I am so intrigued by the story we are venturing down with Gray, Chelsea and Whitney in Eastenders.  I think this is one of the cleverest and most intricately written stories we have seen in such a long time.

We first met Gray when he was married to Chantelle.  They were presented as the perfect couple.  They were beautiful and successful, they’d bought the fanciest house on the Square, they had their gorgeous children; everything was presented as the couple intended people to see them as.  After a while, I realised that we only ever saw them outside of their beautiful house and that that must have been done on purpose – so what was happening inside the house?  Gray was giving off uncomfortable vibes.  And sure enough, one day we witnessed the violence and it was clear that this was not the first time he had harmed his wife.

As viewers, we then experienced Chantelle’s heartbreaking life as she tried to keep her family together and protect her children from the hell she was living through with her husband’s violent rages.  It was clear she loved him and there were so many desperate episodes where I shouted at the screen, begging her to tell her Mum, Karen, what was happening to her.

Eventually, she connected with neighbour, Kheerat, who fell in love with her and she decided that it was time to leave Gray and take her kids to start a new life.  I remember those awful (but brilliant) episodes where she was so close to telling her Dad, Mitch and if only she had, things might have turned out differently.  But instead, before she could leave Gray for good, he killed her.  And now, all these months later, her parents still don’t know the truth of what happened and still believe their daughter’s widower is a good and grieving man.  They also have no idea he has killed two more people since then!  (RIP Tina and Kush.)

I thought it was really brave of Eastenders to take the story in this direction and I don’t think anyone was expecting it.  Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any domestic abuse storyline that has ended in the death of the victim; it’s always been about surviving.  In fact, it’s usually the abuser that ends up dead (such as being buried under the patio).  But with domestic homicides on the increase, this storyline has played a brave and important role in social consciousness.  While Coronation Street is doing a great job of showing Yasmeen, a woman who will forever be haunted by her experiences of living under the coercive control of her abusive husband (who incidentally died by falling off a roof), Eastenders has shown the other side: not surviving at all.  Both stories have been devastating in different ways.

Another interesting aspect of Gray’s story is the obvious assumption that he would then get together with Whitney not taking place.  For starters, she is Eastenders’ constant victim (Tony King, Leo King etc.)  Gray fixated on her very quickly – he even killed Kush to stop them from leaving together (and murdered poor Tina because she worked out the truth about Chantelle)!  He ruined Whitney’s chance of working on the cruise ship, which was very cruel.  He worked very hard to manipulate her into a relationship with him too.

However, the moment she saw that flash of his anger, the hateful way he spoke to her when he found out that she already knew about Chelsea’s pregnancy and accompanied her to the clinic, she walked out on him.  I was certain that it was already too late for poor Whitney and she was already too drawn in by Gray but really, I should have known that he’d shown his cards too early.  I was so very proud of our Whit for halting things and knowing that this was a road she did not want to go down.

My last comments, regard Chelsea.  Her relationship with Gray has been so interesting from the start.  I wasn’t a massive Chelsea fan to begin with.  To be honest, she was very annoying when she first returned to the Square!  I find her shallowness quite grating and that whole drugs story was beyond tedious.  However, now all that nonsense with Lucas and the drugs are over, her character has massively improved and putting her together with Gray was a stroke of genius.  She has certainly kept him on his toes so far – spending his money and retaining a lot of the power between them.  However, that power is clearly waning.  We can see this with that way that he moved her in without even telling her and went over her head and told the children about the baby when she wasn’t ready.

One of the really interesting things to watch here, I think is that Gray and Chantelle came to the Square as a ready-made couple.  We don’t know how things began between them, how this beautiful, strong woman, who was raised by a powerhouse of a mother ended up in such a terrible situation.  We have also only recently gained any insight into Gray’s upbringing.  Although he has told people that his father was a deadbeat Dad who abandoned the family, we now know that it was a lot more complicated than that – Gray was clearly a violent young man.  It sounds like he harmed his mother and frightened his father.  So it will be very interesting to see Gray, who is hiding many secrets – including three murders and has just had the loss of his job uncovered – get together with pregnant Chelsea.  He is already beginning to take control of their relationship and she is already starting to feel vulnerable.  Will Chelsea’s pregnancy protect her from violence?  That was a tactic Chantelle used at one time when she was frightened of her husband.

Rumour has it that over Christmas, when Gray and Chelsea are due to wed, Whitney will uncover a lot more regarding Gray’s crimes so will everything come to a head at last?  And will everyone come out alive?  I for one, will be absolutely gripped.  I absolutely love these characters, this story and the writing.  And the actors have all been incredible from the start.