The Year Was… 2024

The Six: The Aftermath and the Cover-Up!
As the year began, the Six women who had covered up Keanu’s death were determined to keep their secret to themselves. They all had massively different reactions and all fell back on old habits; Sharon ran. Linda drank. Stacey threw herself into an unhealthy relationship with a Branning. Denise questioned her entire life and choices. Suki took control. Kathy pretended there wasn’t a problem and hoped it would go away.

Denise lost her nerve first. As the days went on it became more and more apparent to her that they would get caught, that someone had seen them and that she would soon go straight into a cell. She started having nightmares about the night of the murder and then, when Nish looked liked he knew she had smacked him first, started getting worse, hallucinating Keanu with her in her everyday life, talking to her. Eventually, she was sectioned, which worried the other Five because she could say anything! This whole thing was not helped by Stacey also slipping and sleeping with Jack Branning. Those Branning men must have something about them!

Eventually, with a full blown Jack/Stacey affair rumbling, Denise hospitalised and Sharon walking around dazed, lawyer Johnny Carter came home to Walford all grown up and found his mother Linda three sheets to the wind! Angrily, he took charge, but discovered the truth. So did Jack when Denise realised that her necklace was with the body and he caught her digging Keanu up! Of course, that disturbed the entire crime scene, and pretty soon the floor caved in, customers agape and Bernadette Taylor staring at, what she didn’t know at the time, was her brother’s corpse…

The Knights Settle In
Linda may not have noticed much of the Knight family drama this year, but they settled in quickly, mostly due to George’s past coming back into his life in a big way! In the New Year his adoptive parents, Eddie and Gloria, came to see the Vic and their family. Eddie was particularly charmless, but George had time for his mum, who seemed particularly keen to talk to George alone.

A few weeks later, George was stunned when he realised that he had been a ‘Brown Baby’, part of a child farming process in the 1960’s where white parents would agree to look after African refugees for their parents while they worked hard to provide a better life for their futures. While some came back for their children, Gloria had gotten attached to George and when his father, Henry Asare, came back for George, Eddie and his friends had attacked and killed him. George had witnessed the whole thing, not knowing what, or who, he was seeing.

Now the criminal justice system had finally caught up with Eddie Knight and he was about to stand trial for murder. He needed a strong character reference from his son to make him look tolerant and not racist, which was going to be a miracle in the first place! After seeing his abuse of Gloria, George had enough and told the truth in court, and Eddie was sentenced to life for murder. Gloria died shortly afterward of a heart attack, but George was by her side and she shared all she knew about his birth family.

This helped somewhat, as, later in the year, George was delighted to meet Kobina and Kojo – his brothers – one of whom, Kojo, decided to stay, much to George’s delight.

Suki and Eve
Just as things were calming down a bit, Suki and the rest of the Panesars had an unpleasant surprise when estranged husband and father Nish arrived back on the Square. He claimed to have a terminal illness, which to start with nobody believed, but it soon became apparent that not only was he going to die, but he also had to choose a successor to the Panesar fortune!

Suki, Eve and Priya were determined to stop Nish for various reasons. Suki wanted it because she was the one who had run the family for twenty years. Eve wanted a wedding spectacular. Priya, perhaps sensibly, wanted the money, mainly for her kids, but also for herself. Smart thinker that Priya. She’ll go far…

Nish, narcissist that he was, believed that the terminal illness would bring Suki back ‘to her senses’ and him. When that didn’t work he brought the wife of the man he murdered twenty years ago in to break Eve and Suki up. When that failed, he left all the businesses to the grandchildren and targeted Eve’s family, having her mother attacked and getting Eve off the Square. Then he made his special attack move. Putting the pieces together, Nish had identified what the Six women were hiding. He used it as blackmail to secure a position of power, securing a marriage blessing for him and Suki in the process, and it was only when Avani begged him to stop that he realised he was hurting the children. He then agreed to take the rap for the murder and went to prison, but only on the proviso that Suki would not marry Eve and visit him before he died.

