The New Year’s Day instalment of EastEnders has claimed countless lives over the years, and as the show enters its 40th year, four major characters may be calling New Year’s Day 2025 their last.
It was supposed to be a happy day for Suki Panesar (Balvinder Sopal) and Eve Unwin (Heather Peace) as they prepared to tie the knot, and while the ceremony went without a hitch, disaster struck at the reception.
Nish Panesar (Navin Chowdhry) has been lurking in the shadows of Albert Square waiting for his opportunity to strike, determined to get revenge on Eve for stealing Suki away from him.
However, his plan to gate-crash the wedding was almost thwarted when Denise Fox (Diane Parish) followed Nugget Gulati (Juhaim Rasul Choudhury) to his secret hideout.
She was horrified to realise that Nish was still alive, and threatened to call the police and have him taken back to prison.
When Nish realised that threatening to tell the truth about how she hit him over the head with a bottle last Christmas wasn’t going to stop her, he mirrored her actions and left her for dead.
With no one to stop him, Nish made his way to the wedding venue, only to find that Nugget had had a change of heart, and told Ravi Gulati (Aaron Thiara) and Vinny Panesar (Shiv Jalota) that Denise had followed him and come face to face with Nish.
Determined not to let Nish hurt Suki or Eve, Ravi and Vinny bundled him into an outbuilding, where Ravi demanded to know what he’d done to Denise.
It didn’t take him long to work out where Denise would be, and he soon called Jack Branning (Scott Maslen) to look for her.
When Jack found Denise unconscious and bleeding, he rushed her to the hospital.
However, Nish’s reign of terror didn’t end there, as he managed to slip past Vinny while Ravi was on the phone, and make his way up to the honeymoon suite.
It became clear exactly what he had done when Suki and Eve drank their champagne, and Eve began to choke.
Suki was horrified as her wife fell to the ground, unable to breathe, and she was struck by pure terror when Nish made his presence known.
Refusing to let Suki live without him, he revealed that he had poisoned Eve, and that he planned for Suki to drink the rest with him so that they would die together.
Terrified Suki attempted to get away by running onto the balcony and calling to the guests below for help – but it wasn’t enough to stop Nish.
When Ravi burst through the doors in an attempt to rescue Suki, Nish goaded him, knowing that if he pushed hard enough Ravi would snap.
Nish’s suspicions were right, and furious Ravi pushed Nish over the balcony – unaware that he had Suki’s dress wrapped tightly in his fist.
As Nish toppled over the edge of the balcony, Suki went flying over with him, until they were both laying in a pool of blood on the patio below.
With Denise, Eve, Suki and Nish’s lives all hanging in the balance, will any of them make it out alive?
