EastEnders Max Branning showed he isn’t all bad tonight when he talked Stacey round.
Stacey was struggling with her baby girl lying in the NICU and as Martin desperately tried to get her to name their baby, Stace was unresponsive to his request, and frankly quite horrid to him.
Granted she’s been through an awful lot lately so you can forgive her for snapping, but it was Martin’s turn to stand up to her.
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“If there’s one thing I can do, pretty much the only thing I can do is to give our daughter a name.”
But it was Max who finally got through to Stacey, by actually showing his caring side – yes, he does have one!
As Stacey worried about caring for her baby, bonding with her baby, looking after her other children, working, making enough money for rent and Christmas, Max told her she was “the only friend I’ve got”.
Well, you might want to stop destroying the entire Square and everyone in it if you want to make friends, Max.
“You’re a good man, Max,” Stacey told him.
And his encouragement was enough to make Stacey realise she needed to name her daughter, and meeting up with Martin in the NICU, she announced they should call her Hope.
Meanwhile, Max was going about showing he wasn’t a good man at all by threatening Jane to leave Ian and Walford behind.
At first we were cheering as she told Max exactly what we think he needed to hear.
“Don’t you think, actually, it’s time you got over yourself?” Er, yeah, it really is.
“You are an ex insurance salesman, not a member of the Krays,” she continued. Right on the money, again.
“You and Tanya babysat Bobby, you’ve been round ours for barbecues, I’m your son’s godmother, we were friends.”
We’re not entirely sure when these barbecues took place – in the rainy East End of London in Ian and Jane’s teeny, weeny back yard, but still, apparently, they did.
“I’ve paid, Max,” Jane told him, but Max went on to talk all about his experience in prison.
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He then tellingly told her: “This ain’t even my party any more, you and me we’re just a sideshow, just little players in a much much bigger game, I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to.
“If you go to the police, I swear to you it’ll be the last thing you ever do.
“You walk away without Ian quietly or you stay and then you wait and see.”
Despite his harsh words, Max was clearly having second thoughts and tried to persuade Fi on the phone they shouldn’t be quite so harsh on Ian and Jane. It didn’t work though, and eventually Jane was forced to tell her husband:
“I can’t forgive you, I’m done, I’ve had enough I’m just exhausted by it all. For both our sakes it’s enough now, I’m sorry Ian, we’re over.”
Viewers were fuming, branding the plot cruel and ridiculous…