I was gripped by it all - but, my highlight of the whole thing, was laughing a lot of Max just having a massive plaster on his head.

Sam is on screen for at least another two months.

 

Truly FANTASTIC episode. No other soap does high drama quite like EastEnders. Jessie Wallace truly does deserve every single award going for that. I couldn't quite believe the sheer magnitude of her acting whilst Ronnie was confessing. What a woman. Firmly cemented Kat as my current #1 female on the Square.

 

A really healthy balance of light scenes too. Loved that Vanessa had a scene basically to herself near the start. I really do fear for her future now that Max and Tan are on the brink of being back on. They need to move her onto another man sharpish so that she can make a proper name for herself away from Max.

 

I don't agree with you about Jack whatsoever Theo. I think so far he's done remarkably well to be as patient with Ronnie as he has. She's been walking around like a zombie for the best part of four months and he's done his best for her. He does not deserve to find out that his baby died the day after it was born and moreover the baby he's given love to is not even his. Jack is the worst affected out of everyone in this storyline. I pity him majorly and I actually think Scott Maslen might put in a surprisingly good perf on Monday.

 

Had to laugh at it turning from daylight to night during the car journey to the hospital - where was it, Manchester?

 

And for some reason I found Max casually breezing into his hospital room with not so much as an open wound on his face completely hilarious. The kiss with Tan was perfect (much as I hate how he's treating Vanessa). Very in the moment. EE is the best thing on television by a country mile.

 

Oh but as someone who's loved Ronnie pretty much since day 1, you've got to dislike any negative characters that surround her! :P

EastEnders was on fine form again tonight.

 

Gripped right the way through and the writing and acting were Brilliant.

 

Mondays episode looks even better and that Trailer looked brilliant.

 

Roll on Monday 8:00pm!

Really good episode and i was suprised as someone said the episode would end on a duff duff when Ronnie just goes into the vic. Glad they were wrong. Jessie and Sam were both great. Glad this story is finally over. What's gonna be the next big story then? Bound to have a good one for the summer coming up.

Very Good Eposide. Samantha is fantastic.

I also hate how underrated Vanessa is - she's not being used to full potential.

Vanessa is a wasted character. It annoys me. She is housewife for Max pretty much. She'll be out the show before the end of the year i reckon. They will keep Jodie though. I would love her to eventually marry Darren.

If Eastenders had ANY sense, they would immediately transform Vanessa into the true scheming ice-queen she deserves to be. I've seen flickers of true brilliance in her character so far, I hope without Max (as much as I want them to stay together), we'll see more of it and she won't be on her way out.

 

The reveal was far less dramatic than I was expecting but very good stuff and astounding acting. I found Alfie's reaction a bit premature considering he'd heard none of what Ronnie had been saying yet threatened to call the police? However, despite that minor detail the whole thing was done very well.

 

It goes without saying Max's recovery from that crash was RIDICULOUS.

I can only echo what most people have already said;

 

- Jessie Wallace was AMAZING. Sam Janus and Scott Maslen weren't bad, but that reveal really did belong to Kat.

- The reveal DID seem a little underwhelming. I was expecting a big pay-off at the end of this story, but instead we just get Ronnie deciding "oh I guess I'd better tell the truth" all of a sudden. I'm not saying the Ronnie/Kat scenes weren't good, they WERE, but I was expecting the reveal to be under more dramatic circumstances, and there should have been a PROPER meltdown from Ronnie rather than just more zombie stares (which we've already been getting for months).

- I too fear for Vanessa. Since the Harry business died down, she really has been essentially a glorified extra. She's become an irrelevance in Max's life, and she's never really connected with his family - Abi and Lauren treat her as an inconvenience, and she's been excluded from nearly Branning drama. Add to that, Jodie is more pre-occupied with Darren than with anyone else, and it's very difficult to see where Vanessa fits in with the rest of the cast. The writers have shown no interest in developing her as a character; even when something happens that SHOULD have an impact on her, we don't get to see her reaction - Vanessa wasn't even mentioned when Max was planning to join Stacey as an international fugitive; her entire existence was just glossed over.

It's a shame because Zoe Lucker should really be an absolute ASSET to the show, and Vanessa's a unique enough character to stand out when given the chance. I'd like to think that things will change, but sadly I suspect the more likely outcome is that Vanessa will be gone once Max inevitably ditches her for Tanya.

- I really would like the writers NOT to go down the obvious Max/Tanya affair route. Not just because of the above with Vanessa, but also I've decided I quite like Greg, and much as Max is a great character he's just not DESERVING right now.

