The Only Way is Essex series 24 is in full swing.

Pete Wicks, Chloe Sims, Georgia Kousoulou and the rest of the cast have been vacay-ing in Thailand and now the cast is back in Essex.

In episode 4, head honcho of Essex, James ‘Lockie’ Lock made an appearance.

So are James Lock and girlfriend Yazmin Oukhellou back in the 2019 Towie cast for good? Or was it just a one-off?

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Series 24 TOWIE cull

In 2019 it was announced that ten members of the TOWIE cast would be leaving the show.

A report from The Sun in February 2019 said that “big names including Chloe Lewis and James Lock confirmed they would not be appearing in the show in April.”

However, anyone who watched The Only Way is Essex series 24 episode 4 would have seen James Lock make an appearance.

James Lock on TOWIE series 24

The Essex lads still on the show, including James ‘Diags’ Bennewith, Liam ‘Gatsby’ Blackwell, Dan Edgar and Pete Wicks were all smiles when Lockie arrived.

Tommy Mallett arranged a football match to address deep issues that men face. The match was set up to open a conversation back up for mental health.

The mascot for the game rocked up and noone knew who was about to be revealed. Georgia Kousoulou said: “Who’s the mascot?”

Lockie ripped off the lion’s head and reunited with his Essex pals.

The group of lads went wild to see the ‘guru of Essex’ back on home turf as well as most of Twitter by the looks of things.

Boys bare all on TOWIE

Last series on The Only Way is Essex Tommy got the hashtag ‘Boys Bare All‘ trending.

The boys stripped off and ran into the sea after baring some deep truths about themselves on the show.

Now, in series 24 Tommy and the rest of the Essex boys took the time to spread awareness on mental health once again.

They held a minutes silence for those who “lost their struggle down to mental health”.

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Are Lockie and Yaz still together?

Lockie did rock up alone on episode 4. So, are he and Yaz definitely still an item?

The answer is yes!

James mentioned in episode 4 that he has been “busy grafting”.

He said:

I’ve got this wellness retreat. Me and Yazmin have been getting ourselves back on track. I’m positive, good energy. But I want to give this energy to other people now.

The pair attended a TOWIE press launch together in March 2019 and a familiar face appeared in the episode 5 preview, so we can expect to see Yazmin join her beau on screen very soon.

Where have Yaz and Lockie been?

After the football match in episode 4, Lockie had a catch up with Pete Wicks and Gatsby.

The new and improved ‘positive Lockie’ said he’s pretty much now the ‘guru of Essex’ after all the therapy he’s had.

Lockie said: “I’m really well therap-ied out”.

As Lockie said, he’s been ‘grafting’ and working on a wellness retreat.

It turns out he and Yazmin now run their own wellness retreat in Marrakech.

You can follow them @wellnessretreatmarrakech.

Their page already has over 73,000 followers on Instagram which is sure to increase now that the pair are back on TOWIE.

WATCH TOWIE SERIES 24 EVERY SUNDAY AT 9 PM ON ITVBE.

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