Spoiler warning for Thursday 14th March 2024.
*Warning: This article contains spoilers for Thursday 14th March’s EastEnders, which was made available on BBC iPlayer at 6am.*
This article includes descriptions of mental health trauma that some readers may find upsetting.
EastEnders aired dramatic scenes for Denise Fox (Diane Parish) as she returned to Walford after a stay in a mental institution.
The BBC One soap saw the beloved character back on Albert Square after her psychotic episode last month which culminated in her being sectioned after Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner) called mental health services.
Despite receiving treatment for her psychotic episode, Denise remained tight-lipped to the authorities and her family about the real cause of her mental decline: covering up killer Linda Carter’s (Kellie Bright) murder of Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters) and that she was the one who almost killed Nish Panesar (Navin Chowdhry) and her signature ‘D’ necklace was buried with Keanu’s body beneath the cafe.
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After having received messages from her loving eldest daughter Chelsea Fox (Zaraah Abrahams) about how missed she was, Denise discharged herself and was back home in Thursday’s episode and immediately summoned the remaining members of the Six – not including the still-absent Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean, come back soon!) – to a meeting in the Queen Vic.
While the rest of the ladies expressed their pleasure at Denise’s recovery, she was – rightfully – very clear that she had felt abandoned and uncared for by all of them, prompting a prickly response from Suki Panesar (Balvinder Sopal) and Kathy Cotton (Gillian Taylforth) to plead for no arguing.
Denise then made clear why she summoned them – she didn’t say anything and she never will but she also doesn’t want to have the women in her life any more than necessary for her mental health and happiness.
Advice was also delivered by Denise: imploring Linda to focus on her children, encouraging Suki to finally seize happiness with soulmate Eve Unwin (Heather Peace), and remarking that Kathy should be cared for by her kids and grandchildren.
However, despite Stacey’s protestations that they shared a grandchild, Denise remained determined to cut Stacey out of her life as much as possible after her cheating with Denise’s husband Jack Branning (Scott Maslen).
Of course, unbeknown to Denise, it wasn’t a one-off and the pair only recently concluded their adulterous affair.
Returning home, Denise was delighted to be reunited with Amy Mitchell (Ellie Dadd) and (Ricky Branning) before having an emotional conversation with Jack who begged her for answers and apologised for how he had failed her as a husband.
However, Jack (Maslen on top form) questioned Denise on some issues with the Six’s stories about Christmas – if Denise hit Nish as Stacey revealed to him, then why would Keanu have fled Walford and why were his fingerprints on the champagne bottle? Branning detective skills finally working…
Denise then boldly revealed that she only struck Nish so violently because of her marital troubles with Jack and claimed she was thinking about Jack when she hit Nish, citing his emotional blackmail of her over Christmas.
Jack then tearfully professed his love for Denise – make your mind up, mate – and revealed that she intends to stay with him, prompting Jack to try and get Denise to confess to whatever else she is hiding to protect her future and his career.
Yet, as Jack pressed for more answers, an upset Denise delivered him an ultimatum: drop the case or lose her and their family.
Will Jack really back down now?
It seems that next week, Jack’s prying helps to bring Denise and Stacey back together as allies and they plan a Branning-Slater family barbecue together.
The event leads to Stacey feeling guilty about her past behaviour and despite encouraging Denise to fight for her marriage, she shares a tender goodbye kiss with Jack in the garden – only to be caught out by Stacey’s returned ex-husband Martin Fowler (James Bye).
As Stacey confesses all to Martin, will he remain quiet?
George Knight has been reunited with a mysterious figure from his past in EastEnders.
The Vic barman had become convinced that his long-lost mother had turned up at adoptive father Eddie Knight’s racially aggravated murder trial earlier this week.
In Tuesday’s (March 13) episode, George worried that he’d lost his chance to reunite with the biological mother he’d never known.
He reached out to Johnny Carter to ask the lawyer to go beyond the bounds of the law to find out the identity of this woman. Johnny later turned up at the Vic to reveal to George that the woman was called Angela Lawal, which is a different surname than the one George had for his biological mother.
Cindy Beale and Elaine Peacock made a rare truce to support George, though they were all surprised when this mysterious woman showed up at the Vic.
Related: 10 huge EastEnders spoilers for next week
The confusion was soon cleared up when Angela Lawal clarified that she was not George’s biological mother but one of her closest friends. Angela delivered tragic news that George’s mum passed away only four months earlier.
Explaining some of George’s backstory, Angela told him: “I know she fostered you out. She was young, she needed to focus on her studies… I think it hurt too much to talk about you.”
Angela explained that George’s mum was “sick for a long time”, adding that she’d “battled but she passed away”.
“It wasn’t long after they found your dad’s body. I think the shock, the guilt, took the fight out of her,” Angela told him.
Related: EastEnders‘ Honey Mitchell to make shock discovery about son Will
Angela recalled that George’s parents had planned to reunite with him in Ghana once they set up their lives there, but were blocked from returning to the UK to get him.
“They fought all the way, for years,” Angela recalled. “They won an appeal and your dad came over to collect you, but he never came home.”
When George’s dad failed to return to Ghana, his mum assumed he’d run off with the child to start a new life. In reality, George’s biological father met a grisly end at the hands of Eddie Knight.
Angela did reveal that George has two brothers who are still alive, leaving the barman struggling with what he’d finally discovered.
Grappling with this shocking information about both his adoptive and biological parents, George walked off into the Square alone to end the episode.
