The Year Was… 2016

Brother vs Brother!
The year started as miserable as it was going to stay, as Mick prepared to marry Linda. Dean interrupted the event and tried to drown Shirley in a lake, in revenge for her doing the same to him. You see, she had discovered him in the process of attempting to rape Roxy Mitchell and was now firmly on the side of Mick and Linda. Mick dived in to rescue his mum, dragged his unconscious brother to the surface and proceeded to save his life! He was arrested and charged with his attack on Roxy, but not Linda, but would walk free to haunt the Carters another day. But with Dean gone, at least Shabnam could raise daughter Jade, and she left the Square, having been unable to reconcile with Kush.

Linda was feeling down, until Johnny returned after discovering his new self away and was now firmly committed to his sexuality, his family and his law career. He threw himself into this, neglecting his love life for the whole year and supporting his mother when his sister left.

Nancy, who had been feeling a bit lonely for a while, had settled with Tamwar Masood, but then she decided she had to leave the family nest and explore herself and the world. Tam decided to go with her and together the pair left happy and content and went off on their adventure!

Babe spent most of the year wheeling and dealing, blackmailing the Cokers and pressuring Abi into her obsessive plans. Her comeuppance would soon come.

But it was Lee who was struggling most of all. Depressed, miserable and out of the army, Lee was trying to find his place in the world, and wasn’t sure it was in Walford or with girlfriend Whitney. He had a one night stand with Abi Branning and also clearly had anger issues – the slightly thing would set him off. His one night stand had consequences when he passed on an STI from Abi (which came from Ben, which came from… never mind) and then blamed himself when Whitney lost a baby they had been expecting. Lee tried his best, bless him, marrying Whitney in a lavish ceremony when he secured a job in the city. But there no job, and by Christmas he was preparing to steal from his own family in an effort to keep his secret…

Slater Surprise!
Kat and Alfie had returned just before New Year’s and were clearly not in a good place. She had tried to reconcile with Zoe, but her estranged daughter had not been interested and Kat was in a foul mood. The year got off to a terrible start when Charlie turned up. After an argument broke out between Mo and Kat over long-standing secrets, Charlie had a heart attack, and died there on the spot! Kat fell out with her family and did not attend the funeral, and Stacey, already fragile, lost it completely. Kat had a visit from a nun, Sister Ruth, who had delivered Kat’s twins years before. Yes. Twins. Zoe’s twin that Kat had known nothing about! He had been shipped away when born by Viv and Mo, and Kat was gobsmacked. She found out where her boy had been taken and set off for his location, a little Irish town named Redwater, where she would find more than she bargained for…

As for Stacey, she was unknowingly suffering from Post-Partum Depression and had started hallucinating, and had come to believe that Arthur was God’s son and needed to be protected. She was hospitalised when it was deemed she was a risk to herself and others and, having climbed to the top of the Vic with the baby, it seemed that they were right!

It would take a long while for Stacey to recover, but by the summer she was ready to come home and returned home to meet her brother Kyle, who had arrived in her absence. As for how he was her brother?

Her father Brian had been a bigamist and had another family, including three daughters, one of which, Sarah had become Kyle and was ostracised by his family. Stacey tried to bring him and his mother together, but she was unable to process the change in her child and she walked away. Stacey was not going to leave her brother though, and she and Martin took him in and he did a good job with the catering for the wedding, when Stacey became Mrs. Fowler later in the year!

The Mitchells in Chaos!
The Mitchells were usually pretty together and a tower of strength when united, but in 2016 they were more divided than ever!

A car accident had led Phil to discover that without a new liver, he would die. Problem was he needed to be sober for six months before being put on the transplant list… He attended meetings (and bumped into sober former flame Lorna Cartwright) and eventually, after nearly killing Louise after stealing a construction digger and bringing the car lot down on her, decided that maybe he should live after all. Sharon resolved to stick by her man, and Phil, at least, was stronger by the end of the year – well at least he was sober.

Jay found himself in trouble when his girlfriend, Star, turned out be a girl called Linzi – who had lied about her age and was a school friend of Louise’s! He ended up on the sex offenders register as a result of a picture she had sent him! Louise had only been on the Square five minutes (Lisa had disappeared apparently) and she was already winding Jay and Ben up and before the end of the year was causing all sorts of mischief!

And then there was Ronnie and Roxy. Roxy had spiralled since Dean’s assault, dabbling as a drugs mule, dragging Jay into dealing and sampling the product! When a suggestion from friend Donna went the wrong way, Roxy decided that the best thing to do would be to leave Amy with father Jack and sister Ronnie and move to Ibiza solo! Ronnie had to deal with Andy Flynn, an ultimately dangerous man who was Danielle’s adopted brother out for revenge! Luckily for Ronnie, knight in shining armour, Jack Branning, was back to protect his errant princess and they were even planning their New Year Wedding.

They were notorious co-dependent to an almost spooky degree – and Ronnie was not buying Roxy’s Ibiza spin… No, they were all moving to Essex after the New Year’s Eve wedding and that was that. Roxy eventually came around and Ronnie became Mrs. Branning. Again.

