Kathy Beale will mark her return to the Square in true Walford style – an explosive brawl with Sharon Mitchell.
Actress Gillian Taylforth has revealed that she loved filming the fight scene with Sharon Mitchell (Letitia Dean). A suspicious Sharon will come face to face with Kathy in The Arches, and the result is nothing short of a classic soap moment.
Kathy is returning after she apparently "died" in a car accident in South Africa in 2006.
Explaining Kathy's resurrection EastEnders' executive-producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins said they only agreed to bring Kathy back when they found a credible storyline for her return.
"It was about going back to our history, bringing back a Beale matriarch who we all want to see," he said.
Taylforth's return was a strict secret and the only person she was allowed to tell was her partner. Taylforth said: "I obviously had to tell my partner, because I was disappearing at 11 o'clock at night and I was worried he thought I might have got a new job down at King's Cross or something."
For the past three years Kathy's ex-flame Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden) has been aware that she never actually died and rather than share the news with Kathy's sons, Ian (Adam Woodyatt) and Ben (Harry Reid), he's kept it to himself.
But as this is soapland, you can be sure it won't be long before the news breaks that she is back on the Square.
Treadwell-Collins said: "The reaction we're holding off is the reaction from Ian and Ben. They're the two most exciting people.
"It's big, heavy, heavy stuff. And then throwing into the mix Jane as well, because we always said, Ian's married a woman like his mum, and oh, how would Jane and Kathy get on?
"And Jane and Kathy aren't going to get on ... and it's all quite sparky."
Kathy's currently married to Gavin Sullivan (played by Just Good Friends star Paul Nicholas), although the couple are estranged.
Treadwell-Collins describes Gavin as "the most manipulative and dangerous villain EastEnders has ever had. He makes Archie Mitchell look like a Care Bear."
Eastenders has released a trailer for its autumn storylines, and it looks like there's plenty of drama ahead on the BBC soap.