If Eastenders had ANY sense, they would immediately transform Vanessa into the true scheming ice-queen she deserves to be. I've seen flickers of true brilliance in her character so far, I hope without Max (as much as I want them to stay together), we'll see more of it and she won't be on her way out.

 

The reveal was far less dramatic than I was expecting but very good stuff and astounding acting. I found Alfie's reaction a bit premature considering he'd heard none of what Ronnie had been saying yet threatened to call the police? However, despite that minor detail the whole thing was done very well.

 

It goes without saying Max's recovery from that crash was RIDICULOUS.

 

I see what you mean about it being more dramatic. There is a story going round that it was originally filmed with Ronnie telling the whole vic with what she had done. But was re shot as they felt it wasn't right and wanted it to be just her and kat.

 

So it would of been more intense if the original scene was kept.

If that's true then I'm glad it was scrapped and re-shot. Having the reveal in front of the entire crowd in the Vic wouldn't have been 'intense', just sensationalist. It was perfectly intense as it was.

Yeah I wouldn't have liked that either. I thought the reveal was great as it was.

 

Tonights should be a good'un!

I much preferred the scene as it went ahead. The whole Vic being involved would've been a tad unrealistic and sensationalist as Jark said, and I think it worked well with just the two women - despite my slight grumbles at how undramatic the whole thing was in the end. Hopefully tonight's episode is going to be amazing. It certainly has the potential.

I think the scene ITSELF was fine - even had the reveal been done in public, the focus would have been on Jessie Wallace and Sam Janus regardless and they both did a fine job. The only thing that would have been different is we'd have had the usual "everyone-goes-silent-and-the-jukebox-magically-switches-itself-off" nonsense, which would only have served to make the scene seem a little more ridiculous and clichéd.

 

It was just the build-up that's been a little flat (although I suspect a lot of that has to do with all the last-minute changes and the requirement to rush everything). There wasn't REALLY any noticeable change in how Ronnie had been the last week compared to how she's been behaving since the New Year, and so ignoring the advertising for the event, there was no real sense of everything hurtling towards that inevitable reveal.

I think the scene ITSELF was fine - even had the reveal been done in public, the focus would have been on Jessie Wallace and Sam Janus regardless and they both did a fine job. The only thing that would have been different is we'd have had the usual "everyone-goes-silent-and-the-jukebox-magically-switches-itself-off" nonsense, which would only have served to make the scene seem a little more ridiculous and clichéd.

 

It was just the build-up that's been a little flat (although I suspect a lot of that has to do with all the last-minute changes and the requirement to rush everything). There wasn't REALLY any noticeable change in how Ronnie had been the last week compared to how she's been behaving since the New Year, and so ignoring the advertising for the event, there was no real sense of everything hurtling towards that inevitable reveal.

Yup, that's my main grumble about it. She's obviously been struggling with this for months, but there was no real difference between the events of the last few weeks and last week, which makes the whole reveal seem a bit random and out-of-place. She's been in worse places than she was on Friday so why was Friday the day she decided she had to hand him back? I'm not complaining because I still think it was a very powerful scene, it just seemed a bit rushed (which in fairness, I suppose it was.)

Ronnie truly is batshit bonkers isn't she? Wow!

Must be the Eurovision curse :(

Ronnie truly is batshit bonkers isn't she? Wow!

I DON'T LIKE THAT! I was always of the belief that she had been driven to make a terrible decision (the baby swap) by a couple of horrible situations (the death of both of her children) and she was just somebody who had struggled to cope with the amount of lies she's had to keep telling to cover it up. That made her so incredibly complex and interesting imo. I don't like that now all of a sudden she's acting like a total loon and not herself at all. I would be willing to believe she's total bonkers if it was all done a bit more subtly. Surely it's possible for her to be sectioned without transforming into a psycho stereotype over the weekend? That is however, as with most of my criticisms of the show, just a minor point. It was always obvious she had a screw loose somewhere and that was where she was heading.

 

I loved today's episode. Jessie Wallace is pulling some astounding performances out of the bag and seeing the three of the Moons reunited suited Julia's Theme perfectly (I was really hoping they were going to use it!)

I thought it was subtly great how the baby refused to look at Jack during the entire episode yet spent the entirety of the scenes with Alfie looking directly at him.

The reveal was handled well and done very subtly, im sure the backlash on the storyline that led to some changes did have an effect but overall it was handled well and it entailed alot of sensitivity, ther is no doubt for me that jessie wallace was the show stealer as all her scenes were faultless but i have always thought jessie was a great actress, i loved lacey turner but i think jessie always had the edge on her.