Goodbye Peggy…
Peggy had told Phil earlier in the year that she was ill again. The cancer had returned, spread to her brain and was killing her slowly, and Peggy Mitchell, Queen of the Vic and Matriarch of the Mitchells, refused to go out that way. She turned up at Ronnie’s door in May.

She asked Phil to end her suffering. He refused, taking her on a jaunt around London to try and get her to change her mind. Grant turned up, desperate to save his mum, but she talked him out of it and he went back to Portugal as quick as he arrived. He would be back later in the year when him and Phil would have more words.

As she started smelling smoke and paying attention to singing birds, Peggy even made her peace with Sharon, thanking her for keeping an eye on her boys and went inside. With everybody out and her letters finished, Peggy, still smelling smoke, went upstairs and bumped straight into a hallucination of the long-passed Pat Evans. As she dressed, applied her make up, opened a window and had one last friendly spat with her best friend, Peggy took her pills and went to sleep. Phil found her the next morning, and Albert Square went into mourning.

The funeral was a lavish affair, packed and full of familiar faces. Sam returned for the funeral, but had been stunned by motherhood. Unable to cope, Sam fled, leaving Ricky with Jack, who suddenly had a new child to raise! Grant watched the funeral from a distance, grieving quietly on his own.

Grant’s Secret Son!
When Ben went missing, kidnapped before giving evidence against thugs, Phil refused to call the police and Sharon once again called Grant. Arranging to meet, she was stunned when daughter Courtney Mitchell showed up instead. Grant had not been coping since Peggy’s death and, since Phil had all his money, Grant had lost his business and his home. He was also under the mistaken impression that Phil had helped Peggy to die.

Courtney stuck around the Square for a while, getting on with her new-old family, but Phil had discovered Sharon’s big secret: Michelle’s son Mark, was Grant’s son! When Grant met him, he realised he was the boy’s father straight away! But he wasn’t a boy now, he was a man, and Grant didn’t feel the need to tell Mark who he was. Mark wasn’t stupid however, and had figured it out. Sharon convinced Mark to leave it and go back to America. Before he went, he teamed up with Grant for some father-son bonding and saved Ben, and now, money given to him by Phil, peace made, Grant returned home to Portugal.

Sharon kept the family going and needed some relief by the end of the year. She would get something – best friend Michelle, back from America for the first time in over 20 years – but Michelle would simply bring more grief with her, for everyone!

Bobby Discovers the Truth!
With Max in prison for Lucy’s murder, the Beales thought they could rest easy. But as time went on, Bobby’s temper became noticeably worse and warped: he killed Denny’s pet spider, always a damaged sign, and then, after his parents decided that he would no longer be attending the boarding school he was excelling at (he was only there to keep the secret from him), the troubled boy lost it, attacking Jane with a hockey stick, leaving her in a wheel-chair. He then marched into a crowded pub and admitted to killing Lucy!

Bobby was arrested and charged and then remanded into custody at youth detention, which broke Ian and Jane. But it would be a long recovery, one that would not be helped by other problems: in order to get help, the cavalry was called in and Lauren and Peter were on their way home with baby Louie. But when they got home a shock was had: Lauren and the baby were there, but with the wrong brother! Seems Lauren had swapped Steven for Peter, and he was now her soulmate, rapidly becoming more obsessed with Lauren, baby Louie and Abi Branning as time went on…

Pam and Les: Their Sad Goodbye
Pam and Les Coker were every grandchild’s dream. Loving, caring and full of humour, Paul Coker knew how lucky he was. But the Cokers were very private as well: Les had a secret (he enjoyed and felt more at home dressed as a woman) and was blackmailed by Babe into coming out, so to speak. This put stress on the Coker’s marriage, but they were stronger than they thought.

Paul and Ben became a couple this year after Abi lied about being pregnant to keep gay Ben. When attempting to get pregnant and making mistake after mistake, Abi ended the year alone and Ben actually became a different person thanks to Paul. He started to relax, accepting himself and not caring whether his alki father liked it or not. The Cokers took him in and he became very close to them.

When the police informed Ian, Kathy and Phil that Ben had been beaten to death in a homophobic attack, they were horrified. Racing to the hospital to identify the corpse, they were relieved to find Paul was the boy in question, dead after the boys had separated during the attack. Ben turned up okay, but was devastated. He would never truly recover, and neither would the Cokers, who left the undertaker’s in Billy and Jay’s hands and left Walford when Paul’s killers were jailed.

The Other Stuff
Gavin causes problems for Kathy and Claudette – and this time ends up in the nick! Claudette’s murder of her husband is discovered by Vincent and, after a bitter feud, he eventually exiles her from the Square. After a brief relationship with Patrick, she leaves Walford… Denise spends a drunken night with Phil – and ends up pregnant! Ollie Carter is diagnosed as autistic after an accident at home. Colin Russell makes a brief return to invite Dot to his wedding!