‘The Night That Changes Everything’ has kicked off in EastEnders, with a particularly traumatic instalment for Denise Fox (Diane Parish).
There was also drama for Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt), but thus far, he has absolutely no idea.
It was confirmed last month that Denise would be diagnosed with blood cancer. The storyline is set to play out throughout the remainder of the year and into 2027, exploring the impact the illness will have on not only her, but those around her.
Today’s action picked up from the moment she received her diagnosis – acute myeloid leukaemia – a particularly aggressive form of cancer which requires an immediate treatment.
The floor fell from beneath her feet, and as she took the bus and wandered home, it was evident that a multitude of thoughts were already flooding through her head. She locked herself into her salon, and took a moment to ask her smart speaker some questions about the condition.
Denise was sickened to hear that it had a very small survival rate, which was even worse for Black people.
Suddenly, Yolande Trueman (Angela Wynter) rattled on the door, demanding to know why she wasn’t attending Vicki Fowler (Alice Haig) and Ross Marshall’s (Alex Walkinshaw) wedding. Denise was adamant that she just wanted some alone time, and clearly had no intentions of telling Yolande the truth.
However, when she heard that son Raymond (Michael Jose Pomares Calixte) was asking about her, Denise collapsed on the floor and burst into tears, admitting that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
Yolande whisked her back to No. 27, pouring a drink and hoping she’d open up. Denise recalled the time her serial killer ex-husband Lucas Johnson (Don Gilet) knocked her tooth out, and it made her realise just how quickly something could die.
She saw the tooth on the floor, it was dead, and there was nothing more that could be done for it. She then made that comparison to her own life, saying that she’d surveyed people from the bus window, and wondered about her own eventual demise.
Yolande encouraged her to fight back, saying that she’d overcome the trauma from the men in her life, and now it was time to have faith in her own future. Denise, however, was ignoring repeated calls from the hospital.
Elsewhere, at the wedding, Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth) had downed one too many wines, and son Ian (Adam Woodyatt) reckoned it was high time for her to go home.
She’d begun offending his ex-wife Cindy (Michelle Collins), and knew that she was just one more drink away from ruining the happy couple’s big day.
The pair stumbled past Chelsea Fox (Zaraah Abrahams), who had no idea of her mum’s torment, and was trying to flirt with Zack Hudson (James Farrar). The pair were interrupted by her son Jordan (Jahsaiah Williams, in his EastEnders debut), and she ordered him to return to the marquee and find babysitter Josh Goodwin (Joshua Vaughan).
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Jordan had no intentions of going back outside, and ran into the street.
Ian had managed to drag Kathy into the passenger seat and she blasted the radio, meaning that they were too distracted to see Jordan falling to the ground when the car hit him. Kathy wondered whether there had been a collision, though Ian passed it off as the noise of bins and the special ‘VIP councillor’ traffic cone he’d put down.
Will Jordan be ok, and will Denise get her urgent treatment?
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