The popular BBC soap is now showing the sensational EastEnders comeback of Cindy Beale (Michelle Collins).
The revelation earlier this year that Cindy a) hasn’t been dead for the previous 25 years, and b) has been under witness protection the entire time is just one of several plot twists that have occurred so far.
Oh, and c) she is the ex-wife of George Knight (Colin Salmon) and the mother of his children Gina (Francesca Henry) and Anna (Molly Rainford).
She followed Peter Beale (Thomas Law) to Walford and is now back in Albert Square. She has already had a confrontation with Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth).
But is this truly her first return to the Square in a decade and a half?
No, there’s still one more twist in store, and it has to do with Cindy’s location when her daughter Lucy Beale (Hetti Bywater) was murdered nine years ago.
It comes out that after learning of Lucy’s passing over ten years ago, Cindy Beale discreetly moved back to Walford.
Viewers were aware that Rose-as-Cindy had left the Knight household nine years prior.
Additionally, it was revealed in the episode broadcast tonight (Tuesday, August 29 – and is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer) that Cindy had left George, Anna, and Gina behind because of Lucy’s death.
In a flashback from April 19, 2014, the day after Lucy passed away, we learn that Cindy is residing in Spain with George.
The mother was upset and flew back to East London as the father and his girls left for the day when Cindy received a call from police handler Mary informing her about Lucy.
Then, viewers saw flashback images of Cindy hiding in the bushes at Madison Square Garden on the same day in Walford.
Just hours after Lucy’s death, she was crying while watching her ex-husband Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt).
Cindy went back to Walford, but it didn’t last long because Mary, a police handler, found her and persuaded her to get in a car and go. but not before admitting that Cindy had endangered not just the Knights’ lives but also her own.
She therefore avoided children Anna and Gina after returning, ostensibly in an effort to protect them.
Of course, anyone who were interested in the Whodunnit Who murdered Lucy Beale? plotline in 2014 wouldn’t have been worried about Cindy’s location.
She had long been assumed to be deceased because everyone thought she had passed away in 1998 while giving birth in prison.
