The Year Was… 2008

Buried Alive!
You could say that Max Branning had made his bed and should lie in it, but it would be more accurate to say he had burned all his bridges considering the amount of people talking to him at the start of 2008. His affair with Stacey rumbled and the damage done (indeed Bradley and Stacey took all year – and a trip to a Doctor Who convention – to sort themselves out!) Max wandered around in a daze while Tanya, struggling to make it as a single, traumatised mum, made the questionable decision to make a move on psycho Sean Slater.

Sean had an effect on women – he turned them into accomplices! Eventually though, even he had to balk at Tanya’s latest plan: to get the ultimate revenge she decided to exploit Max’s greatest fear, the result of a horrible prank when he was a child. When he had been younger he believed his father Jim had buried him alive after he was locked in a coffin overnight. Tanya took this one further and actually drugged Max and, with Sean’s help, placed him in a coffin in the woods and buried him. And promptly drove off.

But Tanya was not as ruthless as she claimed to be and she went back to dig him up before he could perish. Some would say that would be a mistake, as Max now had an opening back into her life…

Goodbye to Frank Butcher
Another slanging match between Peggy and Pat had the pair of them reconnecting and bonding in April, but even they weren’t expecting what would happen next. While away, the pair were stunned to bump into Ricky and Diane Butcher, who had sad news: Frank Butcher, their ex-husband, had passed away.

The whole Square rallied together for the funeral, a proper East End horse-drawn carriage affair. Despite a brief argument, naturally, over who loved him more, Peggy and Pat made peace and mourned Frank side-by-side, together.

Diane helped Ian understand missing daughter Lucy with tales of her time on the streets and Ricky awkwardly wondered why Bianca hadn’t brought Liam as promised. Bianca would be back on the Square shortly afterward, but so would another funeral mourner – Janine turned up, dressed to the nines and raring to play the grieving Daddy’s Girl. Everyone saw through this naturally and she scarpered (when she realised she had been left nothing), almost making peace with Pat and running off with her tail between her legs.

Of course, by December, while browsing a copy of the Jewish Chronicle for some reason, Billy came across an article showing a picture of a Judith Bernstein, a young woman marrying a wealthy older gentleman. The bride was Janine. Pat intervened at the ceremony (“She’s about as Jewish as a bacon sandwich!”), the groom dropped dead and Janine was back to Square one – living on Pat’s couch with nothing.

Dot’s Dilemma
Since Jim’s stroke the following year (and to necessitate the recovery of actor John Bardon), he had left the Square to live in residential care and would only return to the Square sporadically until his death in 2015. In one effecting episode, unusually given the individual title “Pretty Baby”, Dot prepared an old tape recorder and recorded a message explaining to her ill husband why she couldn’t look after him, how she felt guilty about that, that it would break her heart to not have him home… A 30-minute monologue from June Brown, one straight scene, all performed with just June’s superb acting gifts. The episode saw June Brown earn a well-deserved Bafta nomination.

Good Kids Gone Bad
Steven Beale couldn’t keep his nice guy act up for long: he couldn’t stay in Ian’s home, not with Jane and all, but he could stay with her brother Christian, who confused Steven soon came onto and accused of all sorts. When he wasn’t doing that he was trying to smother Nana Pat when she was hospital after being hit by a car! He was stopped, but there was no room for creepy Steven in the Square, and the Beale family sent him packing. Unfortunately for Ian, Lucy went wandering as well, but when it turned out that Steven had been keeping her locked in a caravan, the game really was up and Steven returned to New Zealand, universally unmissed.

Another youngster who had not grown up well was Clare Bates, who made an unexpected return to the Square ten years after she left it. But this time she was thrown out of a moving car and had none of the nice-girl charm she had as a child. In fact, she was on a one woman mission to seduce and bed every man in Walford and milk any wealth they had – she even had a little black book. But she came between the wrong people, and no one in particular cared when she left for parts unknown.

May’s Explosive Return!
Jase Dyer got a painting and decorating job for a rich client away from the Square which suited Dawn Swann to a tee – they needed the cash. Summer was a lovely child and their little family had expanded with Jay, who Dawn loved as her own. They were set to walk down the aisle and everything. The problem: the rich client was mad medic May Wright, who was still determined to get her hands on what she thought was hers: baby Summer.

