6 EastEnders spoilers for next week: Linda and Max get closer and Kim returns

Here are all your EastEnders spoilers for 16th - 20th November 2020.

Sharon warns Max off Linda

Those with a suspicious mind and a pair of eyes will have clocked the sexual tension between Linda and Max since their post-lockdown peck, and this week their simmering attraction climbs closer to the boil.

Canny Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean) warns womanising Max not to wreck another marriage, and tells BFF Linda herself to tread carefully, which she deflects with the 'We're just pals' line. Keep telling yourself that, L. On the proviso of helping her develop a business idea, Max and Linda start spending more time together. By the end of the week, flustered, guilt-ridden Linda is reaching for the bottle, but stops herself and remembers she has a husband. But how long can she (or anyone woman alive) resist Max's charms?

Can Kat and Phil pull off the heist?

It's Lynda La Plante meets Gangs of London as Kat, Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden), Shirley Carter (Linda Henry) and Ben Mitchell (Max Bowden) plan a robbery at a classic car firm where the Slaters have a cleaning contract. While Kat works out how to clean out the company rather than just clean the loos, she insists lover Kush Kazemi (Davood Ghadami) acts as the getaway driver, even though the Mitchells aren't keen on having him on board. Have a heart, Phil, he's being written out in a few months, let him play with the big boys before he goes.

The big day comes and everything is set for the heist, though it threatens to be derailed by infighting between Kat and Shirl, mounting tensions at the risks involved, and some jaw-dropping twists that alter the dynamics within the gang. Don't expect much honour among thieves.

Kim comes home

Here comes Kim, injecting a welcome dose of humour back into the proceedings as she returns from Scotland, or at least that's what we're hoping: the character actually walks into a highly emotional situation as Denise Fox (Diane Parish) prepares to tell Raymond she is his birth mother. Even Tameka Empson might struggle to generate some laughs out of that minefield.

Being brought up to speed on why the nephew she thought had been given away at birth is now back in the family fold, Kim is - for once - speechless. Dee is pleased to have her sister home, though will she listen when she encourages her to fight for her relationship with Jack Branning (Scott Maslen), deemed dead in the water now she's co-parenting with Phil?

Tina moves in with Gray

It's a shame Tina Carter (Luisa Bradshaw-White) is soon to be leaving EastEnders, the character has been underused for far too long despite being part of one of the soap's most important families. The writing is on the wall for Teen this week when she's forced to move out when Ash Kaur (Gurlaine Kaur Garcha) tells girlfriend Iqra Ahmed (Priya Davdra) she's had enough of their housemate cramping their style. Charming.

Roaming the Square looking for a place to stay (like she's been looking for a storyline for the last few years), Tina offloads to boss Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth) and ends up in the last place you'd expect - lodging with tormented lawyer Gray Atkins (Toby-Alexander Smith). Shirley pulls some strings and asks the grieving dad to take in her homeless sister, presumably so she can maintain a maternal eye on him by having a spy in the camp. This could be interesting: Tina is a domestic abuse survivor, could she be the one to discover Gray was beating late wife Chantelle and was responsible for her tragic death?

Elsewhere on EastEnders

• Sinister Suki Panesar (Balvinder Sopal) is making previous manipulative matriarchs like Pauline Fowler and Peggy Mitchell look like Maria Von Trapp. This ruthless woman is on a whole other level when it comes to getting her own way. She's still planning to turn the Slater house into flats, despite not telling the family or going about it in the most honest of ways. But is she about to recruit Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) as a new ally…?
• Our Ian is hurtling down towards one of those low ebbs he finds himself at every few years. Kathy wants the money her son stole by forging her signature back, and the once mighty entrepreneur is crumbling under the debt and guilt he's been battling since he caused Denny's death back in February. When Suki suggests they team up to serve their mutual interests, Ian is intrigued. He'll probably live to regret that…

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