Jean Slater
| Jean Slater | |||||||
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| File:Jean slater.jpg | |||||||
| Duration | 2004, 2005, 2006—2007 | ||||||
| First appearance | 16 December 2004 | ||||||
| Last appearance | 1 November 2007 | ||||||
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Jean Slater was a fictional character in the popular BBC soap opera EastEnders. She was played by Gillian Wright. She appeared in December 2004 briefly and in December 2005. She returned as a recurring character in June 2006 and returned again for a longer stint from November 2006.
History
Jean is the mother of Sean and Stacey Slater. She rejected Stacey, who went to live with her great uncle Charlie.
She suffers from bipolar disorder and Stacey left her because she couldn't cope on her own. Stacey found out in December 2005 that Jean's condition had worsened, and went to live with her temporarily to help her out. When Jean attempted suicide and got sectioned, Stacey gave up trying to look after her and returned to Walford.
In her past, Jean's husband, Brian Slater, died in an accident on a building site, which is a possible precipitating factor in her illness, though this has never been made clear. Her estranged son, Sean, ran away and joined the army when his father died but he turned up in Walford in August 2006, and became a regular character.
Jean returned in June 2006 when she was re-housed to a new flat. Stacey went to help her unpack, when she cut herself on a broken picture frame and had to be taken to hospital. She met Stacey's boyfriend Bradley Branning and took a liking to him, saying that he was perfect for Stacey. Jean appeared again in November 2006 when Stacey attempted to reacquaint her mother with Sean.
In July 2007, Bradley went to Jean's house and told her that he and Stacey were back together. Jean was delighted. Jean later arrived in Walford to celebrate the engagement.
In August 2007, Sean was arrested for the attempted murder of Patrick Trueman. Jean went to visit Sean in prison, along with Stacey, but he wasn't happy with her turning up. She later infuriated Sean when she said that Stacey was like her late father, but that he was like her. In his rage Sean told her he never wanted to see her again and called her a freak, before storming off back to his prison cell.
After Sean's release from jail, the real assailant Craig Dixon having been discovered, Jean began to plan Stacey's wedding with her. In September 2007, an elated Jean announced to Stacey that she would make her wedding dress for her. Stacey was secretly horrified by her mother's suggestion, but held her tongue as Jean busily planned out how she would make the dress. When Stacey's great-great aunt Mo Harris sent wedding dresses to the house for Stacey to try on in a bid to cheer her up, she inadvertently invited Jean over to view Stacey's fittings. Jean was devastated when she saw Stacey in a wedding gown and ran out, screaming that she wouldn't come to the wedding. She was eventually met by Max Branning at the railway station, who had run into a tearful Stacey earlier, and he tried to calm her down by taking her for a drink. He made Jean see sense and she returned to the Slater household where she patched things up with Stacey and they decided that it would be better if she did a poetry reading at the wedding instead.
On 1 November 2007, Jean attended Bradley and Stacey's wedding and, despite faltering at first, managed to go through with her poetry reading. Although Stacey originally walked out of the ceremony the marriage still went ahead and Jean, along with the other residents of Albert Square, proudly waved off her daughter and new son-in-law as they left for their honeymoon in Lanzarote just shortly after the reception.
The next day, Sean was furious to see Jean still staying at the Slaters' house and forced her to leave, throwing her cases out of the door. When she was in the Square, some teenage boys were launching fireworks and one of them knocked Jean to the floor. Sean, watching with fury, ran over and pinned one of the gang onto a parked car. This scared Jean, and so Sean walked away rather than upset her, which showed he cared about his mother to some degree, despite his apparent dislike of her. He went over to Jean's flat and after taking some of her tranquillisers, fell asleep there. Jean hoped that her son's presence might be the start of a reconciliation between the two of them, as they had never been close, but Sean began showing increasing hostility towards his mother, despite having tried to make things up by doing a few jobs for her whilst at her flat.
Family
- Husband: Brian Slater (deceased)
- Son: Sean Slater
- Daughter: Stacey Branning