Max Branning’s children ended 2025 proclaiming how much they hated him, but now their lives rest in his hands, as a mystery gunman toys with the groom in the New Year’s Day flash forward
19:59, 01 Jan 2026Updated 20:48, 01 Jan 2026
Max Branning’s children ended 2025 proclaiming how much they hated him, but now their lives rest in his hands(Image: BBC)
Which child does Max Branning love more – that’s what one mystery gun-toting figure wants to know.
In a nail-biting cliffhanger on Eastenders, an unknown person took Lauren and Oscar hostage and forced Max to pick one of his children to die. But who is this mystery figure?
Here’s what we know – the person is dressed all in black and kicked off the flashforward episode by pulling up to the Vic in a beaten up white van. A gun is revealed to be in their glove box.
But the figure isn’t seen again until near the end of the episode when Lauren, who has received a shady message on her phone, storms out of her living room and straight into the barrel of that gun.
READ MORE: BBC EastEnders reveals update on Max Branning’s dark future ahead of flashforwardREAD MORE: EastEnders 2026: Every hint at explosive year from Max Branning wedding to major death
Which child does Max Branning love more – that’s what one mystery gun-toting figure wants to know(Image: BBC)
After being released from police custody following an arrest on suspicion of soliciting a murder, Max gets a message of his own. It’s a video of his eldest living children, Lauren and Oscar bound and gagged with a gun pointed at them. Underneath it, a text reads: “Lauren or Oscar. CHOOSE.”
Though the person behind the kidnapping isn’t revealed, there are plenty of people who are prime suspects. One such person is Tanya Branning, Max’s ex and the mother of Lauren and Oscar.
Since Oscar returned in 2025, Tanya has been mentioned a handful of times, mostly to explain how she hates Walford and does not get along with either Oscar or Lauren. Most recently, she refused to go to her grandson Jimmy’s christening, as returning to Albert Square reminded her too much of her dead daughter Abi.
Tanya hates Max(Image: BBC)
The two used to be married(Image: BBC)
When Tanya was on the show, she frequently butted heads with Max and, like her children, believed he was not a good father and would always put his pursuit of women ahead of them. As Max prepares to marry for a fifth time, could his upcoming nuptials have made her snap? Is she the one doing this to prove Max will never pull through for his children?
Or could it be one of the “shady people” Max claims are setting him up? Earlier in the episode, when he realised the police were after him, Max fled to Lauren’s house and begged her to help him hide. She insisted that he tell her what he’d done, to which he said that he had gotten mixed up with the wrong people who “set [him] up”.
There are plenty of shady people in Walford and Lauren is dealing with one as well. Just before she was taken hostage, Lauren received a text from an unsaved number that told her it was “making your mind up time” – perhaps the gunman sent the message and then followed it up with an in-person threat, turning on her when she wavered.
Someone has taken them hostage(Image: BBC)
Or perhaps this is what Lauren was planning all along, trying to work out which child her father would choose when push comes to shove. However, the number that texted Lauren was not the same one that texted Max, so unless the gunman has two phones, it’s not the same person.
Finally, it could be Peter Beale. The character was shown to viscerally hate his father-in-law during the episode and refused to go to his wedding. In an episode airing on 31 December, Peter also said he wished there was a way to “get rid” of Max. Is this Peter’s way of forcing Max out of Walford? If it is, will his wife Lauren ever forgive him?
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