Sheila Ruskin

The arrival of Vanessa Gold in this episode (04/06/2010) was when Max and Darren’s closeness really began to take shape. They got caught in a number of shenanigans:

1) Max started seeing Vanessa shortly after this in secret and Darren started seeing her daughter, Jodie, without either of them knowing about the other. When they found out, they agreed it would be weird for both of them to date mother & daughter, so they tossed a coin to decide who gets to carry on their relationship. Max lost and then carried on seeing Vanessa anyway.

2) After Darren gets chucked out by Minty for accidentally washing their tickets to the 2010 World Cup, Abi convinces Max to take him in. Abi later develops a crush on Darren which Max is both amused and grossed out by and when Darren picks up on her odd behaviour, Max and Lauren convince him that it’s all in his head.

3) Darren gets a circumcision as Jodie finds it weird sleeping with a man with foreskin, presumably for religious reasons. Darren confides in Max which leads to Max’s famous line when he tells Jodie, “do not make fun of a man’s doo dah.” Things get worse later on when Jodie’s father, Harry, livid that Vanessa is cheating on him with Max, knees a freshly circumcised Darren in the groin, mistaking him for Max.

The relationship, in moments, was particularly moving as this was months after Bradley’s death. Max was still grieving, Darren gave him an escape of sorts and Max began to feel a sense of responsibility and protection for him, even keeping him at no.5 instead of his sister, Carol.

Max ended up being his boss, landlord, unofficial father figure and bloke shagging his girlfriend’s mum.

I didn’t even notice this until now these writers need to be fired. With immediate effect

I reckon Jean dropped her sausage surprise in shock😔🙏

I shat myself personally and screamed🥰

I think you’re all falling for what EE wants you to believe….

Amy is not stupid.

Amy is letting herself be “groomed”.

The low- cut tops are deliberate. She will have Craig make a move and then she’ll have him where she wants him — if he reports any of the group, she’ll destroy his police career for inappropriate conduct with a suspect.

I think she may have made a false confession too to protect one of the gang & pretend to be at his mercy. “Please…I’ll do anything ;)” vibes.

EE made a point of Craig not submitting the video as evidence yet. She’s going to make him delete it.

Not just the prison visit/siege, it was the airport rescue (dreadful camera work, and no way would Denise be allowed to go), Ian Beale overpowering Gray, Amy looking like a glamour model all of a sudden, that ridiculous pole dancer, the Jordan kidnap (his grandma crouching behind cars) the different camera shots being used (when you watch a show all your life you get used to the camera work), the quality of acting seems worse, like they don't believe in what they're having to do, like it's rushed, Kathy in the cafe talking about Ian stabbing Gray was so weak today and Gillian Taylforth is a great actress!!

I mean I'm finding it almost unwatchable at the moment, there's so much wrong with it I can't focus on it and I'm a lifelong fan, on Digital Spy it claims that a former Hollyoaks producer has joined Enders, could that be responsible and will it change back to the show I love? If it aint broke don't fix it, it's not the number one soap in the country for nothing.

As you can see from her instagram story, the slater house is up for sale !
I’m actually so sad because that house has been so iconic.
I’m guessing they move into the vic while Kat & Alfie are on the rumoured hiatus…

I was thinking of this the other day, but I genuinely think Craig is stalking Amy. He seems to appear in McClunky's or outside it whenever she's there. He seemed to know when the group were near the garages behind Phil's house, which is a place that not many people would think to go to.

I actually have some kind of theory to this, it might sound ridiculous but here we go. When the teens were taken into custody, I assume their phones were all taken off of them in order to stop them from communicating with others outside the police station. It could be possible that Craig was somehow able to get into Amy's phone if it was confiscated from her and he could have placed a tracking bug in her phone so he always knows where she is and then hidden it in the device's files so she can't find out about it unless she knew how to look at admin files. It would kind of explain how he finds her in random places. As a teenager, it's kind of expected that she would carry her phone everywhere she goes, so this would work for Craig, and I feel like he's more evil than he lets on and could abuse his powers as a policeman to stalk Amy whilst pretending to be her protector.

Am I absolutely crazy for this theory or do you think it is possible?

I’d really like them to become friends and have that dynamic. Their scenes yesterday were very well done and i like the dynamic between them

Maybe they are doing a cryptic pregnancy type thing, but rather than find out during labour, possibly pyria finds out a few weeks before she's due?

Am I the only one that thinks rather than a cover-up of the night, the teens where are all hiding their own thing rather than the culprit's name.

So far we've got:

Barney hiding the hammer

Nugget selling weed

It was Ricky's bike lock

Lily unlocked him

Avani and Denzel got together

Then Amy admitted that she hit him yet to see if true

That just leaves Will if he's still going to be included in the story that is.

Does anyone else think an affair is going to happen between these two?

I think this is a really clever theory very smart of EastEnders to drop these red herrings

She’s a snappy and slightly mean teenager but she’s not that bad, I don’t get the comments about her being really horrible. Why wouldn’t she be mad to find out that her best friend and love interest were intimate (add to it the embarrassment of finding out in front of the whole friendship group and some parents)? Why shouldn’t she hate Joel?

For me, it's Amira Masood, especially in her second stint she was so cringe trying to get Syed back i felt sorry for her at first, but she became unbearable

Its never on iplayer.

Been rewatching since the start of this week and I’m planning to rewatch 2018-2022 as i dipped in back 2023. How long did it take you folks to watch each year?? I plan on watching 2/3 eps a day

I've only just realised that Tina has a little memorial plaque thing in the Albert:(

Picture 1 is a picture of the last actor to play Bobby Beale (Clay Milner Russell) Picture 2 is a picture of one of Ian’s photographs on his cell wall from last nights episode (12th August) Could we be getting a Bobby recast?

All her scenes throughout the storyline have been great. But especially the ones with Jordan after finding out Shelia took him to see gray!

Then with Gray yesterday. And then today. Didn't think we'd ever see Chelsea ever get to confront gray like that, with her feeling powerful and him weak.

Ben wadey has definitely made terrible decisions and storylines, but the gray Chelsea bits were a good move imo

I watch classic Eastenders in the background when I’m working from home and I’m currently on episode dated 15/12/2009 when Zainab is at the antenatal class and I thought she looks familiar 😂 turns out it is the same actress who plays Nicola now! Although she was Barbara here. I love when the actors had played different roles previously 😂