(Friday 18^th – Monday 21^st September 2020)

Friday was a pivotal episode and truly one that will go down in soap history.  It was unnerving, overwhelming and heartbreaking as Gray and Chantelle returned to the Square with the kids.  Gray trapped Chantelle, who finally stood up for herself and informed him that she was leaving him.  Of course, he ensured that that would never happen, forcing her to phone Kheerat and let him know that the plan was off.  But when he caught her with her stashed cash and spare phone, all hell broke loose, resulting in her falling back on the open dishwasher.

For a while, I couldn’t work out what was going on after that.  One of the kids woke up so he settled her.  Then he told poor, dying Chantelle that he was going to get help.  Instead, he took her spare phone and cash, wiped them and threw them away in an outside bin, making sure he was seen by as many people as possible round the Square.  Then I realised he was making sure that people could confirm that he wasn’t in the house while his wife lay dying in the kitchen.  He even had half a pint in the pub.

Returning home, Chantelle wasn’t quite dead but she passed away, suffering and in pain, moments after he arrived back.  He then positioned a toy car to look like she had slipped on it and fallen back.  Then he staged his arrival, dropping the pint of milk he had just deliberately bought in the shop, broke down at her body as he would genuinely have done, had the scenario been real and then called the police in tears.  What a psycho.  What a very clever psycho.

I cannot applaud Eastenders enough.  This story has broken my heart and to have killed Chantelle off rather to have saved her from Gray is such incredibly brave way of propelling this story forward and making its point.  My only criticism is that I desperately wish this hadn’t been Chantelle’s only attempt at escaping.  The show could have gone a lot further by exploring and highlighting the services that are available to people who are the victims of domestic abuse if they had had Chantelle contact someone such as the Domestic Abuse Helpline or Women’s Aid just to name a couple of options.  I think that could have done a lot of good for anyone in a similar position, to have seen the kind of help that was available.  However, I hope that the grief of the end of this story will also do what it intends to.

I was also very impressed with how well they managed to film it, considering they had to social distance throughout!  It was very creative and Toby-Alexander Smith (who has taken this story so much to heart) and Jessica Plummer were absolutely incredible.

Last night saw the fall out from Chantelle’s murder (although to be honest, not enough of the episode was focussed on it).  Gray gave the police his perfect story, although Kheerat and Mitch were not so sure.  Poor Karen was devastated at the loss of her child and had no suspicions at all.

Meanwhile, Callum was under pressure regarding Ben’s arrest and Ruby discovered that it was Stacey who had been stealing from her as revenge for ‘stealing’ Martin.  And… Stacey returned!  Hooray!

Eastenders airs on BBC1 on Mondays @ 8:05pm, Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 7:35pm & Fridays @ 8:30pm