leading to them kissing. As they begin to have sex, Michael collapses and suffers a heart attack, leaving Eileen heavily humiliated. Michael admits the kiss with Gail out of guilt, but she storms over to the salon and starts throwing hair conditioner bottles at Eileen. The fight spills into the street, with Gail throwing her shoe at Eileen and Eileen pushing Gail to the ground. In July 2015, Eileen is informed by Gail that her good friend Deirdre has died. She and Liz recollect their fond memories of Deirdre, before attending her funeral. Development Personality Eileen has been described as "a down-to-earth, pragmatic type of character". Sue Cleaver has expressed how much she likes the variation in Eileen's development, with storylines ranging from "comic capers" to "serious": "I lurch between the light-hearted and serious. There's been lots of heavy drama stuff with [Eileen's sons] Todd and Jason. So it's really nice to have the relief of the scenes in the taxi office, [Eileen's workplace], where it's more upbeat. I get to play the whole spectrum, which is fun [...] As an actor, you do not often get an opportunity to keep building on your character and finding new aspects to them. If you're doing a film or TV series, it's over in three months, whereas in something long-running, I can really understand my character and know them inside out like another human being. The challenge is to delve a little bit deeper into Eileen's psyche, which I really enjoy doing." Cleaver has stated that there are similarities between her own personality and Eileen's: "On a soap, you can't come in and create a character that's very far removed from yourself, because it's such a lot of work, so of course there are elements to Eileen that I've brought in. But I think we're very different. She's more generous than I am quite frankly!" She has added, "I think Eileen is happy. She's a very together person [...] She's got a very realistic view [...] I think there are a lot of women who would aspire to be like her, how she holds everything together and juggles her job, the kids and everyone else's problems." Friends and enemies The character has been involved in various feuds since her introduction in 2000. Eileen's most prominent and long-running feud has been with Gail Platt, played by Helen Worth. The characters have a long