Coronation Street is currently in the middle of a big whodunnit storyline, but fans were hoping for a different ending for evil Joel Deering (Calum Lill).
Joel’s vile behaviour went under the radar for months after his arrival in Weatherfield, so fans were shocked to discover that he was the man responsible for grooming and attacking young Lauren Bolton (Cait Fitton).
It would later transpire that Lauren wasn’t his only victim, and he was prepared to go to great lengths to hide his secret.
After learning that Lauren was pregnant with his child, he drugged her to induce an early labour, putting the health of baby Frankie at risk.
Thankfully Frankie survived, and Lauren found the courage to open up about Joel’s abuse.
In the weeks that followed, DS Lisa Swain (Vicky Myers) and Dee-Dee Bailey (Channique Sterling-Brown) were on a mission to gather enough evidence to see Joel charged with the crime, and when Lisa’s own daughter Betsy Swain (Sydney Martin) came forward, they got exactly what they needed.
Betsy revealed that she too had been manipulated by Joel, and he had paid her to procure the abortion pills he had used to drug Lauren.
With Betsy’s statement, Lisa had enough evidence to charge Joel – but when it came time for his plea hearing, he was nowhere to be seen.
A week later, Joel’s body washed up in a river, and the hunt is now on for his killer.
However, fans aren’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of another whodunnit – especially in Joel’s case, given the severity of his crimes.
‘Usually I wouldn’t be bothered but I was so rooting for Joel to stay alive this time, I really wanted Dee Dee, Betsy, Swain and most importantly Lauren to take down Joel and his fate was going to be him ending up in an orange jumpsuit and behind bars for some years,’ one fan posted to Reddit.
A number of other fans chipped in to agree, pointing out that Geoff Metcalfe’s (Ian Bartholomew) abuse storyline also ended in the death of the abuser, rather than him facing justice and going to prison.
‘Between Joel, Phelan, Geoff, and Stephen, I mostly expect abuse storylines to end in death now,’ they wrote.
‘I was a bit surprised they chose to do the revenge-killing the murderer right after Stephen but I honestly don’t expect much from Corrie these days anyway, it says to me they’re too lazy to write a decent ending or they’re all rating stunts. Probably a bit of both.’
‘It’s infuriating that the worst characters get off so easy and don’t get their comeuppance,’ another fan said.
‘Having Joel get killed was a big miss from Corrie in my opinion, as has been pointed out it’s become a crutch for the writing team to kill the big villain off,’ another agreed.
As the mystery surrounding who killed Joel continues, Corrie is set to show us a number of flashbacks to the night of his death, with the killer later being revealed. But whodunnit?
