More violence breaks out following the aftermath of the attack, and things take a surprising turn when the alleged “victim” is discovered with proof suggesting they could have been the instigator from the start, and the chaos begins the moment the Square tries to return to normal after a night of panic, sirens, and frantic phone calls, with residents gathering in small tense clusters outside the café, whispering theories about who threw the first punch, who escalated things, and who might be arrested next, but as rumors swirl, new footage emerges from a bystander’s phone, footage that contradicts the story everyone has been told, and just when the community begins to rally around the supposed victim—who lies in a hospital bed wrapped in bandages and insisting they were blindsided without provocation—a detective arrives with information that shifts the entire narrative, revealing that hidden inside the victim’s coat pocket was a tiny voice recorder still running at the time of the attack, capturing not only the confrontation itself but the minutes leading up to it, and the recording shows a chillingly different version of events, one in which the so-called victim is heard provoking, threatening, and manipulating the situation long before any blows were exchanged, speaking in a calm yet menacing tone that suggests the entire encounter was engineered rather than accidental, and as word spreads through Walford the shockwaves ripple across friendships, alliances, and rivalries that have existed for years, with longtime neighbors suddenly questioning whether they ever truly knew the person who has been paraded as the injured party, and tensions rise further when another piece of evidence is found in the victim’s flat: a set of printed messages detailing a calculated plan to lure their target into a confrontation, messages timestamped hours before the attack, proving premeditation and revealing a motive tied to an old feud that many had assumed was long dead, but the discovery also exposes something deeper—a pattern of manipulation the victim has quietly woven through the Square for months, pitting people against each other while maintaining an image of innocence that now collapses under the weight of the truth, and as more residents come forward with stories of subtle intimidation, strange behavior, and suspicious encounters, the entire community grows divided between those who think the victim should be held accountable and those who believe the attack still went too far regardless of who instigated it, and meanwhile, inside the hospital room, the victim—once smug in their role as the wounded party—begins to panic as detectives question them, their carefully rehearsed lies unraveling one thread at a time, and while they insist the recording was taken out of context and that the messages were part of an unrelated dispute, their excuses crumble when the detective plays a final clip from the recorder, one containing a whispered confession that they planned to expose the other party during a public gathering, even if it meant provoking a violent reaction, and that admission sends shock and disbelief through the Square, especially among those who defended the victim so passionately in the immediate aftermath, sparking fresh arguments in the Queen Vic where emotions flare, accusations fly, and old wounds are reopened as families choose sides in a conflict that now seems far muddier than anyone realized, and as the truth spreads, the person originally blamed for the attack—now proven to have acted in self-defense or at least under extreme provocation—finds themselves overwhelmed by the rapid shift in public opinion, with friends apologizing, enemies softening, and even the police reevaluating their charges, but the damage is already done, leaving them emotionally bruised, physically exhausted, and distrustful of a community that turned its back on them without hesitation, and the emotional fallout doesn’t end there, because the victim’s closest allies feel betrayed in ways that cut far deeper than the violence itself, forced to accept that they were manipulated into defending someone who never deserved their loyalty, while others quietly admit they saw signs all along but chose to ignore them for the sake of peace, and as the Square grapples with the reality that the entire attack may have been orchestrated, new conflicts begin to brew beneath the surface—conflicts fueled by guilt, resentment, and the uneasy understanding that the truth, once revealed, rarely brings closure but instead opens the door to further chaos, and when the detective finally steps out of the Vic after briefing the residents on the new findings, the Square falls into an eerie silence as people reckon with the unsettling revelation that the victim everyone rushed to protect may have been the puppet master pulling strings from the start, and that realization sends ripples through every household, exposing fractures long hidden, strengthening unexpected alliances, and setting the stage for the next explosive chapter in a community where secrets never stay buried and the line between victim and villain is thinner than anyone dares to admit.