Warning: Contains spoilers for today’s EastEnders episode.
Spoilers ahead for Thursday 21st December’s BBC iPlayer episode of EastEnders, which has not yet aired on BBC One.
EastEnders has left us with another huge cliffhanger, as the future of ‘Sukeve’ rests entirely on Jack Branning’s (Scott Maslen) shoulders.
After Nish Panesar (Navin Chowdhry) and his son Ravi Gulati (Aaron Thiara) were arrested for the murder of Eve Unwin (Heather Peace), the woman herself returned to Walford to be with her soulmate, Nish’s abused wife Suki (Balvinder Sopal).
After a loving kiss, Eve explained that she had been on the run after being attacked and threatened by Nish and Ravi, leading her to make sure the police found her blood-stained jacket in Ravi’s car.
Suki and Eve visited a stunned Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner) to fill her in on their plan to leave, but Stacey was horrified that Eve was deceiving the police so severely.
Suki and Nish’s son Vinny (Shiv Jalota) got a panicked call from Ravi at the station, who told his half-brother that Eve was alive and probably with Suki at that very moment.
With her life on the line, Eve begged Suki to convince Vinny that Ravi was lying, and the race was on to get out of the country before Nish could get out of police custody in time to catch them.
Meanwhile, Jack cruelly ordered wife Denise Fox (Diane Parish) to stay in the family home, when his daughter Amy Mitchell’s (Ellie Dadd) distress over their marriage break-up led to a near-crisis for her mental health.
Still fuming over Jack’s fling with Stacey, Denise grew scared over Jack’s vile actions, and after he threw her clothes out of her suitcase, he left to talk to Stacey.
But when he walked in on Eve and Suki, hours after Jack had made arrests based on her murder, the detective was stunned.
Eve quickly recounted her ordeal at Nish and Ravi’s hands, and a confused Jack finally understood what was going on when Eve locked hands with Suki.
Stacey joined the women in pleading Jack to keep quiet about Eve being alive, at least for long enough to allow her and Suki to escape.
But with Jack’s behaviour turning more and more ruthless, will he care enough to help Suki and Eve? Or will it be too late for the pair to carve out a new life together?
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can visit Refuge for more information and contact 0808 2000 247 for support. Help can also be found at The Hideout.
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EastEnders airs Mondays to Thursdays at 7:30pm on BBC One and from 6am on BBC iPlayer.
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