EastEnders airs utterly sickening scenes in early BBC iPlayer release as Joel brutally assaults Vicki
Joel Marshall (Max Murray) has left Vicki Fowler (Alice Haig) for dead in one of the soap’s most harrowing episodes.
A special edition showed the parents and teenagers of Albert Square react to an incident at Walford High, which was orchestrated by Joel and his naïve mate Tommy Moon (Sonny Kendall).
Having disrespected a teacher by telling her to ‘shush’, the lads proceeded to subject their classmates to some extreme pornography. The video was so abhorrent that teachers, according to Julie Bates (Karen Henthorn), decided to inform the police.
While the vile footage was playing, Amy Mitchell (Ellie Dadd) felt intimidated by Joel’s behaviour, looking in her direction and making her feel uncomfortable.
The situation escalated after school, with a fight breaking out between the two. What happened next isn’t exactly clear, but Amy and her friends claim that he hit her, while a number of other witnesses, including Nugget Gulati (Juhaim Rasul Choudhury) and Will Mitchell (Freddie Phillips) said that she was shoved in self defence.
Whatever happened, it opened up conversations across a number of households in the community, with two generations of families banding together to discuss what is and isn’t appropriate.
All corners of society were represented – from Billy Mitchell (Perry Fenwick), who tried to play down Joel’s behaviour in class, to Priya Nandra-Hart (Sophie Khan Levy) who thought that the world had gone ‘too woke’.
Their children Avani (Aaliyah James) and Will then educated them on the extremities of misogynistic behaviour, asserting that it certainly wasn’t okay.
Elsewhere, Vicki and partner Ross (Alex Walkinshaw) were horrified to see Joel spiral once again.
They were at a loose end, and Ross knew that he couldn’t keep on defending his son. Although it wasn’t clear what happened between him and Amy, he was the catalyst for the events.
But Joel simply didn’t care. He can’t see the error of his ways, so indoctrinated into the ‘Manosphere’ and the disgusting ideologies he’s been following.
After coming close to punching his son, Ross agreed with Vicki that he should leave the house and clear his head.
Unfortunately, this left Vicki alone with Joel.
Joel shows his true colours
In his dad’s absence, Joel began to project a series of repulsive insults towards Vicki, calling her ‘barren’ and saying that she’s a poor excuse of a woman, failing in her duty to become a mother.
During their argument she felt that she’d found the root of his issues – a deep-rooted insecurity in himself. As a result, he punched the wall.
She tried to make him calm down, but it was clear that he was enjoying the war of words. It became so bad that Vicki told Joel to take his toxic masculinity and go and live with his estranged mum Cleo.
Vicki also picked up on the fact he’s clearly just a scared little boy, and that her eyes had finally been opened to the truth.
However, her next comments proved too much for him to hear. She said he could never be a real man, and that he should feel embarrassed because she is so much stronger than him.
Determined to shut her down, he punched her in the face, knocking her onto the floor and into a state of shock. Unable to speak, move or defend herself, he began to record and taunt her, before kicking her body.
Disgusted by his own actions, and as Vicki whimpered in fear, he walked away from the scene.