The Mark Fowler Jr (Stephen Aaron-Sipple) who returned to EastEnders recently is a million miles away from the one who left in 2016.
Besides the whole ‘new face’ thing, in his time away from Walford, he’s become quite the villain.
Up to his neck in organised crime, he crashed back onto the Square on the orders of his shadowy ‘boss’ with one mission: to expose the grass in their drugs gang, else his sister, Vicki (Alice Haig) gets the horses-head-in-the-bed treatment.
Mark isn’t a heartless guy, though, and upon learning that the leak in the operation was Ravi Gulati (Aaron Thiara), he struggled with what he’d have to do after bonding somewhat with the troubled trapster.
Ravi’s fast-unravelling mental state led him to expose himself to Mark and drive him into the woods, before goading him into attacking, using the ensuing vicious and bloody beating as an extension of his self harming.
The arrival of Vicky, Priya Nandra-Hart (Sophie Khan Levy) and Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden) brought an end to the battering, with Vicki utterly horrified by what her brother has gotten involved with.
Rather than apologise for traumatising her, though, he railed at both Vicki and Ross Marshall (Alex Walkinshaw) for getting involved in his business.
Phil steps in to help
Even more chillingly, when he still wanted to turn Ravi over to the gang to be dealt with, in a manner we presume would be permanent, Vicki turned to the oracle when it comes to all things ‘gangster’, Phil Mitchell to help.
Phil’s withering glare and gravelly pearls of wisdom broke through Mark’s bravado and, when given the opportunity to possibly escape the drug conglomerate and, therefore, not have to deliver Ravi to his death, Mark was more than happy to accept uncle Phil’s help…
…and help he did. Phil managed to detangle Mark from the messy criminal web he was so deeply ensnared in with a few words to the drugs boss. There was caveat, though: Mark now owed the gang £100k.
This, of course, led Mark to take stock and look at the direction his decisions have taken his life. Stepping back, he endeavoured to pay off his debt with good, honest work and never dip his toe back into the gangland pond again.