May returned to the Square and cornered Dawn in the Miller house on her own with Summer. Dawn was under no illusions and wasn’t going to fall for the trap again. She managed to lock herself upstairs in her room and Mickey came to her rescue, promptly getting his head bashed with a crow bar that May then decided to use against Dawn and the door. Mickey managed to trip her up and get to Dawn, securing them both in the room. May screamed in defeat and retired to the kitchen, lighting the gas stove and lighting a cigarette. The Miller house proceeded to go boom. The residents pulled together to get Dawn, Mickey and baby Summer out, but May had learned to her cost that smoking kills…

Jase’s Last Stand
Jase Dyer just couldn’t win. He finally had everything he wanted: Jay, fiancé Dawn and baby Summer and then the Miller house went boom. After Keith and Mickey left the Square, Dawn and Jase threw themselves into wedding plans, money or no money. Desperate to appease Dawn, Jase took ‘one more job’ with Terry Bates, the football hooligan. One was not a number Terry liked and, before you knew it, Jase was coming home black and blue.

On his stag night he agreed to collect £100,000 for Terry and asked a somewhat-bemused Billy to be his getaway driver: their plan was to steal the money and get away. Unfortunately the drop was non-existent and Terry had gone for the heartstrings and kidnapped son Jay Brown. Panicking, the pair returned to the Square to confront Terry.

His thugs armed and dangerous, Billy got Jay to safety and went back for Jase, who was taking a beating. However, afraid, Billy hid from the thugs and listened as Jase was brutally stabbed. Jay managed to alert the police and Terry and his men were arrested, but Jase would not survive his injuries and his last thoughts would be of his boy…

Archie Mitchell
One thing that you could see about Roxy Mitchell was that she liked to pretend her problems didn’t exist. When she couldn’t do that, she ran, assuming the umbilical cord between her and Ronnie could stretch that far! It seemed they couldn’t go 200 yards without panicking over the others whereabouts.

When Roxy needed to get away from her ‘who’s the daddy’ mystery, it took her a while, but eventually Ronnie tracked her down in Weymouth. Determined to get there before wannabe daddy Sean Slater, Ronnie and Peggy drove to where Roxy was staying and were stunned to come face to face with Archie, Ronnie and Roxy’s father!

Archie hadn’t seen Peggy for a long time and seemed quite smitten. He charmed Ma Mitchell and kept her up all night talking about his brother Eric, her husband. Roxy was not charmed by Ronnie’s opening gambit which suggested that Archie and Sean would both ruin her and she should come home with her. Sean had the last word as he convinced Roxy that Sean had to be the father of the baby and returned to Walford completely in love, ready to attend the registry office in a chav-tastic ceremony attended by the rowdy Slaters.

Archie followed them back to Walford and before you knew it had proposed marriage to Peggy (it seemed going after your brother’s wife was in the genes) and had settled behind the bar of the Vic – much to Ronnie’s horror.

While in Weymouth it had become clear that there was no love lost between Archie and Veronica. There was plenty of seething hatred. It transpired that Ronnie had given birth as a teenager to a baby girl and had been plagued for years with guilt over abandoning the child. Archie told her that the child was dead and that she had been all along and Ronnie, who had always dreamed of a reunion, was left bereft.

Yes, Archie Mitchell went out of his way to treat Ronnie with cruelty, contempt and criticism at every turn and absolutely no one else could see it. Apart from Stacey’s best friend Danielle Jones, a newcomer to the Square who shared Ronnie’s love for motorbikes. It would turn out that they had a great deal more in common…

Whitney, Bianca and Tony
When Liam hadn’t turned up at Frank’s funeral in April, Ricky had been worried. Within days of leaving the Square however, he would be back. In Manchester, finding herself on the streets with her own brood of children, Bianca suddenly found herself bedding down with her kids in a bus stop for the night. In the morning, the social took the children, leaving Bianca devastated. She grabbed a ticket with the last of her benefit money and headed for the one place that would welcome her: her Nana Pat.

