Yeah that was pointless, for the only “gag” return to be a character from a family who goes fairly unused. I hope this means a big year for Denise and Chelsea. If they wanted to do a who does Max marry storyline they could have just done that as an advert for 2026 or something, that didn’t need to be a full episode, I suppose it’s better than Who Shot Max but eh.

I'm guessing Ethan is Libby's son?

1 minute ago, Lindsey. said:

I'm guessing Ethan is Libby's son?

I wondered if he was Penny and Vinny’s?

Er mah Gerd LIBBY returned honestly worth all the hype 2027 need to hurry up and get here🙌🙌🙌

Christ Libby is almost as bad at acting as Anthony!!!

Right I think I’ve decided that this current shower can’t really get anything right. The Nigel episode was a fluke.

That flashforward was pointless and it’s quite clear they haven’t planned it all out. It was the same lines over and over again teasing things they won’t or can’t reveal. It looks like we’re going to get repetitive Max/Jack/Lauren/Oscar scenes for a whole year in the same vein as Zoe saying ‘I need to find my son/Mini Mo’.

After that, I don’t think I’m even interested in filling in any of the gaps of that episode.

I hated the whole thing?

Well, seeing Libby was nice and whoever Stephen Aaron-Sipple is playing can absolutely stay, stunning man.

I wonder if the baby is Penny or Amy’s and they maybe died and Jack is responsible for the baby, Max being said to be “why Jimmy and Ethan are here” I wonder if there was an accident and he saved them but couldn’t save whoever Ethan’s mum is and Jack can’t forgive him for it? Jack seemed to be in a bad way and people were asking how he is.

I am a sucker for speculation but I have to agree, it felt pointless. A flash forward for the Six worked because it was genuinely a fresh and innovative idea, a twist on a whodunnit where we didn’t even know the victim. This felt like an extended teaser trailer, I actually think knowing the bride and then it being a case of how it gets to there would have been fine, especially say if it’s Denise and you have her and Jack breaking up and how she even gets with Max, but that’s the worst option out of the 4. With Cindy/Chelsea/Linda, they’re all single right now so I guess showing that it’s them doesn’t really tease anything, but still.

A lot of it feels like they haven’t even decided yet, rather than being exciting teases. And that’s just the whole vibe of this era, it feels like they’re making everything up as they go along and they’ve built this in a way that allows them to do that rather than actually showing anything.

I can’t think that they’d killed Amy off given she’s her mother’s only legacy in the show. I also wouldn’t want them killing Penny off either. Could either have abandoned their baby with post natal depression or something? Maybe Vinny died and Penny can’t cope?

I didn't like it at all either. It felt really amateurish, even down to the direction. The dialogue was SO unnatural, for the sake of being vague (and, I assume, keeping different storyline options open, hence no sign of the Slaters at the Vic, or the general ambiguity around Lauren and Peter). Like, constantly referring to "the bride" or "the woman in your flat"...

I don't really get the point of it - we learned almost nothing that we didn't see in the trailer or poster! It could have been a 60 second trailer like Emmerdale's flashforward snippets this time last year and we'd have saved ourselves a really weird episode, which left me asking "wtf" more than any of the actual questions we're supposed to be wondering about.

Add on a random man just stood around as if he has any business with the Brannings - it was giving induction day before year 7 begins I'm sure we'll learn he has a reason to be there but I don't see why we couldn't at least have been told who he was, or who one of Max's women is.

(and if it ends up being Denise I will cringe so bad)

I definitely think they’re leaving things ambiguous for that reason, especially given a lot of the things left hanging have a couple of obvious but closely linked options:

• The baby, with presumably Jack being the grandad, the mum could be Amy or Penny. They could have said something like “Penny wouldn’t want you to carry on like this”. Obviously it might not necessarily be a death, but again being so vague makes it seem even more like they don’t know what they’re doing.

• Patrick saying Oscar was part of the family but not showing Jasmine - could be a love triangle for Oscar/Jasmine/Zoe’s son and it leaves it open to either option.

• Not showing Kat or Alfie in The Vic prepping for the wedding, so we don’t know who the Vic owners are in 2026.

• Lauren sneaking around is presumably an affair but we didn’t see her say anything to actually confirm that.

Obviouslt that’s just theories, but it does feel like they’ve really consciously made every decision to not box themselves in but in a way that’s backfired. Maybe it’s not the case and this was just their way to fuel as much discussion/speculation via theories as possible, but if it is that’s still a really poor way to do any of this. As I said, half the fun is how they get to the point they got to, not just who the bride is or who he’s sleeping with. It was just really poorly done for it to be an entire 30 minutes of nothing, it didn’t feel like we glimpsed the future, it felt like they somehow stretched a 30 second teaser trailer into a 30 minute episode.

Additionally the audio description shows called the unidentified man standing behind Oscar at one point, and who Max waved at when looking at the window, being called Mark, so people are guessing it could be Mark Fowler Jr, and he may be who Lauren is having an affair with.

The worst dialogue was at the police station ‘who am I supposed to have murdered?’ ‘You tell us’ ‘what am I supposed to have done’ ‘you know’.

Very clear they haven’t storylined that part yet.

I’m also not sure who would actually marry Max. All the candidates have friends and family that would put a stop to it.

2 hours ago, T Boy said:

Right I think I’ve decided that this current shower can’t really get anything right. The Nigel episode was a fluke.

That flashforward was pointless and it’s quite clear they haven’t planned it all out. It was the same lines over and over again teasing things they won’t or can’t reveal. It looks like we’re going to get repetitive Max/Jack/Lauren/Oscar scenes for a whole year in the same vein as Zoe saying ‘I need to find my son/Mini Mo’.

After that, I don’t think I’m even interested in filling in any of the gaps of that episode.

The Nigel episode was planned and written by the old team. It was the culmination of his storyline. The new ep had nothing to do with it. That's why it stood out like a sore thing.

 

Also why do a flash forward when he's just changing things as they go along?! Look at Jasmine Ford!

Liked the Nigel, Phil and Julie scenes in today's episode but everything else was absolutely awful; what the heck are they doing to Jean??

I actually preferred Jean today more than I did for the whole of 2025 tbh. At least she wasn’t moaning about Harvey or Stacey leaving her.

I can’t believe they teased the return of Dor only for it to be all off screen! Sharon seems a bit quick to help clear Zoe’s name considering she’s the reason she still hasn’t come back.

The Nigel stuff, as always, was the best of the episode but I liked other things. Yolande is superb as ever and I quite like Elaine vs Ian/Kathy and thought the episode could have done with more of that. Linda only getting one scene to exasperated by her mother? I need more tbh.

I can take Jean playing detective. I actually think she’s on the money with Jasmine. Jessie Wallace clearly needs a break so Kat is randomly off to Corfu for goodness knows how long.

I’m not interested in repetitive Max scenes though. They can get in the bin.

This is terrible. Kat going off on her hols, Sharon helping Zoe?!

Linda's blunt way of telling her old classmate that Mick was dead had me howling 🤣

They really need to rest or retire Jean. No matter how brilliant Gillian Wright is, she can do so much better than what they give her cyclically.

I'm more concerned with how much she paid at the salon considering there wasn't anything noticeably different at all