What a job have they done to ruin this potentially good character. He came with a great backstory, a widower husband trying to move on with his life. His hesitation with starting something with Shabnam, but not really being ready for it all, but wishing he was. He most likely moved with that relationship too fast. All that was relatable, I could see and understand all his actions. But this affair with Stacey and the badly directed and written plot point affair just has ruined him completely. I could've understood even the initial flirting with Stacey, but they just took it to the shock value route and his character can't be redeemed in any way. Not because the affair was so horrible, but the character just doesn't have the history and relationships to back him up.

And I'm not saying that Shabnam has been perfect, but I can understand her and her actions. Whereas Kush is just a plot point and shock value character.

I'm not sure about irredeemable but I think they've wrote the character into a corner as he hasn't established many links outside of Martin/shabz/stacey; that's 4/5 relationships most likely destroyed in one fell swoop, once this is revealed.

The only saving grace (if you can call it that) is that an affair did not occur after stillbirth and result in pregnancy.

I fear that this is just the beginning of character destroying; shabz will petition for custody of Stacey's baby, who will be in the midst of an episode, with Kush as a passive bystander.

I feared that Kush might follow Charlie as another male character the writers ruin. But I hoped the Stacey stuff was put to bed after their one night stand (which we didn't know of until Friday) was never shown on TV.

Stacey revealing all this just before Kush and Shabnam's wedding made it seem like they were trying to loosely recreate the drama going on prior to Syed (Shabs' brother funnily enough) and Amira's wedding. But with this storyline, not every character will end up looking sympathetic. Shabnam and Martin will, but Kush and Stacey are being headed down a wrong path by the writers.

It's almost as if they were waiting for Kat to go on her break just so they could finally portray Stacey as the 'immoral' Slater. For about year it looked like Stacey had grown up a lot, compared to Kat who just regressed so much.

I hope somehow Kush will be redeemed

Totally agree - Stacey is completely ruined as well. If they had to go down the affair/pregnancy route, did they really have to make her such a bitch that she'd reveal all on the wedding day?

Kush was established as somebody whose love for Shabnam helped him to overcome his fears after the death of his wife and then he throws it all away for a fling with his fiancee's slutty best mate.

Only possible way out of this one is for the baby to turn out to be Martin's after all, although I fear the damage is done.

I did think he was going to do the right thing and call off the wedding for a moment there.

That would require him to have some balls. He would have to take responsibility for his actions and face the consequences. But he's a loser who tries to scape by and get the easiest way out.

Now we will have months of Kush pining after Stacey and the baby, Shabs will be thrown under the bus to prop these star crossed lovers (especially Stacey), and we're supposed to feel some sympathy toward Stacey and Kush.

Shabnam will get all the sympathy, it's already happening...that's fair enough. But while Kush and Stacey were still single, as long as they did the right thing and owned up they could have just about got away with it. But the marriage changes everything.

I forgot that shabz and kush had that on-off thing,

Personally I don't really care that they hooked up, its the fact that the story writers have taken a sensitive subject such as stillbirth and tacked this thing on as a device to cause conflict. That's what I find distasteful.

There's a recurring pattern here: promising and interesting new male characters being slaughtered at the altar of DTC's faves, namely Stacey and Ronnie.

Aleks and Charlie - both ruined in order to preserve the Mitchell sisters and their interminable "she's my sistaaa" storyline which has been on loop since 2008.

Kush - ruined in order to preserve the status of St Slater the eternal victim of Walford.

And I know not everyone is his biggest fan, but the way Alfie was portrayed as the villain when he objected to Ronnie being back on the Square, and subsequently didn't want to harbour Stacey when she was on the run, just shows that in DTC's eyes Stacey and Ronnie can do no wrong.

I do find her a strange woman. When she came back into the show we saw her desperately looking for a husband on line. She then met Kush and within weeks was trying to rush him into a marriage that he wasn't ready for. She the dumps him for a vet?, who then in turn gets dumped when Kush agrees to marry her.

BIB That was already cheapened when she immediately decided she wanted Jade, a child she'd been happy to give away to Dean before her baby died.

He was never anything to write home about anyway. I wouldn't worry about him being at a loose end. The way his mother keeps name dropping her ex husband and kids I'm sure they'll all be joining Kush soon enough. Thrilling.

Stacey is not ruined not forever. She can be redeemed. Stacey needs to just take responsibility for her actions

Would you redeem Stacey if you were EP?

I agree with this.

Kush was still sneaking around with and mooning after Stacey AFTER he'd become engaged to Shabnam. He definitely wasn't single. He and and Shabnam were not in one of their "off" periods, far from it, so he has no excuses.

People break off engagements all the time. I always got the feeling he would have if he hadn't been trapped by the pregnancy. Not that I give a toss about him...he's a weak, lily livered mummy's boy. Between Shabnam and his mum his life is going to be hell. Those two ladies like having their own way.

I don't think this really does anything to change him as a character. He did mess Shabnam around quite a bit when they were first getting together. And I know some of that was down to fear of committing after what happened to his first wife, but he wasn't always conscious of Shabnam's feelings. So for me this is similar, just on a bigger scale considering recent events. And, of course, as vald has said, the marriage completely changes everything.

I can detect you already stocking up on the Bucks Fizz ready to celebrate their arrival!

He was a lovely cheeky chappy and I felt really sorry for him when I found out about his wife dying and then when Zaiir died, but it also really annoyed me that he had a fling with Stacey who has no nice qualities compared to Shabnam

Poor Kush, came into the square wearing a strangely happy looking pumpkin, now drowning in the swamp of Walford Woe.

He was hiding a dark secret

In the pumpkin?

Alfie was portrayed as a villain due to the way he treated Roxy and the fact he has been, on a large number of occasions, on the other side of the law and got away with it. I completely understood him not wanting Ronnie there, but my issue with Alfie is the perpetual constant murmurs he is a "nice guy". He's not! From the constant scams, the way he has treated his women and what he did with the fire. My biggest annoyance was that I, as a viewer, was supposed to be happy he won the lottery and got Kat back. I wasn't!

No-one ever states Ronnie as a nice character...in fact, most on here accept her as a villain of the show. What makes her an interesting villain is that you see her motivations and can, at times, feel towards her. I suppose that is what people see in Alfie. I see a dodgy del boy who plays the nice guy, but isn't. Others see him as a nice man forced into some life of crime to protect his family, while really he is mr happy go lucky!

I would actually go so far as to state that Alfie is the character I LEAST like on telly.

The sooner Kush get's his comeuppance the better. Having unprotected sex with his partner and his partners best friend is unforgivable especially when he left her to get beaten up by the girl gang and ran away from her when she needed him at the hospital after losing her baby. From Shabnam being the first woman he could really really talk to after the death of his wife and the long developing relationship he had with her then suddenly before saying bobs your uncle he is having unprotected sex with Stacey ... he is a despicable, unreliable, selfish lump. Would you be happy if he impregnated you then impregnated your best mate about six weeks later?

He said that after the death of his wife he had meaningless sex with a different woman every day before calming down and coming to Walford. One wonders just how many women he left up the duff.