EastEnders filming pictures appear to have given away a mammoth clue about the outcome of the upcoming Christmas murder.
The festive season is always one to watch in the BBC One soap, but this year’s is more anticipated than most, after a historic flash-forward scene in February confirmed a shocking death.
The episode in question saw Linda Carter (Kellie Bright), Denise Fox (Diane Parish), Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean), Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth), Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner) and Suki Panesar (Balvinder Sopal) bonded during a lock-in at The Vic.
As the night came to a close, the six ladies toasted their final beverage to all the men who have upset and hurt them over the years, hoping that they would one day get what they deserve.
A subsequent flash-forward scene saw the day of judgement come for one male character, as the aforementioned women, now known to fans as The Six, were seen Christmas Day standing over the corpse of a dead man.
The identity of the victim has been shrouded in mystery, with viewers desperately trying to work out who it could be.
One of the possible candidates is Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters), who is due to wed Sharon on Christmas Day. Keanu’s actions over the past few months have saw him descend into villainy after he staged Albie’s kidnap in a bid to prevent Sharon from taking him out of the country.
Sharon was devastated, with Keanu soon regretting his actions as he and mum Karen (Lorraine Stanley) played the heroes and reunited the concerned mother with her son, with Keanu later deciding to give things with Sharon another shot.
Sharon, however, remains none-the-wiser to what he did but viewers are adamant that the truth will come out before the wedding.
There is also the not-so-small matter of Albie not actually being Keanu’s son, with recent scenes having seen Sharon discover that he’s secretly Phil Mitchell’s (Steve McFadden).
With all off these secrets set to explode, Keanu has become a very likely candidate for the Christmas murder, but new filming pictures seemingly rule him out completely.
Cast and crew members of the BBC One soap were spotted filming at the airport with Keanu star Danny Walters present for the scenes in question, which seem to depict Keanu saying goodbye and making a swift getaway.
Given that the serial drama shoots several months in advance, it’s a possibility that these scenes will take place after Christmas, which means Keanu is still alive following the events of the festive season.
That is, unless the whole thing is a ploy to throw audiences off the scent.
It’s not uncommon for TV series and movies to film fake scenes while shooting on-location in a bid to keep the actual story details under wraps.
EastEnders has done this in the past, with star Lorna Fitzgerald appearing on-location during the shoot for Abi Branning’s funeral so that viewers didn’t work out that she was the character set to die.
What’s also intriguing is that Danny is also pictured filming with Jacqueline Jossa, who plays Lauren Branning, who is set to stage an almighty comeback in upcoming scenes.
The characters appear to be at a funeral.
The puzzling question here is: why would Keanu be saying goodbye to Lauren? To our knowledge, the characters haven’t really been in each other’s orbit before, so it seems an odd choice to have Jacqueline present for scenes which are seemingly intended to be for an exit story for Keanu.
We’ll just have to wait and see what way it plays out! And if what we see in these pictures actually make it to screens.
EastEnders airs Mondays to Thursdays at 7:30pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
