EastEnders airs tragic Linda Carter scenes as Nancy goes into labour in early BBC iPlayer release

The Carter family have been left devastated by news of patriarch Mick's (Danny Dyer) demise in EastEnders.

Little do they realise, the truth is that his body still hasn't been found - four years since going missing in the English Channel - and that Janine Butcher (Charlie Brooks) has orchestrated the whole ordeal.

She was furious to hear that Mick's son Lee (Danny Hatchard) had revoked his death certificate, meaning that she'd have to pay back the life insurance sum that she'd initially received.

After getting a dodgy solicitor to fabricate a death certificate, she then got another of her contacts to bury another man to pretend it was Mick. She then told grieving Linda Carter (Kellie Bright) that he'd passed away just two weeks ago, suffering a heart attack at his new home in North London.

Linda struggled to believe that her beloved Mick would abandon his family, and asked current partner Max Branning (Jake Wood) to look in the coffin and identify his body.

While she waited in the car, Janine confessed everything to Max - but asked him to keep quiet, and then they'd both benefit. If Mick was officially 'dead', Linda would be able to move on in life and Max wouldn't always have to walk in his shadow.

Shockingly, Max agreed.

In today's episode, Linda prepared to tell her family about Mick's death. She was completely and utterly heartbroken, and Max asked her to consider whether she should even bother mentioning it to them.

Guilt-ridden and concerned that they'd want more concrete evidence, Max insisted that dragging up the past wasn't a wise move.

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Linda disagreed and gathered Lee, Nancy (Maddy Hill) and Johnny (Charlie Suff) together to break the news. They struggled to comprehend that their dad was actually gone, and Lee rushed off to Harry's Barn to drown his sorrows.

Nancy, meanwhile, took herself up onto the roof of The Queen Vic for a moment of reflection. She shared a heart-to-heart with Linda, before also chatting to ex-boyfriend Zack Hudson (James Farrar).

Just as they were about to head downstairs, Nancy's waters broke.

Meanwhile, Nicola Mitchell (Laura Doddington) called Linda and asked her to come and collect a drunken Lee. She and Max attempted to make a breakthrough with him, offering assurance that the answers to his problems couldn't be found at the bottom of a bottle.

When Lee refused to listen, Linda grabbed the drink out of his hands and threatened to consume the alcohol herself.

Will she relapse after almost two years of sobriety?

Read more:

• EastEnders icon Rob Kazinsky teases "never-seen-before" storyline for his character Sean Slater with plot that "treads new ground"
• 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

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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.