Soap fans heading to BBC iPlayer this morning are in for a shock – there’s no EastEnders to watch!

It’s been common practice for quite some time that episodes drop on the streaming service each morning at 6am, before it’s linear broadcast on television at 7.30pm in the evening.

This is largely to give viewers more freedom of when they want to watch – with Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks all following in the trend.

However, it’s also been known for instalments to be held back, leaving the eager audience twiddling their thumbs.

Why isn’t EastEnders on BBC iPlayer?

It’s quite a big episode tonight, and the show’s big boss wants everyone to tune in at the same time on BBC One.

This means you’ll have to wait until 7.30pm to watch it.

Discussing what viewers can expect from the episode, executive producer Ben Wadey said: ‘As Zoe makes her dramatic return to Walford, more than one secret in her past will come to light as we look to explore the reasons behind her return, and what has happened in the past twenty years to make her the person she is today.’

What happens in tonight’s EastEnders?

Following yesterday’s nail-biting doof doof, we’ll find out who Jack Branning (Scott Maslen) and Ravi Gulati (Aaron Thiara) shot in their scuffle.

With Kat Moon (Jessie Wallace) and Zoe Slater (Michelle Ryan) in the firing line, it certainly seemed like one of the women would be the target.

The tragic incident came just after Zoe returned to her estranged mother after two decades, desperate for money and reluctant to believe she’d changed.

It became clear that she’s deeply troubled, unable to move on from finding out she was born as a result of a sexual assault on Kat from her uncle in the mid 1980s.

As we know, Kat kept this secret for 17 years, but told Zoe that she has since learnt to build her strength and live each day with the knowledge she is a survivor.

But for Zoe, she couldn’t look past the fact she ‘a product of rape’, referring to herself as a ‘monster’.

The scales fell from Kat’s eyes when Zoe said she wished she’d had an abortion.

Surprisingly, the women then had a tender moment. Zoe collapsed onto the dining room table and Kat comforted her, and it seemed that she was about to open up about her struggles.

Outside in the street, Zoe asserted that she’d done something that would destroy the family if they found out.