EastEnders airs huge Max Branning lie to Linda Carter before major character returns 20 years after debut in early BBC iPlayer release

Max Branning (Jake Wood) has told a mammoth lie to Linda Carter (Kellie Bright) in EastEnders, with some serious foreshadowing to the pay-off of his January flash-forward episode.

A familiar face has also rolled into Albert Square after 4 years away...

The episode picked up straight from yesterday's doof doof, where Lee Carter (Danny Hatchard) had just drunkenly revealed his mum's relationship with Max to the Queen Vic punters at Zoe Slater's wake.

Despite attempts to shut down Lee's claims, Max's estranged wife Cindy Beale (Michelle Collins) refused to believe the couple and delivered a hellish slap to Linda. She then stormed out of the boozer and tried to come to terms with the news at the caff.

Knowing that he was also the person present just moments before Zoe passed away - and therefore the mystery fella that Kat Moon (Jessie Wallace) was attempting to track down - she decided to wreak havoc and get revenge.

Charging over to Peacock Palace with a bottle of wine under her arm, she told Linda about Max's other secret. Max insisted that his new partner knew, though by the time Cindy left, it was clear that Linda was having doubts about his honesty.

He swore to her - on his, and his children's lives - that he wasn't there. Linda seemed to believe him, but could these words prove to be the catalyst for what awaits him on New Year's Day?

As we know, a mystery gunman will track down his daughter Lauren Beale (Jacqueline Jossa) and son Oscar Branning (Pierre Counihan-Moullier) and aim a weapon at them. Max will then be given the ultimatum of which child he chooses to survive.

Elsewhere in Walford, Jack Branning (Scott Maslen) was saddened to realise that his missing daughter Amy Mitchell (Ellie Dadd) had tried to contact him. She's run off with much older boyfriend Craig Ingram (Matthew James-Bailey), who has been grooming the teen for months.

When Craig realised that Amy had been in touch with her father, he furiously threw her phone out of the car window and sped off into the distance.

Later, police officers arrived at the Branning residence with a teddy bear that Amy's step-mum Denise Fox (Diane Parish) had gifted her earlier in the year.

Believing that he'd lost his daughter forever, a gloomy Jack stood in the Square Gardens and noticed a taxi pulling up. Out stepped a familiar face - Sean Slater (Robert Kazinsky), who is back earlier than anticipated.

The men sat down on a bench and, given Sean was Amy's former step-dad, he vowed to track down Craig and kill him.

Will Sean and Jack be successful?

Read more:

• EastEnders legend Jo Joyner returns to Walford set for Branning 'family reunion' - 8 years after last Tanya appearance
• EastEnders star teases "fire and carnage" when Penny Branning's baby paternity secret is revealed
• EastEnders favourite Balvinder Sopal teases Ash return is "grenade" to the Panesar family unit this autumn
• EastEnders announces hard-hitting Amy Mitchell storyline as BBC soap works with charities

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Authors

Michael Adams is the Soaps Editor at Radio Times, covering all of the hot gossip and spoilers from Weatherfield to Walford, Emmerdale to Hollyoaks and everywhere in-between. He joined the team from Metro, where he spent two years as a Soaps Reporter and previously worked on the sets of both Coronation Street and Emmerdale.