Eastenders

Eastenders Episodes: Max, Stacey and Bradley - Adultery

This year (2007 to 2008), we followed the episodes dealing with the moral issue involving adultery and promiscuity - Max's affair with his son's girlfriend (later fiancee and wife).

The Max, Stacey and Bradley Episodes

The affair between Max and Stacey began when she began to encourage Max's advances. Max is married to Tanya and they have two daughters. Later, Max and Tanya have a baby by which time the affair seems to be over. Stacey is also going out with Max's son, Bradley,whom she eventually marries.

The affair reached its height when, for a while, Bradley and Stacey had broken up. Eventually, with Max and Tanya having a new-born baby to bring their relationship together again, and with Stacey and Bradley getting engaged and then married, the affair comes to an end. However, Max's daughter, Lauren, had secretly filmed Max and Stacey together just before the wedding and had made a DVD from what she had filmed, entitled "The Happy Couple". She wrapped the DVD up as a Christmas present for Bradley. She later had second thoughts about it and threw the 'present' in the bin. However, her sister saw it there, retrieved it and put it at the foot of the Christmas tree.

On Christmas Day, the DVD was given to Bradley, and, despite Lauren's protests was played for all to see.

From the moment the truth comes home to everyone, the consequences of the immoral actions of both Stacey and Max are now played out in succeeding episodes. The sense of betrayal felt by Bradley and Tanya, the shame and loss felt by Max and Stacey, the upset and distress caused to Max's children and the disgust felt by friends in the Square, backed up by the usual Biblical quote from Dot.

All parties at one stage or another turn to drink to help them through their problems; Max and Tanya try to hurt each other by their comments and actions; divorce proceedings are not plain sailing, especially with Max trying to destroy the main evidence - the DVD; Lauren and Abi are distressed by the thought that their parents hate each other; Sean, Stacey's brother, tries to take advantage of Tanya's situation; Stacey and Bradley's break up seems irretrievable.

In the most recent episodes, Tanya enlists Sean's help to murder Max. He is drugged and buried alive in a coffin - his greatest nightmare. But, in the end, Tanya cannot go through with it. During the night, she gets up and returns to the burial spot to get him out.

Thus Eastenders, through the various characters of Albert Square and particularly of the two families concerned, gives a good insight into the far- and wide-reaching problems that promiscuity and adultery can cause.