Kathy Beale lashes out with cleaver in shocking EastEnders murder twist

Everyone stop what you’re doing right now because EastEnders just dropped their next Christmas trailer, and this time it was Kathy Beale’s (Gillian Taylforth) turn to take centre stage – and boy did she deliver!

If like us you have been desperately hoping to see #KillerKathy trending on Christmas day, then you too will have screamed out loud in public as soon as this trailer dropped. (We will neither confirm nor deny that we did this.)

Like the previous four trailers, Kathy’s left us with a lot to dissect. And by a lot, we mean a LOT.

In just 26 seconds, we think we’ve been handed the killer, how the murder is committed, and two of the victims. That’s right, we said victims…

While all of the trailers have done an amazing job at setting the scene and dropping small hints that have sparked countless theories, so far only Kathy and Linda have been seen doing things that could relate to the murder itself. More on Linda later.

In Kathy’s trailer, we see her using a meat cleaver to chop the flowerheads off a bunch of tulips. When a bell tolls, her mood changes, and she slams the knife down into a second bouquet, completely destroying it. So camp.

If you’ve watched this trailer and can’t make sense of what could be so important, then allow us to break it down for you, with the help of some of the previous trailers for good measure.

The meat cleaver

The main thing about Kathy’s trailer that stands out is that she is holding what could be the murder weapon. Obviously, this in itself is important, as she is the only person out of the five trailers so far that has been seen with a weapon.

However, if we look closely into Kathy’s history then this becomes even more significant than you’d first expect.

EastEnders fans will know that Kathy has experienced a lot of trauma in her life, one such occasion being when she was raped by James Wilmott-Brown in 1988.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Kathy reported the crime to the police, and was questioned by an officer in emotional scenes. During the heart breaking monologue, she revealed that she wished she could have killed him.

‘If I’d have had a knife I’d have killed him, I’d have killed him there and then.’

While this on its own may seem unrelated, the symbolism of Kathy having a knife to fight back with becomes an important element of this story.

In 1992, after serving a short stretch in prison, Wilmott-Brown returned to the square, refusing to accept that Kathy wanted nothing to do with him.

During a three-hander episode that saw Kathy stand up to Wilmott-Brown and ex-husband Pete Beale, she once again made reference to using a knife to defend herself.

‘What no one understands is all I want to do is take a blunt knife and gut him.’

When Wilmott-Brown made a final return to the square years later in 2017, Kathy was horrified and, trapped alone in the café with him, she reached for a knife.

However, she later revealed that he had left her feeling so scared that she had just frozen, meaning that she couldn’t bring herself to actually use the weapon against him.

With all this in mind, it makes the fact that Kathy is holding a knife in her trailer incredibly important. Could she be set to finally find the courage to use it?

But why a meat cleaver? Well, this is where our suspicions over who the body may be come in.

It is well known that Ian and Cindy Beale (Adam Woodyatt and Michelle Collins) have recently gone into business with Dean Wicks (Matt Di Angelo), and are set to open a pie and mash shop.

Now, don’t worry, we’re not about to suggest that Kathy turns full Mrs Lovett and gives us a Sweeney Todd moment, but the fact that you would find a meat cleaver in a pie shop is significant, especially given that this trailer has left two men in particular on our radar to be the dead body: Ian and Dean.

The pink tulips

Now that we’ve let the dust settle on that bombshell, lets look at how the flowers Kathy is chopping up give further proof that Ian or Dean are set to be the body. Or bodies… Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about that either!

We have mentioned many times before that the colours worn by The Six are important (more on that later), and we are more than aware that Linda’s signature colour is pink.

So, please tell us why Kathy is chopping up pink tulips…

Before Dean arrived back in Walford in shocking Halloween scenes, there was plenty of speculation that he was set to be the Christmas body, given that he was mentioned a lot in the flash forward episode.

During this episode, Kathy assured Linda that she would be protected should Dean ever come back.

‘And if that Dean does dare to show his face around here, you have got a wall of friends around you who will make sure that he doesn’t get anywhere near you.’

