Top 10 WTF EastEnders Moments

This tale featuring ‘sisters’ Zoe and Kat Slater was actually nominated for “Best Storyline” at the 2002 British Soap Awards, so hooked was everyone on watching it unfold. It hinges on Zoe deciding that she’s going to Spain to spend time with her Uncle Harry… But then, Kat’s objection leads to a catfight and this startling revelation outside a curry house. Later, we learn that Harry abused Kat as a child and is actually Zoe’s father. As perhaps one of the most quoted lines in British soap opera history, it established the Slaters as one of the Square’s central families.

It’s not all murder and mayhem in this show. The soap has run simpler stories on recycling and parking fines, too… but when it comes to trivialness, nothing matches the 2009 plot about Heather’s obsession with George Michael. After Heather drags Shirley to the singer’s house, the women peek through windows and rummage through bins before making off with the memento of … a yoghurt pot lid. To make the whole celeb-spotting business even more anticlimactic, it turns out the house wasn’t even George’s. As dramatic storylines go, this one was just RUBBISH.

After Lucy Beale was found murdered in 2014, “EastEnders” fans reportedly wagered more than £10 million on the identity of the killer, at bookmakers up and down the country. There was no shortage of suspects either, with the BBC lining up thirteen possible culprits. The showmakers then dragged out the storyline for nearly a year, before revealing that the killer wasn’t one of the thirteen at all, but rather Lucy’s younger brother, Bobby. Apparently the 11-year-old boy had battered his adult sister to death with a jewellery box because “she made everyone unhappy”. Hands up who saw that coming??

There have been a number of memorable cameos on this show, with Robbie Williams, Nick Grimshaw, and David Walliams among the stars to have featured at one point or another. But Boris Johnson’s 2009 appearance will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. Playing himself, the then Mayor of London stops by at the Queen Vic to speak to Peggy Mitchell, and the scene quickly spirals into a performance more wooden than the New Forest. Which is strange, really… Considering Boris’ reputation for front page PR stunts, you’d have thought he’d be in his element here.

Christmas episodes of “EastEnders” are rarely stacked with seasonal cheer and often end in disaster – like in 2017, when Abi and Lauren Branning climbed to the Queen Vic’s roof to try and stop their father Max from committing suicide. But, there was another deadly twist to come. As the sisters emotionally talk Max out of jumping, they wind up falling from the very same ledge. And the dark irony doesn’t stop there. Back in 2010, Max’s son Bradley also fell off the same roof, when he was trying to escape from a policeman. Someone really should stop people going up there.

There have been so many murders in and around Walford, it’s beginning to feel like the crime capital of the world. But Janine’s killing of car salesman Barry was as callous as it gets – and it didn’t actually occur on Albert Square itself. Having scammed the much-loved character into marrying her, she reveals the cold truth to him on their honeymoon before pushing him off a cliff. After the act, Janine even clambers down to taunt Barry and watch him die. To make matters worse, she goes on to inherit Barry’s whole estate, while his son Jack got nothing. Who says crime doesn’t pay?

Another ruthless attempt to win an early inheritance, and this time the culprit is “nasty” Nick Cotton – the man who once came fourth in a Channel 4 poll of the most villainous TV characters. The guy has quite the reputation, but he outdoes any of his past evil deeds here. At a creepy candlelit dinner for two, Nick serves his mother a dodgy shepherd’s pie, then makes small talk while he waits for her to eat it and pass away. Fortunately for Dot, he can’t go through with the crime, and grabs the offending pie before she takes a bite. Has anyone else lost their appetite?

Our second festive shocker, and another from the Brannings, this one features the revelation that Max is having an affair with his daughter-in-law Stacey. Perhaps, not quite the Christmas TV the family was expecting… The response from betrayed wife Tanya, though, was more in keeping with a horror film than a soap. With the help of Sean, she gets revenge by drugging Max, dragging him through a wood, and burying him alive in a shallow grave. As you do. The Beeb was later reprimanded by Ofcom for scenes inappropriate for a pre-watershed audience.

Kat Moon has starred in many far-fetched storylines over the years, even once discovering that she had a son she didn’t know she’d given birth to! But this moment left everyone shocked (even by the Square’s standards) when grieving mother Ronnie switches her deceased baby for Kat’s son, Tommy. The episode prompted thousands of complaints – more than any other from the show – and even the actress playing Ronnie called it “implausible”. “EastEnders” was accused of over-dramatising cot death, though Ofcom subsequently cleared the soap because the scenes were supposedly not “unduly disturbing or graphic”.

When it comes to “EastEnders”, death isn’t always as final as you might think. Both Kathy Beale and Claudette Hubbard have seemingly returned from beyond the grave, but the most famous reappearance is that of Dirty Den in 2003. After he was shot fourteen years previously, his body was identified by his adopted daughter Sharon. Miraculously, though, Den survived – and staged one of the most talked-about soap returns of all time. However, just seventeen months later, he probably wished he’d stayed away from Albert Square, because he was killed a second time by the so-called ‘Witches of Walford’.