PREACHER turned killer Lucas Johnson needs help. But will anyone respond and give Lucas aid?

Probably not as he’s pursuing a vendetta against ex-jailbird Owen Turner in EastEnders (BBC1).

The two men have one woman in common – Denise. She was married to Owen and is engaged to Lucas. Young Libby wants her parents – step forward Denise and Owen – to kiss and make up, or at least speak nicely to each other, so she arranges a family dinner. Bad idea. Lucas takes Owen to one side and punches him in the stomach, not a good aid to digestion.

Owen retaliates and pins Lucas against the wall. He tells him he’s going nowhere which, I think Soapland observers can conclude, means the men will be at loggerheads for months to come.

There’s the prospect of more violence in Walford as underneath-the-Archie is seething that the Mitchells, estranged wife Peggy and daughters Ronnie and Roxie, have given him the bum’s rush (or perhaps it was a bum rash, my hearing’s not what it was).

He wants revenge with a big R and tries to use Jack-the-lad, who has several Mitchell notches on his bedpost, to get back at the family.

Archie advises Jack to run away with yet another Mitchell woman, Sam, because that would ruin the Mitchells who’d lose Sam’s bail bond and be broke.

He could always hire a hitman like cobbles killer Tony “Not Very Gay” Gordon in Coronation Street (ITV1). He collapses outside the factory from a heart attack, which is strange because we didn’t think he had one. A heart, that is.

Good samaritan neighbour Roy Cropper helps and rushes him to hospital, where docs don’t hold out much hope for his recovery. So Tony makes what he thinks is a deathbed confession to Roy – owning up to hiring a hitman to kill his wife Carla’s lover, Liam, in a hit-and-run accident.

No sooner has he revealed all to Roy than his heart stops. If he recovers, Roy had better barricade himself in Roy’s Rolls because Tony will want to silence him, so he can’t tell his deadly secret.

Tony has company in hospital.

Little Simon Barlow, possibly the most irritating child in Soapland, is rushed to A&E. It appears that Leanne got into the Halloween spirit by telling Simon to hide behind the door, jump out and scare dad, Peter.

What she doesn’t expect is Peter to bang open the door and smash Simon in the face. Simon says...

Peter is a stupid daddy.

The tallest man in soap, Carl King, seems intent on being the most villainous man in soap too. In Emmerdale (ITV1), he forms an unholy alliance with Charity by appealing to her money-grabbing nature. He wants her to get close to Cain Dingle again so they can get their hands on his secret stash of cash – the millions he swindled from the King clan.

The Sharmas throw a housewarming party. I wouldn’t go, if I’d been invited, because housewarming in Emmerdale is usually code for “they burn the place down”.

Faye, who already has a secret husband Mark, attracts men in the village like moths to a flame.

Before you can say P45, she’s snogging her boss, Jai Sharma.

Spare a thought too for the Rev Ashley, who’s still being taken in by his old flame, scheming Sally.

She’s claims her vicar husband is a wifebeater so she can get close to the Rev Ashley.