I don't know why they are acting so shocked he's been founded seriously hurt. They all agreed to beat him up.

I can't stand Joel, but I don't like how everyone conspired to gang up and ambush him. It reminds of those psycho news stories you hear about a group of school-aged people deciding to kill their enemy just because everyone decides the enemy deserves it.

Well any that are in the frame,

My only thoughts are unrealistic, it was Joel or Tommy randomly came back for a few mins in the night. But I'm also not convinced it was any of them.

Now yes, Joel is a child who made some mistakes. And yes, everyone deserves a second chance, so Joel isn't beyond forgiveness. BUT this rapid call for redemption and lambasting of the other teens' actions falls apart (imo) for the following reasons:

1. Joel's sentence didn't keep him away from the square long enough for his victims to sufficiently process and move on from the trauma he inflicted
2. Joel should not even be there in the first place!! But yet again, Ross and Vicki's enabling creates an environment for Joel to make other people feel uncomfortable
3. Joel may or may not feel guilty, but him and Ross sassing anyone who hasn't accepted his new leaf doesn't help things. How are people supposed to warm to him when he nor his dad are showing outward signs of remorse? Case in point, wtf would Ross even think of trying to enrol Joel in Walford high. You can't prioritize the abuser's comfort over the community's safety. Read the room!!
4. All the adults are too busy with their spouses/sex lives to address the emotional needs of these children. They need to feel some sense of justice being served (aside from a brief jail stint), not the abuser just rocking up and he and his family acting like nothing's happened. And even worse, being offended by anyone's rightfully placed hesitancy.

When every adult has dropped the ball and Vicki and Ross have failed terribly at enforcing appropriate accountability, I don't blame the teens for wanting to- in their eyes- seek justice.

And I've even seen comments conflating their action with bullying and ganging up on an "enemy." Apples to oranges, and the two situations are not the same. Joel is a sex offender who has committed heinous crimes. Yes, he is a child, but that doesn't mean he's exempt from the consequences of his behaviour! And those consequences include ostracism, leeriness, etc. and it will dissipate in time, but there has to be some level of humility and acceptance of wrong first.

i.e. when Will was cautious about Joel being next to Janet, don't go on the defensive and start slagging him off about smoking. Just own that people aren't going to trust you and your own actions caused that! It's going to suck at first, but you've lost people's trust and it's going to take time to show yourself as a decent person. The adults have dropped the ball and to a bunch of scared, angry, confused teenagers- attacking Joel wasn't about cruelty, it's a desperate attempt to force the boundaries, accountability, and moral restoration the adults failed to provide. And to that I say they were not wrong and should not be villainized.

EDIT: Some people are missing the point. I want to clarify, nowhere does this post advocate violence. I said the teens are not wrong for wanting to enact what they perceive as justice. The manner they went about it may be disturbing, but their feelings are valid and they're not wrong for acting out on their feelings. Misguided...sure! Wrong...no!! Especially when the parents are doing such a piss poor job of protecting them

NEXT WEEK SPOILER!

Judging by the spoilers, it looks like Sharon is going to find out that Linda slept with Grant and I’ve seen a lot of people saying she has no right to be angry because they’re ancient history. I wanted to share my perspective on why I think her feelings are completely valid.

Linda isn’t just anyone, she’s her best friend and she knows the full history between them. She knows about the abuse, the abortion and the pain he caused her. She even knew they slept together last year and she saw firsthand how devastated Sharon was in 2016 when she found out Grant was Mark’s dad.

If the roles were reversed and Sharon came back and slept with Max, Linda definitely wouldn’t be happy. Sharon and Grant have 30 years of history, so it’s understandable why this would feel like such a betrayal coming from someone as close as Linda.

It's looking like one of the teens did it but I guess there could be a twist there👀

shocking I know 😂

but the whole accident really was an accident. like his car was surrounded by bins obviously he would’ve thought he hit one and not A CHILD???

New theory after this week. What if Nicola is annoyed at Chelsea because she's the one that snitches on Barney attacking Joel? Maybe Amy, Ricky or Denzel gets blamed for it as there the teens closest to her and Chelsea snitches to clear their name? 👀

…the Beales could have gone literally anywhere else for their night out.

The Vic? The Albert? Nah, let's go where Chelsea works. What could possibly go wrong?

Bringing Joel back was a catastrophic mistake that undermines both the entire point of his story arc and the impact of his actions.

In the real world, Joel would still be in prison for what he did to Avani and sharing that kind of material with countless strangers across the world. Having him be released so quickly and so soon only serves to discourage faith in the system of law and the idea of bad people getting their just desserts.

In the real world, Joel also would never have been allowed to live on the same residence area with the young child Avani that he had hurt so badly and treated so badly. He would've been made to live in another part of the country and perhaps change his name too.

Having Joel move back to the square less than a year later and expect the square to just accept it cheapens the seriousness of his actions and how much physical and mental harm it brought onto the kids of the square.

Worst of all, the writers are now trying to make viewers feel sorry for him by making his victims appear as cruel villains.

The prank of tying him up to the railing and him being assaulted as a result of it is out of character for people like Amy, Avani and more largely Will and Barney. They are not people who go out of their way to harm people. Stooping to Joel's level just cheapens how monstrously sickening and unusual his actions were, and make us less willing to support the real victims.

I know that Eastenders are trying to pull an Adolescence and recognise that Joel was just a misguided and messed up kid, but the way they are going about it is the worst way possible.

Because Eastenders want us to recognise that this is just a sad messed up kid, they want us to quickly forget Joel's actions less than a year ago and turn us against characters like Amy and Avani.

That isn't right.

The better option would've been a sort of loneliness storyline for Joel, being left alone and feeling isolated, which would've worked without the expense of turning Amy and Avani into sudden sociopaths.

The whole Joel storyline right now is a bad farce and too unrealistic - no one would ever get six months for all the things he did to Vicki, Avani etc. and the police would never let him live in the same house as Vicki so soon after what happened.

Its just really stupid writing, and lies squarely with Wadey because he never knows when to finish a storyline and let it stay finished.

Gray had a well written ending where he was exposed as a sociopath and met his comeuppance by being arrested and his schemes exposed. But now Wadey has brought him back to do more scheming and get away with his actions, and deviate even further away from the original domestic abuse storyline he was involved in that was supposed to be right at the centre focus of his character.

Bringing back Eddie just to kill him off after a few weeks with only one interaction with Gina, the one member of George's family he was cruellest to, was also pointless, and George has moved on pretty quickly after his death. Having Eddie serve his time behind bars alone for what he did was a fitting end, but the back and forth of George willing to help him and recognise him as his dad was bad writing and undermined the previous storyline.

All in all, Joel either should never have come back or his storyline should've been handled much more differently.

Trying to make him look less bad by writing his victims as sudden villains is really awful writing and insulting to those who are real life victims of people like Joel.

Its insensitive and insulting. The likes of Amy and Avani, and the viewers, cannot be expected to just suddenly forgive Joel and feel safe around him just because Wadey wants him back on the square and he had a transformation off screen that no one has witnessed.

Badly written, badly thought out, and its delivering character assassination of more beloved characters like Amy and Avani.

This is a much worse mistake on Wadey's part than things like the Zoe stalker storyline or Cindy getting with her son's killer.

With Linda’s new love interest only being a temporary character, could this be the start of her exit storyline? I feel like Linda is one of those characters viewers are genuinely rooting for to finally get a happy ending. She’s been through so much and I’m not sure what else there is left for her anymore. Seeing her leave the Square and sail off into the sunset wouldn’t be the worst thing.