EastEnders spoilers follow for Wednesday’s episode (17 December), which is available to watch now on streaming service BBC iPlayer and hasn’t yet aired on TV.
EastEnders’ Max Branning returns to Walford tonight, in the wake of his son Oscar being rushed to hospital. He promises to bring another missing member of his family back to Albert Square, but it’s soon revealed that all is not as it seems…
This week, Zoe’s life was in danger when she was trapped in a room inside No.25 which had been set on fire. Oscar found Zoe and rescued her, but he put himself in peril and was rushed to hospital.
As his family waited for news, Jasmine was told to leave him alone – and Max then made a surprise arrival to reinforce this message.
He stayed and slept by Oscar’s bedside, waiting for him to wake up. Lauren and Ian watched on, still concerned about the missing charity money that Lauren was scammed out of, and Peter now believes to have been stolen.
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In today’s episode, Max demanded answers about why the fire started, who took the charity money and why his former flame Zoe was staying with them. Zoe arrived at the hospital at that moment, and when she explained her stalker ordeal to Max, he pledged to support her.
Oscar then regained consciousness, to the delight of his family. Max explained that he was going to bring his granddaughter AJ (Abi Jr), but she was staying with Tanya while he was here.
With Oscar discharging himself from hospital, he and Max returned to Walford. Max wasted no time reuniting with another of his former lovers, asking Linda for a place to stay at newly opened Peacock Palace. But what Max still doesn’t know that he is the dad of Linda’s daughter Annie…
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He told Linda that he would be sticking around and had plans to bring AJ to Walford. However, Lauren later exposed she’d spoken to Tanya and she knows that AJ hasn’t actually been living with him.
At The Vic, Max interrogated Jack about Ian, suspicious that he’d got so close to his family and Lauren was fighting his corner. He came up with a theory and later told the whole pub that Ian had both stolen the charity money and set the house on fire as an insurance scam.
Ian was understandably furious and as things turned violent between the pair, Lauren couldn’t deal with the guilt any longer.
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“It was me,” she said, standing up and stopping the fight. “I stole the money.”
How will Max and the Beales react to Lauren’s shocking admission?
EastEnders airs on Mondays – Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer, where most episodes drop early at 6am ahead of their TV broadcast.
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