EastEnders: The cheat's guide to the Christmas special

25 December 2023

The Six women involved in EastEnders storyline. From left to right it's Stacey wearing a red dress, Suki wearing a blue dress, Linda wearing a pink dress, Sharon wearing a white wedding dress with hands on hips, Denise wearing a green outfit and Kathy wearing a purple dress. All the women have a stern expression. There is coloured smoke surrounding them in the background. — Image caption,
One body, one wedding, six suspects. But which Walford woman will be the one whodunnit?

By Manish Pandey

BBC Newsbeat

It's the most wonderful time of the year... unless you live on Albert Square, where the Christmas traditions are heartbreak, lies and the occasional dead body.

Fans have been buzzing for this year's EastEnders special since the show's February flashforward scene teased a big mystery.

But 10 months is a long time.

If you haven't kept up with the thousands of doof doofs since, and are settling down in front of BBC One later, here's what you need to know.

And don't worry, this article doesn't contain spoilers for the Christmas Day special (like they'd tell us, anyway).

Whodunnit?

First, the basics.

The February flashforward offered a glimpse into the storyline known as The Six, and it involves - you guessed it - a murder.

A selection of Walford's favourite females are involved - Sharon, Kathy, Stacey, Suki, Denise and Linda - but we won't know who has done what until later.

Here's what we did see:

Linda scrubbing blood from the floor, blood on Stacey's hands and Denise holding a broken bottle.

Suki and Kathy's faces filling with shock as Sharon checks the body and whispers "he's dead", before the camera pans to the mystery dead man's cufflinks.

So we know a male character is going to be killed off and found on the floor of The Queen Vic pub.

We don't know who it is, or their killer's identity.

But we can narrow it down.

Who is it?

Six major EastEnders male characters stand in a line with stern expressions surrounded by golden smoke. From the left, there's Jack Branning, Nish Panesar, Dean Wicks, Phil Mitchell, Keanu Taylor, Ravi Gulati, and Rocky Cotton. Each man wears an identical grey/black suit with white shirt, gold necktie/pocket square combo and gold cufflinks.

BBC/Jack Barnes/Kieron McCarron

Six potential victims... one EastEnders fella will be wearing his cufflinks for the last time on 25 December

The problem is, in true EastEnders fashion, the under-threat fellas have been a right bunch of rotters towards the women of the Square.

If you're looking for a motive, there's plenty to choose from.

First there's Keanu - due to wed Sharon on Christmas Day. She doesn't know that he recently faked their son's kidnapping.

But Phil Mitchell (who is the real dad, by the way) does.

Then there's Rocky, whose marriage with Kathy is on the, er, rocks after he admitted he'd burned down her iconic café.

You've also got Ravi, who made an enemy of former lover Denise when he ended their affair and started seeing her daughter.

And Denise's husband, Jack, recently hooked up with Stacey.

Meanwhile Nish, Suki's husband, rumbled her relationship with disgraced solicitor Eve, who he tried to have killed (by Ravi, obviously).

And completing the list of potential victims is Dean, a rapist who's returned to the Square to torment his victim and sister-in-law, Queen Vic landlady Linda.

Got all that?

Piecing it all together

Sooz looking at the camera with short brown hair, with a grey background.

Sooz Kempner

Comedian Sooz has some top tips on how to be ready for the Christmas special

One of the things you might've seen over the past five years is an annual EastEnders catch-up thread on Twitter/X.

Comedian and superfan Sooz Kempner's round-up, neatly drafted on the Notes app, pulls together the year in Walford into one handy list.

And she'd be the first to tell you this year is a big one.

But Sooz tells BBC Newsbeat the key to understanding EastEnders at Christmas is realising that "not everything that happened in the year is that important".

"You don't actually have to include the whole year," she says.

And familiar faces - Kat, Ian Beale and back-from-the-dead Cindy (who was actually hiding in witness protection the whole time) - will help you to keep track.

"Anyone who leaps into EastEnders having not watched it for a long time will recognise half the characters, because they're all still there," says Sooz.

"But they're not the main meat of things. They're not the turkey, they're more like the trimmings."

Instead, Sooz says, people should focus on The Six and what they've been up to.

Her thread looks at what the main suspects and likely victims are getting up to in Christmas week and which storylines are "heating up".

And, to be honest, even focusing only on them will give you plenty to chew on - Sooz says this year's megathread is three times longer than 2022's.

Keep yer blower on you

The characters of Sharon, Phil and Keanu. Sharon, wearing black, is looking towards Phil and Keanu on the right who are in a heated argument. Phil, wearing a dark jacket and black tshirt is looking at Keanu who is wearing a brown top with sleeves rolled up, a silver necklace and a watch on his left wrist, while looking down. The background is of a pub with yellow and red walls filled with christmas decorations.

BBC/Jack Barnes/Kieron McCarron

It'll be last orders for someone at the Queen Vic

But EastEnders fan Hayley Minns says you don't need to stress too much about picking things up last-minute.

"The writers probably know that there are a lot of people watching who probably don't watch it usually," Hayley, a features writer at the Sun newspaper, tells Newsbeat.

"There's going to be a murder, there's going to be action."

If you really want to go the extra mile, BBC Three recently released a 30-minute special all about The Six to help you prepare.

But if you're planning on going in cold turkey because family tradition demands it, Sooz has some tips.

"You just have to put your phone by your side, open up [my] thread, and just glance at it," she says.

"Otherwise it would be like tuning into the season finale of Breaking Bad having never seen an episode of it and hoping to keep up.

"Because it's going to be as big as that."

The EastEnders Christmas Day episode will be on BBC One at 21:45 GMT and on iPlayer afterwards.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.

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