It was a year to the day that two of the Square’s most popular residents died in the most bizarre and tragic of circumstances.
Yet the heartbreaking anniversary seemed to have passed their loved ones and neighbours by with only the scantest of mentions.
And fans were not happy about it at all.
New Year’s Day 2018 marked a year since Roxy and Ronnie Mitchell both perished in a hotel swimming pool, just hours after Ronnie tied the knot (for the second time) with Jack Branning.
The devoted sisters died together, after a drunken Roxy decided to go for a late night swim. Her impaired state led to her floundering in the water, with Ronnie, fully decked out in her bridal gown, leaping in to try and save her.
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The harrowing scenes saw Ronnie weighed down by her bridal gown, and the siblings both ending up drowning.
Not a sequence of events you’d expect anyone close to the girls to have forgotten, yet while Jack Branning was seen briefly toasting the sisters in the R&R nightclub on New Year’s Day with his brother Max, it would appear the rest of Walford were oblivious to the anniversary.
“It’s hard to move on, isn’t it?” Jack said, drinking straight from the bottle, before, the story, er, swiftly moved on.
Social media users were not so quick to forget the sisters, however, and went online in their droves to ask why they were not being more remembered on the Square.
“Ronnie and Roxy have been barely mentioned after their deaths,” one indignant viewer wrote on Twitter, while another complained that Sharon was out drinking rather than checking in with Jack on what must have been a difficult day for him.
“And even Phil hasn’t done or said ANYTHING about Ronnie and Roxy,” the tweeter raged.
“We had the briefest of brief scenes about Ronnie and Roxy’s death anniversary…two of the biggest characters the last 20 years in EastEnders,” another viewer ranted.
Not everyone was totally focussed on Ronnie and Roxy’s anniversary though – one Twitter user pointed out they were not the only characters to have ever passed away around the time of the New Year’s celebrations.
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“Tiffany Mitchell and Pat died at New Year, are we meant to mention them for the rest of eternity?” the irritated fan demanded, harking back to the 1998 episode which saw Martine McCutcheon’s character die after being mowed down by a car driven by Frank Butcher, and Pat Butcher’s 2012 exit from pancreatic cancer.
Fair point.
And one that hits home that Walford is not the best place to be hanging out on New Year’s eve if you do want to make it in to the following year…