John Sugden’s Emmerdale antics could be found out after a number of hints on Friday night.
The villain took action once more after eyeing up a new victim, only to make a possibly incriminating mistake. But that wasn’t all, as three moments in the episode aside this hinted the walls were closing in on him.
The character was seen determined to “put Mackenzie Boyd out of his misery” this week, after Mack told him to stay away from Aaron Dingle. John’s fiancé Aaron had been told by Mack all about John’s lies involving Aidan Moore.
John had previously claimed Aidan was a friend from the army who died on patrol years earlier. It turned out Aidan was engaged to John at the time, and he was still alive.
Aidan remains in a coma in Leeds after the incident in Afghanistan which still hasn’t fully been explained. There’s major hints John did something to Aidan, while in the village he’s endangered several people to play the hero and he also killed Nate Robinson.
When Mack refused to let John see Aaron and told him to stay away, suggesting he was dodgy and trying to stop him and Aaron from reconciling, John was left furious. Even after he eventually spoke to Aaron he initially got nowhere with fixing things and he blamed Mack for this.
So after his threat to kill Mack, John struck – only to injure Liam Cavanagh instead. Liam was left for dead after a blow to the head, but Mack found him and managed to wake him up.
John soon fled to the scene on the request of Aaron and Liam’s partner Chas Dingle, and while there he checked him over and asked about the attack. Realising Liam knew nothing, John was in the clear despite Mack seeming suspicious.
But what followed in the episode and scenes around it may have teased a downfall looms. Not only was Mack questioning John conveniently playing the hero once more, but we saw John blame someone who will soon be ruled out for the attack.
We also saw villagers starting to question Nate’s disappearance, and in upcoming scenes this continues. With Mack’s suspicions, we saw him trying to tell Aaron something about John – while Mack isn’t the only one to have brought up the fact John is always there at the right time.
So might Mack push this further and figure out John was to blame for the attack, and maybe that he caused other incidents too? Might he realise what happened to Aidan if that is ever explained?
As for Ella, spoilers have revealed that next week the police question her off screen and they soon have news for Liam. Ella will be ruled out as the attacker due to the alibi, despite John being the one to suggest she could be the culprit.
So will he spark suspicion after blaming Ella? Might her proven innocence cause Liam to look closer to home for his attacker? With the Nate plot, his loved ones have no idea John killed him and dumped his body in the lake.
With multiple characters questioning his whereabouts on Friday, and John being the one in September that claimed Nate had left, might it reach a point where concern for Nate leads to him being found, with John’s killer secret at risk? It’s safe to say these things could be what brings John down.
Emmerdale airs weeknights at 7:30pm on ITV1 and ITVX, with an hour-long episode on Thursdays. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .
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