EastEnders spoilers follow.
EastEnders' executive producer Ben Wadey has spoken about the show's dramatic Zoe Slater and Max Branning twist for the first time.
Fans were shocked this week as the BBC soap unexpectedly tied together Zoe and Max's return plots, revealing that they'd had a fling earlier this year.
Flashbacks in Thursday's episode (4 September) showed how Max met Zoe in a bar and was intrigued to learn that she's a Slater.
Curiosity turned to passion and Zoe also sought help from Max as she tried to get answers over her long-lost son, who'd been brought up by foster parents.
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Sadly, their efforts ended in disaster when Zoe had a terrifying showdown with dodgy Greg – a man who claimed to know her son's location.
Speaking to us at an EastEnders press event this week, Wadey revealed how the plot twist came about.
"I think when you're lucky enough to come in and exec one of these shows, you have a list of characters that you really want to bring in," he explained.
"Zoe Slater and Max Branning were up there on my list of people who I wanted at the forefront of the show. When you've got those guys coming in, there's quite a lot of history between the Brannings and the Slaters.
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"So, if you know you've got Max and Zoe, you think: 'These guys are going to cross, and I can't wait to see it'. So we thought: 'Let's do it in the biggest possible way. The biggest twist, the biggest reveal, that they know each other, there's been this relationship off screen that we haven't known about, and then you've got all of the family to find out'.
"You've got the Brannings to discover that. You've got the rest of the Slaters to discover that. What's Stacey going to think? It's just this bomb that we wanted to put at the forefront of the show and just blow."
News of Jake Wood's return as Max was first leaked in May and officially confirmed in July.
Asked whether it was always the plan to bring Max back, Wadey replied: "Oh, absolutely. Max is a brilliant character and Jake's such an incredible performer, but the whole Brannings are an iconic legacy family. I wanted to put them at the heart of the show – I wanted big stories for them.
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"What I'm really excited about is that we've got those legacy characters in the Brannings that can give us so much story and are brilliant in terms of what they can continue to give us.
"But we also have the new generation coming through – not just Oscar and Lauren, but you've got Penny, you've got Amy, you've got Ricky. So there's a new generation coming up who also have loads of stories."
EastEnders continues on Monday (8 September), with more fireworks expected for the Slater family as the fallout from their big week unfolds.
EastEnders airs on Mondays-Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer, where most episodes drop early at 6am ahead of their TV broadcast.
Read more EastEnders spoilers on our dedicated homepage
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