Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden) was full of hope when

Tommy Moon (Sonny Kendall) arrived and announced

Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace) was missing him in EastEnders.

Kat and Phil split up shortly after she discovered he had slept with Emma, Lola Pearce’s (Danielle Harold) mother.

Since then, Phil has paid the price by slowly acknowledging his life has gotten very quiet, and very lonely.

In Tuesday’s (July 23) episode of the BBC One soap, Kat had discovered Tommy was skiving from his summer job. With the tracker disabled on his phone, Kat had to go in search of her son, who was at Phil’s house.

There, Tommy was spinning a story about how much he misses Phil, and that Alfie Moon (Shane Richie) treats him differently compared to his Mitchell stepdad.

Phil listened but reminded Tommy the life they previously had cannot happen anymore, because Kat doesn’t want to get back with him.

Tommy lied to Phil and made out that Kat still speaks about him regularly, and misses him more than she cares to admit.

Poor Phil (never thought we’d say that, to be honest) then felt hopeful – all he needed to do was speak to Kat about his feelings, she’d relay the same ones to him and they’d get back together – simple, right?

Wrong.

When Kat eventually arrived at the Mitchell household, her reaction to the claim she was missing Phil was to laugh in his face. As Kat said, Phil broke her heart when he slept with Emma – getting back with him was never, ever going to happen.

With Phil firmly put in his place and reminded, once again, that his life isn’t a very happy place at the moment, what’s next for him?