By the time Suki got around to the visit, he confessed his role in Eve’s mother’s attack and Suki, fuming at his nerve, walked away. Nish subsequently paid a doctor to fake his illness deteriorating, got access to a hospice and escaped during the transport. Now, just before the wedding of Suki and Eve, he was hiding in plain sight on the Square…

Penny, on the other hand, found a bit of romance with Harry Mitchell, but, try as she might, she felt abandoned by Jack. She and Harry blackmailed her dad with a video of him punching Harry and, although the situation was resolved, Jack’s career was hit as a result. Father and daughter clearly had lots to work through…

Yolande’s Ordeal
Yolande was home in Walford and taking charge of church proceedings and my, how we had missed her! It was a breath of fresh air to have Yolande back and in such high spirits now that she had reconciled with true love Patrick. She became a mother figure once again to the Fox sisters and their brood even started referring to her as ‘Aunty’.

In April, whilst working with Pastor Clayton on church services in the community centre, his hand settled a little too low on Yolande’s back during a hug and she took him straight to point: get your hand off me. He did, but later seemed to suggest that she had encouraged him, which a) flabbergasted her and b) confused her as this was a man of the Church – surely he wasn’t that manipulative?

Clayton was, it turned out, a repeat offender and Yolande had help finding survivors of his brutality to come forward. Eventually the Pastor was charged and he made one final attempt to get Yolande to retract her claims. She denied him and he took his own life, coward that he was, denying his survivors any closure to their trauma.

The New Mitchells
Early on in the year, Sam Mitchell received a phone call from their uncle Harold, husband to Peggy’s sister Sal, who hadn’t been seen since Ronnie and Roxy’s funeral in 2017. She had sadly passed away, and, as the Mitchells attended the funeral, Phil spotted one face in the crowd he hadn’t seen in a long time. He approached the older gentleman and told him to get lost and later, when the same gentlemen approached Sam, Phil was adamant that the old man be kept away from the rest of the Mitchells, particularly Billy.

By May he was back on the Square, more determined that ever. It turned out he was Billy’s estranged father Stevie, who Billy hadn’t seen since he was a child. This had led to plenty of resentment for Billy who, at first, was not convinced at all that Stevie was being truthful about why he was suddenly about. It was only when he saw off Nadine Keller, trying to take grieving Jay for a ride with a fake pregnancy, did Billy acquiesce and get to know his father a little bit better. When Stevie discovered young Will up to no good due to being blackmailed, he promptly sorted out the problem, sold Phil’s car and left the money with Billy before heading away in a cab.

Of course, he left something else behind. Teddy and his two boys, Harry and Barney, followed him to Walford and it turned out that Teddy was Billy’s brother! The pair had never known the other existed, so it was a pleasant surprise for Billy to be the centre of Mitchell attention for a change. Phil didn’t like that one bit, and Billy told him a few home truths later in the year, leaving the Mitchell hardman alone, what with Ben in prison in America for fraud. Things were beginning to look much bleaker for Phil.

Teddy had his hands full with his own life anyway: Harry was an able mechanic, with a penchant for dodgy dealings, fast cars and fast women! Barney, the total opposite, was a studious sort, who rather than seducing the girls became a best friend to Avani Nandra-Hart. This kind warmness got him in trouble when Avani’s father Ravi suspected him of beating on his daughter and dangled him from the train bridge! Teddy burnt down the Panesar offices in revenge and breathed a little.

When George’s latest opponent turned out to be his own son Junior, it seemed to knock some sense into George and he stepped back into normality, prepping for his wedding with Elaine and dealing with brother Kojo who was adjusting to life in Walford slowly.

But Junior noticed the way that Cindy looked at George. In a desire to steal the limelight from the father who had left him behind, Junior seduced Cindy, who had never needed that much of an excuse really, and a passionate affair began. Junior, even started to develop real feelings for Cindy and, like David before him, begged her to leave Ian.

This left Freddie and Anna in love and loose on the Square. Freddie used his love of bird watching to find an activity that he and Anna (and Mo, of course!) could do together, and they littered the Square with speakers, trying to catch a wild bird call or whatever it is he wanted…

Reiss: Killer!
On the other side of the Square, Sonia was also all loved up. She had fallen for Reiss Colwell, and was rather upset when she discovered he was married! With more explaining, it turned out that wife Debbie had been comatose for years following a stroke and Reiss had been funding her medical care ever since. Sonia, being a nurse, supported this, and agreed to help him care for his ex while planning to marry Reiss.

But what Sonia wanted was a baby. And when Whitney finally became pregnant after her miscarriage last year, the pangs on Sonia’s face could be seen from space! It was at that moment that Sonia and Reiss decided to undergo IVF to conceive, and, after a false start, finally became pregnant later in the year.

