Christmas Day death horror as history repeats in EastEnders

Chrissie Watts. Zoe Slater. Sam Mitchell. The Queen Vic. A corpse lying but a few feet away. EastEnders are serving up a platter of nostalgia, but has history repeated itself almost exactly?

Even better than the sugar rush of a handful of Quality Street after stuffing your guts with turkey was the sight of Tracy-Ann Oberman, Kim Medcalf and Michelle Ryan reunited, twenty years after the devious trio revelled in the downfall of Dirty Den Watts (Leslie Grantham), before his violent attack on Chrissie forced Zoe to intervene, whacking the villain over the head with a dog-shaped metal door stop.

Zoe believed she’d killed him, though, unseen by her, Chrissie delivered another, final blow when Den rose from unconsciousness and they buried him in the Vic cellar. Zoe eventually learned that she hadn’t killed him, and after Sam spent some time in prison for the murder, justice eventually caught up to Chrissie and she wound up serving twenty years for the canine-assisted slaying.

We haven’t seen Chrissie, now a hardened, vicious, prison ‘top dog’, since her reunion in the slammer with Den’s daughter Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean) ended in a peace brokered between them, before she reunited with her long-presumed dead lover, Jake Moon (Joel Beckett) upon her release.

As a legendary soap bitch, the levels of Chrissie’s vitriol cannot begin to be accurately explained. She’s cold, conniving and utterly unscrupulous, so it should come as no surprise that she has been the mastermind behind Zoe’s stalking ordeal, using Jasmine Fisher (Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness), Zoe’s long lost daughter, as her pawn.

Yesterdays episode saw Zoe find a card, supposedly from her son, promising a Christmas visit. In todays episode, Zoe’s mum, Kat Moon (Jessie Wallace) found her reading it and, with Anthony Trueman’s (Nicholas Bailey) lie that both his and Zoe’s children had died ringing in her ears, she prepared to break Zoe’s heart.

Chelsea Fox (Zaraah Abrahams), struggling with the burden of the secret, burst upstairs to tell Kat that Anthony had lied and to tell Zoe that both of her children had survived. Kat stormed downstairs and expelled Anthony (while tearing strips off of him) from the community Christmas dinner, sending him home for a furious showdown with his dad, Patrick Trueman (Rudolph Walker), who wounded him by suggesting that he wished Anthony had died instead of his other son, Paul (Gary Beadle).

Heartbroken and clearly drunk, Anthony headed to the Vic and confronted Zoe. As he began to slur about the two of them making a family with their children, Zoe saw red and things turned physical. She shoved him back, his head colliding with a metal bolt on the wall. In response, Anthony smashed Zoe’s face against the bannister, rendering her unconscious.

She woke to Kat rousing her, asking what she’d done. Waking up, she saw Anthony’s lifeless body beside her. Clearly the collision had killed him. Hadn’t it? Hadn’t it?! More on that later…

As Kat panicked over what to do, music from downstairs drew Zoe out and she came face to face with Chrissie. Kat followed and the three engaged in a legendary bitch-off, while Kat desperately tried to figure out if Chrissie had been upstairs and seen the corpse.

Jasmine entered and soundly rejected Zoe as Chrissie told her how they’d been drawn together. Chrissie had seen news of Zoe’s shooting in the paper while meeting her probation worker and attended the hospital, where she found Jasmine, who’d also seen the article. Deciding that Zoe needed to pay for the collective misery, they cooked up the stalking plan.

Next came Sam, who, after being spooked by Chrissie earlier, entered the Vic and took Zoe’s side, warning Jasmine that Chrissie is pure evil and completely unable to be trusted. Cracks began to form in Chrissie’s perfectly manicured veneer and as her acid rose to the surface, Jasmine realised she’d been played. Delivering final blows to Zoe, they both left.

When Chrissie offered to look after Jasmine and was soundly rejected, though, the murderess turned her acid tongue on her young protégé, warning her that, should she tell the police about anything they’d done, she’d destroy her. Sam, having witnessed the exchange, told Chrissie it wasn’t too late to change.

‘Why would I want to change? I’m perfect as I am’, Chrissie spat, sauntering out of Walford, happy with the carnage she’d left behind.

As Kat sought out Alfie to help with the corpse upstairs, Zoe saw Jasmine and the two imagined a place where they’d been together all this time. As Jasmine softened, Zoe lamented that she was sorry she wasn’t there then, and couldn’t be now.

Jasmine, confused as to Zoe’s last point, was shaken as the police and ambulances poured into the Square, with Zoe having called them and confessed to killing Anthony. Finally calling Kat ‘mum’ and having her agree to look after Jasmine, the two hugged before Zoe was taken away.

So Zoe has blood on her hands, right? Or does she?

Perhaps the full circle moment of the Witches of Walford reuniting at the scene of their most painful experience is even more full circle-y than even Zoe realises? Zoe woke up beside Anthony’s dead body, but did she really kill him?

…or is history truly repeating, and Chrissie is again letting Zoe believe she’s a murderer when really, she did the doctor in? Where do the Slater/Moon clan go from here? How will Jasmine fit in?

So. Many. Questions.

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