Jake Moon, as far as his family is aware, has been dead for two decades – but now he’s coming back to EastEnders. Ahead of the unexpected return, Joel Beckett has shared the “unfinished business” that has his character returning to Walford and what it felt like to be back after all these years.

“It felt surreal stepping back into Walford. It felt instantaneously familiar and was lovely seeing old faces again, alongside brilliant new ones.” Joel said. Barring a one-off appearance in 2024 – in which Jake joined Chrissie Watts ( Tracy-Ann Oberman ) as she travelled away from London following her release from prison – Joel hasn’t played Jake since 2006. His character was presumed to be dead after Johnny Allen’s (Billy Murray) cellmate mistakenly thought his dying wish was for Jake to be murdered.

“For Jake, the experience is far less comforting,” Joel added. “He returns with unfinished business alongside unresolved emotions, and Albert Square brings it all straight to the surface. Coming back forces him to face the people he loved, the choices he made, and the parts of himself he has spent the last 20 years avoiding.”

He continues to say that Joel hasn’t really changed in the past two decades, but his “life on the run” has inevitably altered some of his personality. “He’s changed on the surface, but not underneath.

“Everyone thought he was dead for the last 20 years, and he has had a life on the run. It has made him more cautious and controlled – he thinks before he acts now. Emotionally, he is still driven by loyalty and love, which has not softened with time.”

Touching on how hard it has been for Jake since he left Walford, Joel added: “Surviving has taught him how to cope day-to-day, but it has not allowed those wounds to heal. For years, he has been moving forward physically but standing still emotionally.”

While Joel says its “unfinished business” that has Jake returning, Zoe Slater (Michelle Ryan) and her mother, Kat ( Jessie Wallace ), believe its because of Chrissie. They are currently the only two who know that Jake is back, and Kat has not even told her husband Alfie Moon (Shane Richie), who is Jake’s cousin.

While Kat has suggested that Alfie got to Australia to visit his brother Spencer, the Moons are expected to reunite. “It is very emotional and comes as a great shock to Alfie,” Joel said of their reunion. “Even for Jake, seeing Alfie brings back a flood of memories. Being around family again is not something that he has had whilst he has been gone. It really hits him hard how much he’s missed family, and that life has moved on without him.”

Zoe and Kat think Chrissie, who returned at Christmas to reveal she had been behind Zoe’s stalking, killed Anthony Trueman (Nicholas Bailey), and are trying to prove it so that Zoe can get out of prison. Joel says Jake won’t want to believe Chrissie killed Anthony, but knows she’s capable of it, and that people can do terrible things when they’re desperate – something he knows all too well, having killed his own brother.

“He struggles with [Chrissie killing Anthony] because it cuts remarkably close to his own past and what he did to Danny. He knows it is a possibility, but he deliberately resists it.

“Jake understands better than most how extreme circumstances, which he has found himself in, can push people to do unimaginable things. Jake lives with the knowledge that he killed his own brother and that makes him very wary of judging Chrissie, even if that doubt does start to creep in.

“He does not want to believe it, but I think he could, especially since he knows she is capable of revenge. It has taken a lot for him to come back and face people – just seeing one person from the past makes him really question everything.”

Jake and Chrissie had run off together after she got out of prison. Joel wondered if Jake really loves Chrissie or if its something he’s held on to because he’s “emotionally stuck”.

“Jake genuinely wants to love and really loves her,” Joel said. “He is emotionally stuck in that moment, 20 years ago when everything changed. He has been living on the run and never settled or moved on. That is why coming back is so important, it is the first time he is having to confront all of it.”

The Slaters and Alfie have definitely decided Chrissie is a wrong-un, though they do not yet know that it was really Zoe’s daughter Jasmine Fisher (Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness) who killed Anthony. Jake, however, would struggle to view Chrissie as evil, as it would “mean questioning everything he has sacrificed”, Joel said.

“There is too much invested for him to think otherwise. He believes she is a good person; he has loved her and waited for almost 20 years. In many ways, he has been doing his own sentence waiting for her to get out.”