It’s a pretty exciting time to be an EastEnders fan right now.
Not only is the build-up to the Christmas murder, previously teased in a flash-forward episode, bubbling away, but there’s a whole other mystery currently gripping viewers – the identity of Rose Knight.
Rose is the ex-wife of new Queen Vic landlord George Knight, who arrived in Walford earlier this month, after his new partner Elaine Peacock invested into her daughter Linda Carter’s pub.
Since his arrival, there has been a big question mark hanging over George and exactly what happened to his ex, after she seemingly walked out on her family nearly a decade ago, never to be heard from again.
Fans are set to get answers later this week, when the show finally reveals all in an extended episode on Thursday evening.
While the BBC is keeping things top secret – even halting the 6am release of Wednesday and Thursday’s episodes on iPlayer – speculation has been mounting among the soap’s fandom for weeks now that “Rose” might actually be none other than classic 90s character Cindy Beale.
Ahead of the big reveal, we’re picking apart the clues that all point to that theory being true...
Timing
The arrival of the Knight family came just after the revelation that Michelle Collins was set to reprise her role as Cindy, who is heading back to Walford with ex-husband Ian, some 25 years after the character was apparently killed off screen while in prison.
For many fans, the timing was just a little too coincidental – especially as BBC bosses were previously hoping to keep news of Cindy’s return under wraps until a spoiler was published by The Sun.
Gina’s name
George Knight arrived in Walford with his two daughters Gina and Anna – played by Francesca Henry and Molly Rainford respectively – and fans noticed that Gina’s name might actually point to her mother’s identity.
You see, Cindy’s sister was also called Gina, and “Rose” could have named her daughter after her sibling as a nod to her previous life.
Gina Williams was played by Nicola Cowper, and originally appeared in EastEnders between 1998 and 1999. The character was given custody of Cindy’s daughter, Cindy Jr, when she allegedly “died during childbirth” in prison.
Gina made a one-off return in 2007 and most recently appeared in 2014, when she was called to collect Cindy Jr after the teenager arrived in Walford to connect with her siblings.
‘Every Rose has a thorn’
In the lead up to the big reveal of Rose’s identity, EastEnders has been teasing fans with various trailers featuring Seal’s hit song Kiss From A Rose.
It also carried the tagline “Every Rose has a thorn”, which one fan on Twitter believes contains a massive clue.
EastEnders fan @martinfowlers spotted that by editing the text and adding the ‘e’ from ‘Rose’ to ‘thron’, you get ‘Ros Thorne’, who was actually a pivotal character for Cindy and her ex-husband Ian.
After Cindy’s failed plot to have Ian murdered in 1998, he hired a private investigator to track her down when she went on the run with their children. This eventually led to her arrest and imprisonment, where she later “died”.
And the name of this private investigator? Ros Throne!
Witness protection?
Following Linda Carter’s suspicions that her mother’s new partner George might have had something to do with ex-wife Rose’s disappearance, she enlisted the help of Phil Mitchell to dig into it.
Phil then roped in his son-in-law Callum Highway to use his role as a police officer to look into George and Rose’s files on the database.
Intriguingly, Callum discovered that access to Rose’s file was denied, before he was later paid a visit at home from a DCI from the Serious Crime unit, who’d been alerted to his searches. They warned Callum he would face dire consequences if we was caught looking into Rose again.
The top secret nature of Rose’s files appear to suggest the character is in a witness protection scheme, with only authorised figures allowed to know details of her real identity.
This could then explain why Cindy “died” in prison – perhaps having informed on a dangerous former inmate – and why “Rose” also disappeared into thin air years later – perhaps forced to move on again, after a new threat from those she’d informed on.
EastEnders continues on Wednesday and Thursday at 7.30pm on BBC One and iPlayer, where all will be revealed.