But Reiss was not telling the whole story. It turned out he had now used the money for Debbie’s medical care on Sonia’s expensive IVF and now owed the care home their fee. In order to get himself out of debt, and, when cooking the books of Sharon and Phil Mitchell of all people didn’t work, Reiss decided that the care home wouldn’t need to be paid if they had no one to care for and callously smothered his wife! Because Sonia had been there that day and he hadn’t signed in, when the police investigated they decided Sonia was the killer and they arrested her, where she remained behind bars as Reiss stepped up a campaign to save his bride. But how would he manage this?

Goodbye Whitney…
Whitney and Zack were taking no chances with this baby, not after losing baby Peach. Whitney decided to take it easy and, perhaps rather unwisely, thought a visit to Milton Keynes and mum Bianca was in order! Bianca had split up from Terry and needed the company and, while she was there, Whitney noticed a school girl, Britney Wainwright, foraging in the local bins for food.

Whitney was enraged and confronted the child’s mother, a crippling drug addict who couldn’t look after herself let alone her children and Whitney promptly took the child – whether it was legal or not. Zack couldn’t understand her need to save the child who’s story was so similar to her own and went home to Walford, promptly finding comfort in Lauren’s arms!

Whitney fought hard for Britney, even giving her mother money for her to take her. Even though the social caught up with them, Whitney and Zack pulled together and became foster parents to raise the girl with their own child, using Whitney’s past experiences to help her see the child’s point of view.

Wedding bells chimed, but there was one more thing that hung over them: Britney had a rare condition called ‘Usher Syndrome’, a condition which would eventually impair Britney’s hearing and vision permanently. Although this devastated Whitney, it strengthened her resolve. It was that resolve that kept her standing when, after finding out about Zack and Lauren, Whitney walked away from their relationship, their wedding and Bianca and started a new life in Yorkshire with her two daughters, Britney and Dolly…

…Hello Bianca!
Bianca had paid a visit to the Square earlier in the year to see Whitney and Sonia, and hadn’t taken to unsuspected killer Reiss at all! Acting erratically and showing signs of anxiety, Bianca walked around the Square insulting everyone until eventually, after a row with Sonia over the IVF money, she left in a taco van of all things!

A few months later, with Sonia inside, Bianca returned, determined to get her sister out of prison and prove her innocence! She also suspected Reiss, and asked Freddie for a loan of his recording equipment to record a confession. This coincided with the return of her father David, keen to see why she was creating such a scene wherever she went.

David also had a shock when he spotted Cindy across the Square! Gobsmacked, he recalled their torrid affair from decades ago. He also discovered her affair with Junior and threatened to tell Ian – until she explained why she was cheating. He understood her reasons, it seemed and, telling Bianca he was always around should she need him, went up north to visit family for a bit, in particular son Joe, who he was eager to reconnect with. Unknown to David and Cindy, Freddie and Anna’s recording equipment captured their entire conversation, warts and all…

Later, Bianca had more evidence as Debbie’s parents seemed anti-Reiss too. Eventually, CCTV from a building was found which showed Reiss exiting the hospice at the time of Debbie’s murder! Bianca had him!

Reiss destroyed the footage however and, seen only by Martin, took Bianca off the Square to a lock up full of Debbie’s belongings and announced that he was going to get Sonia out his own way… and that meant Bianca had to keep quiet until Sonia’s trial. He promptly locked B inside, where, for the foreseeable, she would remain…

With Linda drinking the equivalent of a bucket of vodka each day, not only was her sanity and health in question, but also her reliability to tell the Six’s fake story in court. The judge got a read on Sharon and her little outburst saw her sent off on contempt charges! Dean admitted raping Linda in court, securing a conviction for something at least, but still, the police suspected someone else. Linda got so drunk and fed up with the guilt that she even confessed herself and the police didn’t believe her! Eventually, Bernie found out the truth and stepped up her harassment of the Six, scowling at them every time they came within vision and broadly hinting at their crimes in earshot. Even when Nish went down for the crime, this continued.

Sharon, whilst inside, bumped into former step mother and killer of Dirty Den, Chrissie Watts! Chrissie had long harboured thoughts of revenge against Sharon, but after a twisted argument, the pair resolved their differences – especially since they were now in similar, but affordable, Manolo’s. Before Chrissie left prison having won parole, she told Sharon a secret that would have huge consequences for Martin concerning Ruby Allen. She also swung by the Square in her sports car with lover Jake Moon, looking forward to a life free from her past!

