Gavin and Stacey followers in shock after acquainted face makes an sudden return within the Christmas finale episode

Gavin and Stacey fans were left shocked after the return of a familiar face in the sitcom’s finale episode.

After 17 years, Gavin and Stacey came to an end on Christmas Day, with one last episode to say goodbye to the beloved comedy.

The upcoming special came five years after the show’s last Christmas instalment in 2019 and while most fans were excited to see beloved characters including Smithy, Nessa, Gavin, Stacey, Uncle Bryn and Pam return, there was one face viewers weren’t so excited to see. 

In the previous episode, filmed half a decade ago, fans were left on the edge of their seats waiting to see what Smithy, played by James Corden, would say to Nessa (Ruth Jones) after she got down on one knee. 

And it seems Smithy’s answer to her proposal was a no as the finale episode saw the return of Smithy’s girlfriend Sonia, played by Laura Aikman who was revealed as his bride-to-be.

Fans were devastated after she was unveiled as a returning character and took to social media to share their thoughts. 

Fans wrote: ‘I heard the whole UK Gasp.’ while others said: ‘Just started watching #GavinAndStacey…WTF. Smithy is marrying SONIA?!’.

Many were upset about the return of Sonia and didn’t hold back on X, writing: ‘The whole UK when smithy walks into the office and see Sonia’ and ‘gotta deal with the insufferable sonia on gavin and stacey AGAIN?!’.

Another fan commented: ‘GET OUT OF HERE SONIA COMMEEE ONNNNN’ and one person revealed it nearly ruined their Christmas, writing: ‘early choked on my left over christmas dinner when i saw it was sonia and not nessa, smithy was marrying’.

And one chimed in with Stacey, played by Joanna Page, writing: ‘ou’re right Stacey. Sonia is just not right for Smithy’.

And others agreed, posting on X: ‘No.. no.. this is all wrong. Smithy & Sonia aren’t meant to be together’.

The return of Sonia – much to fan upset – comes after James and Ruth spilled the beans on the very bizarre writing process behind the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special.

The presenter, 46, and actress, 58, joined hosts Jordan North, Chris Stark and Sian Welby on the Capital FM Breakfast Show for an insightful chat ahead of the special launch.  

They admitted to using quite unorthodox methods to get inspired – like the time a bags of chocolate buttons ended up fuelling a writing sessions in a Heathrow Airport hotel.

‘There’s a lot of hotel rooms we’ve written in,’ James said.

Ruth interceded: ‘One of the particularly exotic ones was I was up in Scotland last year and we only had kind of like a day that we could both write, and we had to make the most of any time that we had so I flew down to Heathrow from Inverness.’

‘I got the Heathrow Express out and we wrote for a day in a hotel next to the runway and it wasn’t our most productive day, was it?,’ added James.

‘Looking back now it feels like a mistake but at the time we were so close to getting it done we were just like let’s just try and get it there.

‘We often try and write between like six and ten pages a day when we write and that day, I think we wrote a page and a half.’

Chris asked if they used ‘post-it notes’ in order to draft up scripts and Ruth promptly quipped: ‘We do have post-it notes but they’re not very detailed.

‘I find them every now and again and they literally have like two words on them. We’re not very grown-up in that regard.’

The beloved TV host admitted their hotel writing rooms resembled a ‘disaster’, and added: ‘I often say if somebody walked past the window and looked in at Ruth and I, what they would see is two people more than likely having a nap, two open bags of like chocolate buttons, randomly placed post-its on a wall and you would look in an you would never ever think ‘oh they must be writing a successful hit show.’

‘You’d be thinking ‘that looks like a disaster.’