Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden) tells Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace) their romance is over, but she’s shocked when she eventually learns the real reason why.
Chelsea Atkins (Zaraah Abrahams) falls further under the spell of evil Gray Atkins (Toby-Alexander Smith) as they get worrying news about their baby boy, Stuart Highway (Ricky Champ) struggles with his cancer treatment and Dana Monroe (Barbara Smith) reveals a secret.
Here are all your EastEnders spoilers for 24th – 28th January 2022.
Phil shocks Kat
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Phil’s deal with the devil – sorry, the police – weighs heavy as he contemplates his future, which will either be spent behind bars or as a grass for the boys in blue (and look how that ended for Vincent). Either way, he decides it’s crunch time for him and Kat and he ends their relationship, much to her confusion.
Confiding in Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean) he explains he only dumped Kat to protect her from heartbreak if he’s sent down for life (she still thinks he’s only looking at five years), but there’s also the potential danger from disgruntled gangsters she could be in if he becomes an informant. Shaz urges him to come clean to Kat which he eventually does – will he tell her the whole story? And can Phil really bring himself to be DCI Keeble’s snitch?
Chelsea’s drug hell
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Chelsea’s resolve to stay strong during her long game to escape her marriage to a murderer starts to wobble as the exhaustion of being a new mum to a sick baby takes its toll. When she’s prescribed anti-depressants by the GP manipulative Gray worries they’ll weaken his control, so he puts her off by saying she won’t be able to breastfeed if she’s on meds.
Kheerat Panesar (Jaz Deol) engineers for Chels to spend some mother/daughter time with Denise Branning (Diane Parish) and tells Whitney Dean (Shona McGarty) he’s organised a flat for their friend when she’s ready to leave Gray. Getting the callous killer alone, Kheerat pretends to be Gray’s pal and tries to get him to admit what he did to Chantelle – only for them to be interrupted with shocking news about little Jordan…
Stuart spirals
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The realities of having breast cancer send Stuart spiralling, as he freaks out about the surgery that could mean the difference between life and death, and admits to estranged mate Mick Carter (Danny Dyer) he thinks he’s being punished for the bad things he’s done in the past.
The prospect of an operation is scary in itself, but it’s when doctors start discussing pain medication Stu really starts to panic. Who can Stuart lean on to get through his darkest hour? And is he in any fit state to make important decisions about how to tackle his diagnosis?
Dana’s big secret
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Harvey Monroe (Ross Boatman) hopes that the heat will soon die down after the near-miss at midnight on New Year’s Eve where his radicalised son Aaron Monroe (Charlie Wernham) almost detonated a bomb on behalf of far right extremists, but it’s a pretty hard thing to escape – especially considering his landlord is super cop Jack Branning (Scott Maslen).
Feeling he has no choice but to leave Walford, Harvey tells Jack the Monroes are moving on, lying he is going to stay with a sick relative (sicker than Aaron?!). Dana wants to stay put and it soon becomes clear there’s a very good reason why, as Peter Beale (Dayle Hudson) overhears a conversation he really wasn’t supposed to… What is Dana hiding?
Elsewhere on EastEnders
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- Mick continues to be the only person on the planet to see the good in Janine Butcher (Charlie Brooks), and gives Scarlett Butcher (Tabitha Byron) a thoughtful gift pretending it was from her mother in the hope it repairs ruined relations with her precious lamb chop. How’s that going to stop Janine getting the wrong idea? If Ms Butcher swooned any more for Mick she’d be limbo dancing. Could a full-blown fling be what drives the landlord out of Walford when Dyer leaves later in 2022?
- Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner) dons her power suit (probably one of Kat’s old ‘going on the pull’ blazers) for her first day as the new market inspector and gives Martin Fowler (James Bye) a mouthful accusing her ex of being jealous she got the job. Unable to bite his tongue, he spits back he was offered it and turned it down so she could be employed! Bet that wipes the smug smile off Stace’s face – and possibly throws the estranged couple back together.