Walford is reeling after Zoe Slater’s sudden death, and while most eyes have turned to Max Branning as the prime suspect, a growing number of EastEnders fans are pointing the finger somewhere else entirely — at Zoe’s own son, Josh.
It all started on a night that should have ended quietly. Zoe had taken a nasty knock to the head earlier in the day, and as the hours passed she grew increasingly confused and distressed. When Max slipped upstairs to make sure she wouldn’t reveal his secret relationship with Linda, he found her rambling and assumed she’d simply had too much to drink. He left her alone. Big mistake.
Hours later, in the dead of night, Kat made the devastating discovery — her daughter Zoe, lifeless in bed. To make matters worse, police later revealed Zoe had actually called 999 that night but never said a word before the line went dead. Was her head injury really to blame? Or is there something far darker going on in Walford?
While the show seems to be steering viewers toward suspecting Max, plenty of fans aren’t buying it. Instead, they’re convinced Zoe’s biological son Josh is hiding something sinister.
The moment that sparked it all? Josh’s chilling reaction to the news of his mum’s death. While his twin sister Jasmine broke down in tears, Josh remained eerily calm — even snapping at Jasmine for making the tragedy “about her.” Viewers online wasted no time reacting, with many calling out how unnervingly detached and cold he seemed for someone who’d just lost his mother.
But this isn’t the first time fans have had their suspicions about Josh. Long before Zoe’s death, viewers were already digging into the twins’ dark backstory — specifically, the car accident that killed their adoptive father. Officially, Jasmine took the blame and paid for it behind bars. But a theory has been quietly brewing for months that it was actually Josh who caused that fatal crash, not his sister.
Fans have described Josh as someone who plays innocent on the surface while hiding a much darker, more manipulative side underneath — and many believe his true nature is only just starting to show.
There’s also an eerie sense of déjà vu running through this whole storyline. Jasmine was locked up for killing their biological father, Anthony. Now, with Zoe gone, some fans can’t shake the feeling that history is about to repeat itself — just with the siblings’ roles reversed. Could Josh be about to take the fall for his mother’s death, just as his twin once did?
One chilling fan theory floating around even predicted this exact scenario before Zoe died — suggesting Josh might end up mirroring Jasmine’s dark path entirely.
So is Josh really Walford’s next serial killer in the making? Or is this just an unfair pile-on against a grieving son who simply processes emotion differently? One thing’s for sure — EastEnders has fans more hooked than ever, and all eyes will be on Josh in the episodes to come.
Is Max really the one who’ll take the blame… or has Walford’s next killer been hiding in plain sight all along? 👀