When Bianca turned up, Pat called Ricky, who was livid. Calming down to convince the social she was settled in Pat’s, Bianca brought her children to Albert Square: there was little Tiffany, cute as a button, but a terror when your back was turned (she would turn out to be Ricky’s daughter in a twist that only surprised him); there was Morgan, who’s dad Tony was in the nick; Liam, just like his dad Ricky, just with a baseball cap and Whitney, Bianca’s adopted daughter who’s Dad Nathan had passed away while he and Bianca were together.

Whitney and Bianca were best mates. They did everything together. It took quite some time for Bianca to become a mum of sorts to Whitney because of the way they interacted, and Whitney got free reign as a result. If anyone disturbed Bianca, she would threaten them with her Tony, who would be out any day now, much to Ricky’s annoyance as he had fallen back in love with the ‘more-mature’ Bianca.

When Tony was released at the end of the year though, the truth was revealed: Tony had been to prison for assaulting a teenage boy that had flirted with Whitney – classic over protective dad right? Wrong. He was a predator who had been in a physical relationship with Whitney since she was 12 and Whitney believed every line he spun. She was convinced that they would be together and couldn’t see the signs like when he beat up Peter Beale or started eyeing up Lauren as Whitney started looking older.

On Whitney’s sixteenth birthday, she boldly told Bianca who reacted with absolutely horror! How could this have happened in front of her and everyone around them? She couldn’t believe it and it took her a while to get it into Whitney’s head that she had been groomed. The realisation devastated Whitney, her whole life upended.

Tony was arrested when he tried to go back for Whitney. He was released on bail, but Ricky, putting Bianca and his newfound family first, made sure that he was caught breaking his bail conditions and inside he went.

Hit and Run!
After taking a break to recover from being buried alive, Tanya was going to wish that Max had stayed gone. While he’d been off licking his wounds, Tanya had done the unthinkable and started a relationship with Max’s brother Jack, and like the Mitchell brothers before them, these two boys liked to swap.

Except Max didn’t share his toys and burst back onto the Square determined to destroy the relationship by any means necessary. He framed Jack for a robbery, who, unamused, took his brother away for some tough love of the punching kind.

Everything was going fine until one night Max was mown down outside the house and left for dead! Tanya confessed to the crime and was sent straight to remand, but there was more to the story: it turned out the actual driver had been daughter Lauren, whose boyfriend Peter Beale had been threatened by Max hours before.

Protecting Lauren would bring Tanya and Max closer together and when she was eventually released, they reunited. Lauren was found guilty of grievous bodily harm (the attempted murder charge was dropped) though and this was only the start of Lauren Branning’s dramas…

Sean Slater’s Icy Grave?
Christmas Day in Albert Square was never going to go well for the Mitchells: Archie had seen to that. He had manipulated his way into every single aspect of Mitchell life and was relishing being the king of the castle. Of course, thanks to Suzy Branning, Archie became aware that Roxy’s baby was not Sean’s and was actually Ronnie’s partner Jack Branning’s child. But by Christmas, little Amy had been born and Sean was a happy dad. So naturally, Archie ruined everything.

Placing the DNA results in a cracker, Archie waited and let Ronnie, Jack, Roxy and Sean know all at the same time that the baby’s parentage had now changed everything. Sean couldn’t handle it and fled, eventually snatching little Amy and leaving Roxy a wreck while she and Jack (and Ronnie) discussed the new bundle of joy that they would now all be raising.

Jean found Sean and brought Amy home, but driving away from the Square and highly unstable, Sean almost drove them into an icy lake. When they fell through the ice it looked like Roxy would drown if not for Jack and Ronnie’s intervention. Seen only by Roxy in the dim light of New Years Eve, she silently bid a very much alive Sean permission to leave and he slunk off into the night alone…

The Other Stuff
Jane’s brother Christian arrives on the Square. Deano is released from prison, abuses and steals from Shirley and leaves Walford. There’s double trouble in December when Nick turns up with a surprise child for Dot! Yolande leaves for Birmingham and she and Patrick separate. Chelsea seeks out her father, reformed preacher Lucas, and brings him to Albert Square, where he reunites with Denise. Wellard has to be euthanised after eating chocolate.