The BBC soap is preparing for a historic first on New Year’s Day
Max Branning is set to be at the centre of a flashforward episode on EastEnders(Image: BBC)
EastEnders boss has said that ‘things are not as they seem’ ahead of a major Max Branning twist set to air on New Year’s Day.
The BBC soap is in one of its busiest periods to date, as is tradition with all of the UK soaps during the Christmas season. December 25 once again marked another dark day for the residents of Albert Square.
One person who didn’t make it out of the most festive day of the year was Anthony Trueman. Nicholas Bailey’s character was pronounced dead shortly after getting in a fight with his former lover and the mother of his twins Zoe Slater.
Anthony attempted to use the fact that their daughter was the mysterious Jasmine to his advantage and get back into his life. Viewers are convinced that Zoe didn’t kill him due to him still being alive when he knocked her unconscious.
Zoe’s Christmas Day didn’t get any better, with her learning that her former nemesis Chrissie Watts was blackmailing Jasmine into tormenting her for several months. After months of trying to find her son, Zoe was devastated to learn that her daughter who she thought was dead wanted to do with her.
To make matters worse, Zoe was arrested after calling the police to avoid having to escape from the truth like when ‘Dirty’ Den Watts died over two decades ago. However, her mum Kat is convinced that she’s innocent.
With 2026 gearing up to be another hectic year in Walford, Executive Producer Ben Wadey has teased what fans can expect from his first full year in charge of the programme. Ben was called upon when Chris Clenshaw left the position last year.
Harry Mitchell is set to seek revenge after being kidnapped(Image: BBC)
“We’ve got lots ahead, lots of new stuff that I’m excited about. You may have seen we’ve just announced Ronni Ancona joining the show, which I am very, very excited about. I’m a huge fan of her work and she brings such a unique tone to it.
“I was really interested in just having a story that has a bit more kind of tragic comedy coming through it. She’s an old school friend of Linda’s and she’s called Bea. Bea arrives and her memory of Linda is very different to Linda’s memory of Linda.
“Bea is the sort of character who might attach herself onto people so she kind of comes in and gets to reacquaint herself with Linda. It’s also going to be a big story for some other characters,” he said.
“Billy and Honey are going to be big in the new year and will be involved in that story as well, so it’s a story which, as a team, every time we watch it and read it we love it. We laugh and we cry and it’s really, really fun.”
Ben continued: “Honey and Bea. After the misogyny story last year where we saw Joel was arrested, we’ve got his trial coming up so we’re gonna see Joel again as he faces the consequences of his actions. He’s pleading not guilty, and I think everyone’s struggling with why on Earth he’s put everyone through a trial.
“Vicki’s really going through the ringer of that, and Vicki, who wants to be committed so badly to Ross, but associates Ross now with everything that happened with Joel, her eye has been wandering slightly towards Zack.
“So we’ve got a big soapy love triangle in the mix of the new year. We’ve got a big story for Ravi going forward as he faces the consequences of his actions and all the awful things that he did in the previous few months, and what that starts to do to his psyche and his family.”
Another thing to keep an eye on according to Ben is a ‘revenge plot from Harry Mitchell’ and ‘the continuation of Phil and Nigel’s story’. Ben stated: “That beautiful episode, that will continue through and give us heart and warmth and just realism, and just gorgeous performances. Those relationships kind of see us through further into 2026.”
Viewers are alwaready aware that New Year’s Day will be a flashforward episode set in 2026. Focusing on Jake Wood’s Max Branning, the episode will tease what’s on the way in the coming months, with a trailer hinting that Max is getting married.
On the fallout to the flash forward, he went on: “You don’t have to wait an entire year to get all the answers, you’ll be getting answers from almost the episode after and then through every month, we’ll be giving you little bits. But also we twist a lot in that episode.
“Things are not as they seem so things that you will assume are going on there when you watch them in a year’s time will actually have quite a different light on them. But there’ll be lots of things within that episode that within the first few weeks and months, quite big answers you will start to get as an audience which I hope will be really satisfying that it kind of comes comes throughout the year.
“The plan is we’ll re-see elements of that [episode] which will make sense in the new light. There’ll be new scenes, there’ll be additional elements, so without giving too much away, it will be I think a very satisfying kind of coming together of two halves that I think will answer questions and be very satisfying to watch.”
