From bells to roses – Every clue that pointed to Linda Carter being the Christmas killer in EastEnders
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and though we’ve spent the last ten months trying to find clues as to who the EastEnders killer would be, following the fateful Christmas Day episode even more things have jumped out at us that could have pointed us to the killer all along.
In case you missed that incredible episode, which was packed from beginning to end with shock twists, allow us to give you the run down before we jump into the clues that hinted to this outcome all along.
Back in February, we were treated to a flash forward episode that gave us a glimpse into Christmas Day on Albert Square, and things seemed far from merry and bright as The Six gathered around a dead body.
At least, that’s what we had been led to believe over the last ten months.
What actually transpired was a totally different story.
As the scene we had seen in the flash forward played out, we learnt that it was Nish Panesar (Navin Chowdhry) who Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean) had pronounced dead, with Denise Fox (Diane Parish) having inflicted the seemingly fatal blow.
However, the episode didn’t end there, as Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters) entered the Queen Vic and started a row with Sharon over the events of the day.
During this row, Suki Panesar (Balvinder Sopal) managed to revive Nish, but things only got worse between Sharon and Keanu when she reminded him that he wasn’t Albie’s biological dad.
As Keanu began to strangle Sharon, Linda Carter (Kellie Bright) jumped to her best friend’s defence and fatally stabbed Keanu.
So, after ten months of theorising and gathering clues, we have finally discovered the truth: Keanu is the dead man and Linda is the killer. With a stack load of clues already in our arsenal, we have gone back to see what else could have been hinting to this outcome, and our findings are very, very interesting…
The opening of the flash forward
We should have known from the very beginning that Linda was going to kill Keanu, given that they were the first two regular characters to appear in the flash forward episode.
Not only that, but before tapping Keanu on the back, Linda rang the bell behind the bar for last orders.
While this may seem insignificant, the phrase ‘for whom the bell tolls’ has become somewhat of a slogan for this storyline, with the imagery of a bell tolling in all of the trailers symbolising the death of a man.
The fact that Linda tolled the bell and then immediately touched Keanu could have been the first of several clues dropped by EastEnders pointing to Keanu’s death at Linda’s hands.
Linda’s ‘wall of friends’
During the flash forward episode, Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth) told Linda that she would have a wall of friends around her to protect her if Dean Wicks (Matt Di Angelo) ever returned to Albert Square.
Lo and behold, in October Dean made a shocking appearance in the Queen Vic, which left us wondering if he would end up being the dead body, with one of The Six having killed him to protect Linda.
However, what has actually transpired is Linda having a wall of friends to protect her from going to prison.
Not only have they helped to hide the body and lied to the police, but they have urged her not to hand herself in on multiple occasions. Perhaps this was what Kathy’s line was hinting at all along.
It should also be noted that during the flash forward episode, both Linda and Kathy were wearing pink, which is Linda’s signature The Six colour, which may have been deliberate.
The fire
Linda has form when it comes to inflicting harm on Keanu, having previously shot him to save him and Martin Fowler (James Bye).
However, before we discovered Linda’s involvement in the shooting through a series of flashbacks, we were led to believe that Martin had killed him.
Following Keanu’s supposed death on Christmas Day 2019, we saw Martin standing over a fire with the song Stay Another Day by East 17 playing in the background.
Now, if you’ve followed this storyline from the very beginning then you will know that the flash forward scene was soundtracked by that song, and the sound of the crackling flames over the top was almost identical to what we heard during that Christmas 2019 episode when we though Keanu had died.
Linda’s trailer
When EastEnders released individual trailers for each member of The Six, we were left baffled by Linda’s, as she seemed to be cleaning up blood upstairs in the Queen Vic, as opposed to in the bar where we thought the murder would take place.
What actually transpired was that the murder did take place outside of the bar, but not upstairs like Linda’s trailer suggested.
However, Linda was later seen wiping blood off the murder weapon before hiding it beneath her bed, which could have been what the trailer was symbolising.
What Kind of Man
All of the individual trailers featured the song What Kind of Man by Florence and The Machine, and the lyrics of this song should have pointed us in the right direction all along.
‘I’d already had a sip, so I reasoned I was drunk enough to deal with it.’
We’ve seen Linda fall off the wagon again since Dean’s return, and given that she was drunk the first time she shot Keanu, we really should have put the pieces together and realised that she was going to be the killer as soon as she took her first secret drink on Christmas Day.
Sharon and Linda’s ‘rosy’ future
When Sharon told Linda that their futures were going to be ‘rosy’, we couldn’t help but shiver, knowing what was to come. What we didn’t know at that time though was just how heavily involved this pair would be in the death.
Back in May, EastEnders released a trailer revealing the arrival of the Knight family, during which George Knight (Colin Salmon) handed Linda a bouquet of roses.
What caught viewers’ attention was the fact that as soon as Linda grabbed hold of the roses, they died in her hands.
Could this, paired with Sharon’s recent line, have been a hint that Linda was set to kill all along?
BBC iPlayer
If you’re someone who has used BBC iPlayer to catch up on your favourite shows, then you may be aware of the fact that a lot of episodes tend to expire after around 30 days.
Well, the same used to be true for EastEnders, until earlier this year.
Fans of the show couldn’t help but notice that the episodes stopped expiring following Linda’s return to the show in 2022, with her first episode back still being available to view.
This left people wondering if perhaps this was linked with the flash forward storyline, putting Linda at the centre of it and perhaps suggesting that clues had been dropped as far back as Linda’s return.
Pair this with quotes from executive producer Chris Clenshaw claiming that Linda would have a huge story in 2023, perhaps we should have picked up on Linda being the killer way back then!
Wink Murder
what an interesting game of wink murder pic.twitter.com/dfLp65XoKp
— monica ミ☆ (@laurasderavin) December 12, 2023
Now, while we’re certain this wasn’t a deliberate clue, we couldn’t resist adding it in.
Almost everyone has played the game Wink Murder at least once in their lives, but if you’re unfamiliar with the rules, they’re pretty simple to follow.
One person is assigned the role of the murderer and their job is to ‘kill’ the rest of the players without the detective realising that they are the murderer.
To do this, the murderer must wink, or blink pointedly, at another player to ‘kill’ them.
During the broadcast of the recent spin off show The Six – Revealed, Twitter/X user Monica noticed something very interesting about the cast as they waited for the killer to reveal themselves.
As the camera panned across the actresses, the only one to blink while the camera was directly pointing at her was Kellie Bright, who plays Linda, making the whole thing look like a game of wink murder in which she was the killer.
So, did you pick up on any of these clues hinting at Linda being the murderer?
