Steve had also found out about Phil and Mel, on his stag do for his wedding to Melanie and Phil even wound Ian up by boasting about sleeping with both his mother and his ex-20-minute-wife!

On the night of the wedding, Steve and Mel were finally happy and drove out of the Square for their honeymoon. Phil, drunk as a skunk, answered the front door to find nobody there and yelled in impotent rage into the night at whoever was messing him about. He turned his back and a shot ran out. Phil tumbled down the steps and lay on the Square, bleeding out. Ian found him and left him to die, in a particularly mean move, but with Phil in hospital recovering and sobering up, the whole of the Square decided that it must have been Steve who shot Phil and when he returned from his honeymoon, Marsden swiftly arrested him, proving that all Walford coppers were deeply stupid, a fact that fans would notice with increasing frequency over the next few years.

Steve was released and when Phil came out of hospital, his first visit was to his would-be assassin. A nation held it’s breath through the knock, the answered door, the doof-doof, the next day and then the opening credits, as it was revealed to be none other than Lisa, who had taken Steve’s gun from the e20 with the express purpose of murdering Phil.

Phil didn’t seem to mind though. He left Lisa, figuring she’d actually put up with enough from him, and framed Dan Sullivan, who had returned to the Square as a wannabe King and had taken control from Jamie of the Mitchell Empire while Phil had been recovering.

So in the end, Phil and Lisa ended up as friends again (they were at least civil, considering she had tried to kill him!), much to Mark’s annoyance. Ian got away with leaving Phil to die and Mel and Steve could finally start their wedded bliss. And Dan languished in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, swearing revenge…

Nick found himself having to learn to walk again, a spinal injury leaving him in a wheelchair. Cold, calculating Nick, embarrassed and determined to get revenge, kept Ashley by his side as his instrument. When Nick asked him to torch Mark’s home, Ashley balked at the idea, running back to mum Zoe in horror. Mark and Nick spent the summer griping at each other and taking shots while Pauline and Dot found themselves at odds over their son’s quarrel. Mark even lost his good guy rep for a moment when he tried to mow Nick down with his bike.

This time, it was the final straw for Nick. He stripped the brake fluid on Mark’s bike and waited for the show. However, Ashley, by now back on the Square, sticking up for his old man, stole the bike, riding it straight into the path of the launderette. He died instantly.

Dot’s friends’ rallied around and Nick, for once, was genuinely full of remorse. But Dot’s capacity for forgiveness was gone after Ethel: she told him exactly what she thought of the drug-dealing, thieving, murdering sinner he’d become and banished him from her side forever. As far as she knew.

The Vic: Under Old Management
Frank Butcher may have abandoned Albert Square, but that didn’t mean there weren’t constant reminders around the Vic. Peggy struggled to keep the business afloat but, in the end, she had no choice: to settle Frank’s debts she would have to sell her beloved pub.

For a while Peggy struggled to find her place in life. She had nothing to do. Moving into the Vicarage, she ended up interfering with everybody else’s life so much that something had to give. As the pub geared up for it’s grand re-opening under new management, Peggy walked straight up to the loved-up Steve and Mel Owen and congratulated them on their buying of the local.

But it wasn’t Steve or Mel who greeted Peggy behind the bar. With an all-time classic line (“Hello Peggy. Bet you thought you’d never see me again!”), a wide grin and a stunning new look, the new land lady was revealed to be none other than Sharon Watts, home after six years to reclaim her title as Princess of the Vic.

Kidnapping Horror!
When Dan’s case got to court in July, after months in prison, the evidence crumbled and he went free, determined to destroy Phil Mitchell. Of course, that wasn’t as easy as Dan figured it would be. He eventually realised that Mel was the only thing other than booze Phil currently cared about, and so he kidnapped Mrs. Owen, believing falsely that Steve had shot Phil and had aided in his framing. He demanded £100,000 each from the two men and held Mel cuffed to a radiator in a grotty bedsit.

The Mouse That Roared
Something was obviously not right in Little Mo’s marriage to Trevor. That had been obvious to us as viewers since the Slaters had arrived, but we weren’t prepared for the full extent of Mo’s troubles. Trevor was a serial abuser. He would bully, talk down to and generally treat Mo like something he’d stepped in and expected a regular housewife, who cooked, cleaned and lay quiet when he needed her to. He was vile. The Slater family, aware of the issues, had tried everything, but it was Mo that needed to make the move, and she always believed him when he turned up weeping and ashamed, begging for another chance.

After he didn’t return from a work trip away, Mo became panicked. Enlisting her family’s reluctant help to find her husband despite everyone telling her to leave him missing, Billy tracked him down and found him living with a pregnant woman named Donna. It was clear Trevor was not a one-woman abuser. Billy, by now hopelessly in love with Little Mo, took Mo to see the proof, but it left Trevor seething with jealously.

He followed them back to Square, claiming to be changed man. He would not let a little twig of a man like Billy get his girl! He attended counselling, sweet-talked her family and friends and Mo fell for it. But no sooner had they got back together, he began to punish her for walking away from him. When she dared to see her family, he cracked her head open. He burnt her hand with an iron. He made her eat her Christmas dinner off the floor and when she dared to buy a hat for Lynne’s wedding, he violently raped her.

Trevor begged forgiveness and tried to rationalise his actions by claiming it was an attempt to start a family. By now, Mo had cottoned on and, determining not to have a child with a psycho, continued taking her birth control. This angered Trev who battered her so hard in the stomach there was no disguising it. She fled back to the safety of her family and Billy. On New Year’s Eve, finally settled and babysitting in Pauline’s for baby Louise, Trevor found her and attacked. As he held her down, intent on forcing himself on her, she grabbed the nearest heavy object. The mouse finally roared and she bludgeoned him with an iron, leaving him for dead on the kitchen floor.

Mrs. Lisa Fowler
Despite the fact that she shot Phil, was carrying Phil’s child and was really not that into him (presumably because he didn’t shout, beat and brutalise her), Mark Fowler was still devoted to Lisa. She fled to him when she abandoned Phil, more out of desperation than love, and the pair concocted a scheme that would make Phil leave them alone: pretend the baby was his.

Eyebrows were raised, but Mark managed to cover it all up with medication lies and new ‘sperm-washing’ techniques that were rather too much information while Lisa fiddled the dates. By the time Louise (named after Lou Beale to help the lie, poor tot) had been born, people either accepted Mark was the father or knew Phil was. Lisa agreed to marry Mark before the year was out, finally worn down by Mark’s genuine acts of decency. Of course, just as romance was about to bloom, Phil crashed it, wanting his daughter. Louise’s quiet childhood did not last long.

The Other Stuff
Pauline fails to get custody of baby Chloe when Martin admits he doesn’t want to be a father. As Pat prepares to leave Walford for New Zealand, Roy changes his mind and races to stop her. Barry is not best pleased. Audrey receives a blow to the head and passes away, devastating sons Paul and Anthony. Their father Patrick shows up at the funeral. Roy discovers an illegitimate son, Nathan and Garry finally marries Lynne. Laura and Ian get married. Jim Branning asks Dot to marry him on the Millennium Wheel. She says yes…