With this line in mind, could the fact that Kathy is chopping up pink tulips suggest that she would kill to protect Linda? Not to mention that Kathy was also wearing pink when she said that line…

When Linda’s trailer dropped in October, people were left confused by the fact that she seemed to be cleaning up blood. While this would not be unusual after a murder, the fact that she was upstairs in the Queen Vic living room and not downstairs in the bar where the body was supposed to be left people wondering if there may be more than one body.

In Kathy’s trailer, eagle eyed viewers will notice that she destroys not one but two bouquets, but the way she does it is very different.

The first bouquet she chops up very neatly, as though she is completely in control and knows what she’s doing, almost like she has a plan.

With the second bouquet, however, everything changes, as though she suddenly sees red and lashes out – totally unplanned and unexpected.

Could The Six be planning to kill Dean to protect Linda, only to lash out at a second victim? And who could the second victim be?

When looking into the symbolism of tulips, we found that they can often mean ‘perfect’ and ‘unconditional’ love, and what love is more unconditional than that between a mother and a child?

What’s more, they are often given as a gift on Mother’s day.

Back in the flash forward episode, the women made a toast to the men in their lives and the ways that they had been let down. As each woman made a statement to men, Kathy’s struck us as slightly odd, given everything that she has been through in her life.

‘To the ones that take us for granted…’

While many people have speculated that the potential victim linked to Kathy could be husband Rocky Cotton (Brian Conley), we have always thought that that phrase didn’t quite fit with their relationship. If she’d have said something about men that lie, then it would have made more sense.

But what if Rocky isn’t supposed to be involved at all? What if Kathy’s victim is the person who has taken her for granted more than anyone else over the years: Ian Beale.

Could Ian be the one to die on Christmas day?

The Sharon link

Another factor that leads us to think that Ian may be dead is the blood on Sharon Watts’ (Letitia Dean) wedding dress during the flash forward scene.

We have previously mentioned that the position of the blood makes it look as though she had cradled someone who has been bleeding in her lap, which suggest that the victim may be close to her.

With Ian and Sharon having been best friends for nearly 40 years, with the odd blip that we won’t mention, he would certainly fall into this category.

But why not Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters), who she is set to marry?

Well, Sharon’s trailer is another one to include a bouquet of flowers, but these ones are not pink tulips. The fact that they are white roses instead suggests to us that they symbolise that the person she is marrying, who at this point appears to be Keanu, is unrelated to the crime.

Stacey’s trailer

‘But why would Kathy kill Ian?’ we hear you cry. To tell you the truth, we don’t know exactly.

However, what we do know is that in Stacey Slater’s (Lacey Turner) trailer, the tagline of the story, ‘In a flash, everything changes…’ was written on a mirror.

What left people confused, however, was the fact that ‘flash’ appeared to be written as ‘fla5h’.

That number five has been bugging people for weeks, but now one Twitter/X user has suggested that it could point to the person in the fifth trailer being the killer. Now, we’re not great at maths, but we’re certain that Kathy’s is trailer number five.

However, if we’re sticking to the theory that there are now two potential bodies in play, Kathy may only kill one of them, and it may not be Ian.

On top of this, during Stacey’s trailer, she takes a step back and looks to her right in shock, as though she is looking over at the killer.

And who is standing to Stacey’s right in the flash forward scene? Kathy.

#KillerKathy

Remember earlier we said we’d come back to the colours the The Six wear? Well, eagle-eyed fans have noticed something quite unusual about when the trailers are released.

In the episode that aired right before the release of Denise, Stacey, Linda and Sharon’s trailers, the character who was the focus of the trailer was dressed in black.

However, the episode before Kathy’s trailer saw her still wearing purple: Her signature The Six colour.

We still have to wait for Suki Panesar’s (Balvinder Sopal) trailer to come out to fully test this theory, but could the fact that everyone else is in black ahead of their trailers represent that they are the onlookers or mourners of the death, while Kathy, who was dressed in her The Six colour, is the killer?

On top of this, Kathy’s trailer came after she was arrested for the fire at the café. In almost every trailer so far, there has been smoke in the background. Could this be another hint that Kathy is the killer?

We hope we’ve left you with a lot to think about…

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