The uneasy distance between Joe and Karen continues until Joe's father dies. Joe wants to start a new life with Karen and Connor and pushes Karen repeatedly to take Connor and leave Jamie. She also stops taking her medication, with her more erratic personality being closer to Joe than to Jamie. Joe eventually takes matters into his own hands, telling Jamie that he's sleeping with his wife, and he wants her and "their" son. Feeling overwhelmed and unsure of what she wants, she leaves with Joe, warning him that Jamie will kill them. In retaliation, Jamie digs up Joe's dead father, and confronts them outside the store, telling Karen it is her last chance to come home with him, and leaving the body at the side of the building. She stays with Joe, but soon begins to question her choice as she starts taking her bipolar meds again. After some close scrapes, Joe and Karen manage to sneak Connor away from Jamie, and Joe announces they're leaving the Chatsworth estate, although Karen is becoming increasingly unsettled at both the idea of a future with Joe and the feeling that Joe's decided what will happen without giving her a choice. She confides her worries to Ian Gallagher, who sneaks into the trunk of the car right before they leave the estate, worried for Karen and Connor. As Karen's doubts rattle Joe, she is subjected to verbal and finally physical abuse. When Karen attempts to call Jamie, telling Joe this was all a mistake and she had to go home and fix things, Joe begins strangling her. Ian gets out of the trunk, and repeatedly hits Joe in the back of the head while in an act of self defense until he releases her and falls to the ground. Telling Karen to take Connor back and do whatever it takes to make it work with Jamie, he drags Joe's body to the trunk and then drives the car away.