Sharon would hold on to her secret for a few weeks, but before Christmas it was out: Ruby had indeed had a child when in prison, a son named Roman. And he was currently in a hospital. Martin, of course, immediately decided that Roman would be better off a Fowler rather than an Allen and decided to sue for full custody! Cue the bells. Round One… Ding, ding…

Linda: Bottom of the Barrel
It’s safe to say that Christmas for Linda Carter hadn’t been very pleasant over recent years. Three years ago she wanted a divorce, two years ago she lost Mick and last year… well. We know all that. But Linda couldn’t be helped. No matter what anyone did – and they did plenty – Linda continued to hit the booze. Bernie even ‘forgave’ Linda as she couldn’t stand to see the Carter kids so upset! News of Nish’s escape didn’t do anyone any favours and when Ollie admitted to big brother Johnny that he was scared of his mum, Johnny gave Linda the choice: the booze or the kids…

Linda spent the night at best friend’s Sharon’s house, but left the front door open. Sharon was burgled a fortnight before Christmas. Phil and Lauren, both struggling individually themselves, tried, but a public humiliation in the Square and another argument with Johnny saw her sleeping overnight on Arthur’s bench.

When Elaine returned home and saw the state of her daughter, she was her usual acerbic self to Alfie and Phil – it was only when Linda brought a complete stranger back to the Vic and he wandered into the grandchildren’s bedroom did the real Elaine come out – and that was it: if Linda wanted a drink, she would have to leave and not come back. Linda chose the bottle and fled into the night…

Linda staggered out of the Vic, vodka bottle clutched under her arm. Standing outside the Vic, with a picture Ollie had drawn of her hammered, she considered her next move. As time seemed to stop, she considered the future if she took her next drop: she could put herself in danger and die out in the cold. The police could knock on the door delivering horrific news to Elaine. The family would fall apart forever, with Lee, Nancy and Johnny suffering the consequences. Her friends. Ollie.

As time resumed, Linda poured the alcohol away and, despite having nerves and worries, finally decided that rehab was the next step and realised that asking for help was just as strong as suffering in silence…

Yuletide’s Greetings!
As Christmas geared up on Albert Square, the usual chaos ensued: the nude charity calendar hit a snag until Mickey Miller saved the day (and possibly the market)! Cindy continued to cover up her affair by giving suspicious Lauren stronger painkillers, you know, the usual stuff. Of course, this had an effect on Lauren, addict that she was and also her unborn child – as she found out this year that Baby Beale No. 2 was also on their way!

What Cindy hadn’t counted on was Freddie. Oh yes, Freddie’s recordings made themselves known a few days before the big day itself and Elaine, determined to be rid of toxic Cindy once and for all, blackmailed Mrs. Beale over the affair with Junior. She ordered Cindy out of Walford or else, but by the time Cindy caved into her demands, the USB with the evidence on it had gone walkies and had ended up wrapped under the tree!

Come Christmas Day, the tension was ramped up as Lauren revealed she’d overheard talk and planted the USB in the Secret Santa box. Cindy desperately tried to locate the device, but in the end, Ian unwrapped it and it played to the Vic as the festivities began that evening!

Cindy had had it: she lashed out and told her family what she thought of them; Ian threw her out into the snow; Kathy threatened to kill her. Anna broke, Elaine threw George out after he showed how jealous he was of Junior and Peter walked away, leaving Lauren spiralling back into addiction!

The damage done, alone and cold, Cindy walked through the Square on Christmas Night. Some unknown figure battered her across the head with a shovel and left her for dead! Who attacked Cindy Beale?

Elsewhere on the Square, Phil, not being able to stand being in a room with a loved up Sharon and Teddy, retreated back across the Square alone. But a few days before, an old friend had returned, not looking too great, but still the same old mucker: Nigel Bates made a surprise return! But why now, and after all this time?

The Other Stuff
Chelsea accidentally causes a crush in Peggy’s which critically injures both Amy and Lauren, who finds out she is expecting – but becomes addicted to pain killers… Denzel experiments with steroids bought online and an overdose causes damage to Nugget’s kidneys… Jean loses all her savings after being scammed… Sam shatters Phil and Kat’s marriage by announcing his affair with Emma Harding to the pub and then leaves… Kat and Alfie get back together after Tommy’s behaviour leads to violence at home!