EastEnders plans to kick off the New Year with a bang. Quite literally.
The BBC One soap has confirmed that Monday's (January 1) holiday special will be centred around a deadly turn of events, as Aidan Maguire (Patrick Bergin) carries out his heist.
In recent episodes, viewers have seen the criminal plot take shape, even as Aidan's co-conspirators Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden), Vincent Hubbard (Richard Blackwood), Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters) and Mick Carter (Danny Dyer) have each questioned their confidence in the con man.
The tension comes to a head on New Year's Day, when Aidan orders the guys to go about their normal routines while keeping an eye out for his signal. However, their plan immediately gets off to a rocky start when Shirley Carter (Linda Henry) discovers what Mick is up to and takes drastic action to stop him.
Sharon Mitchell (Letitia Dean) has also figured out that Phil is up to no good, but stops short of pressing him for the truth given their own stormy past.
Keanu seems completely unprepared emotionally to keep up his end of the bargain, almost spilling the truth when Bernadette (Clair Norris) questions him about his recent strange behaviour.
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When the time finally comes and Aidan sends out his signal, the crew are furious to discover that Mick has seemingly backed out — leading an armed Aidan to go searching for the Queen Vic's one-time landlord.
His search leads him to the Vic, where Shirley tries to throw a wrench into the plot by pretending that she has no idea where Mick has been. In reality, Mick was just running late and had actually shown up at his location barely on time.
As if the plot couldn't get anymore complicated, Masood Ahmed (Nitin Ganatra) makes his big return to Albert Square and ends up receiving an extremely unwelcoming tongue-lashing from Mick.
Having shaken off Aidan, Shirley enlists Linda in her desperate search to find Mick before it's too late — but it is definitely too late.
The two arrive at the scene of the heist just as Mick and his cohorts attempt to hold up their target, while wearing disguises and carrying fake weapons. Unfortunately, their target has a very real gun at his disposal.
A shot rings out, leaving one of the robbers on the ground in extremely precarious shape.
The remaining robbers try to salvage their job, even as it becomes increasingly clear that Aidan Maguire had an ulterior motive that he'd kept hidden from the others.
Witnessing all of this go down are Masood and his relatives Arshad and Mariam (Madhav Sharma and Indira Joshi). Needless to say that the family are appalled to see such brutality, since they were assured that Walford was a safe community for their foster children.
Will Phil and the gang be able to escape justice, and will their fallen comrade even survive?
EastEnders airs an hour-long New Year's Day special on Monday (January 1) at 8pm on BBC One.
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Digital Spy Soap Scoop video – hit play below for all the latest EastEnders gossip, as Aidan's men gather for their criminal heist and Masood's family arrive in Walford.
