EastEnders spin-off Redwater might return to screens but without leading characters Kat Slater and Alfie Moon, Shane Richie has said.
The soap actor, who played Alfie in the BBC One soap and its follow-up programme, hinted that it could return to screens in the future, despite the fact the lead characters appeared to die in the final episode.
The closing scenes of the series showed Kat (Jessie Wallace) cut to ribbons by a propeller of a boat she had fallen from, turning the water red with blood, while doctors battled for Alfie’s life in an operating theatre.
Hello, lovelies did you catch me just now on @thismorning on @ITV? pic.twitter.com/e39gvMA8ap
— Shane Richie (@realshanerichie) November 17, 2017
However, the ending of the programme – which tracked the Albert Square couple’s quest to find Kat’s long-lost son in Ireland – left viewers confused as it was unclear what their fate had been.
Richie, 53, told ITV’s This Morning: “We did the very last episode, and ended with Alfie flat-lining on a gurney while Kat’s on a beach face-down in her own blood.
“By all intents and purposes, it’s thought they were dead.”
He added cryptically: “Then they said it wasn’t coming back but I keep hearing it might … not necessarily with Kat and Alfie.”
Richie said that with former EastEnders executive producer John Yorke back at the helm of the soap, there could be a return for the couple.
He said: “He created the Slaters and the Moons, and he’s now back – he’s probably one of the best at this kind of show – he’s back at EastEnders now.
“So who knows what happened to Kat and Alfie?”
Richie left EastEnders in January 2016 after playing Alfie on and off since 2002.
He and Wallace, who first appeared in the soap in 2000, then went on to star in Redwater earlier this year, a six-part series.
A second series of the spin-off was said to not be in the works.