EastEnders spoilers: WHY is Phil back behind the bar at the Vic?
Airs Wednesday 18 June 2025 at 7:30pm on BBC1.

Linda Carter (played by Kellie Bright) has been caught in the middle of all the recent fireworks at the Vic on EastEnders (7:30pm - see our TV Guide for listings)
Linda's mum, Elaine Peacock (Harriet Thorpe), has had a massive bust-up with her husband, George Knight (Colin Salmon), over his ex-wife, Cindy Beale (Michelle Collins).
On today's episode of the BBC soap, Elaine is ready to let her hair down and drown her sorrows with plenty of prosecco!
Kim Fox (Tameka Empson), Mo Harris (Laila Morse), Priya Nandra-Hart (Sophie Khan Levy), Denise Fox (Diane Parish), Honey Mitchell (Emma Barton), Suki Panesar (Balvinder Sopal) and Yolande Trueman (Angela Wynter) join the party!
However, Linda is alarmed when Elaine announces that the drinks are FREE all night!
Then, Linda discovers Elaine has offered to pay for Priya to go on a singles cruise.
Linda is shocked to see £5,000 has left the Vic's business account!
As Linda is left to deal with Elaine's WILD behaviour, friend Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden) sees that she is struggling and steps in to help her out behind the bar.
Can both Linda and Phil convince Elaine to wind in her bad behaviour?
Meanwhile, Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace) is feeling unsupported by Alfie Moon (Shane Richie).
Kat fears their teenage son Tommy (Sonny Kendall) is being led astray by local lad, Joel Marshall (Max Murray).
But Alfie seems distracted by something and Kat feels he is isn't being completely honest with her.
Meanwhile, what will Vicki Fowler (Alice Haig) and her partner Ross Marshall (Alex Walkinshaw) do after finding out about Joel's latest inappropriate behaviour?
EastEnders continues Monday to Thursday at 7:30pm on BBC One.
All the latest episodes are also available to stream on BBC iPlayer
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Simon has long been a fan of soap operas, and especially loves OVER-THE-TOP plots involving evil twins, hair-pulling catfights and natural disasters. Simon has written for a variety of TV magazines and websites including Inside Soap, Nickelodeon, What’s On TV, Radio Times, Metro and Digital Spy. He has reported LIVE from the red carpet at The British Soap Awards and hosted a Facebook LIVE session with Home and Away legend Ray Meagher (Alf "Stone the flamin' crows!" Stewart) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Aussie soap.
Simon is also co-author of The Treasures Of Coronation Street (Carlton Books)
And the writer and director of (very!) low budget fright flick, Midsummer Night's EVIL and the sequel webisodes series, The Hatchet Woods HORROR.
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