There’s another huge week ahead as Emmerdale takes a step back in time to the day Ray Walters (Joe Absolom) was murdered and gives us the clues as to who did it.
It’s a flashback to the day the village was rid of the second of the two violent criminals, who set up shop in the sleepy village with their modern slavery and prostitution ring, money laundering scheme, and drug dealing racket.
At this point, Celia Daniels (Jaye Griffiths) has already been murdered by adopted son Ray, and this episode will show what happens next ahead of Ray’s body being found in the back of oblivious Jai Sharma’s (Chris Bisson) van.
While the village will be glad to be rid of him, throughout his time in Emmerdale, Ray has always offered a tiny shred of humanity. It was seen most recently when he let April Windsor (Amelia Flanagan) go instead of killing her on his mother’s orders, and quite frankly there has been something strangely sweet about his blossoming love with Laurel Thomas (Charlotte Bellamy). However twisted it might have been.
It seemed there was something redeemable about him, especially when he took pity on poor, vulnerable Bear.
Bear Wolf (Joshua Richards) has been key in unlocking Ray’s softer side; even in his brainwashed state he was able to show compassion for his slave master, forging an almost fatherly bond with the reproachable Ray. Ray broke protocol to take Bear to the hospital when he hurt his hand in an unmistakeable nod to their slightly warped but warm relationship.
It was news of Bear’s agonising death at the hands of Ray’s mother that drove Ray to stab Celia to death. Her glee in relaying Bear’s last moments finally made Ray snap.
After killing his mum, Ray is careful to clean the knife of his fingerprints and grabs his red backpack ready to do a runner. As he heads to leave the farm, he can’t help popping to visit Bear’s body, but when he gets there, he can’t bear to look at it. He even sheds a tear for the man he’d grown fond of.
But Ray snaps himself out of it and goes into work mode, preparing to bury his mother’s body. Inside he’s crumbling. When he bumps into Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt), his pain comes to the fore along with his cruelness as he tells Paddy is dad is dead, then threatens Eve to ensure Paddy’s silence. The old Ray is still in there.
Not for long though, as Ray has turned up dead in the back of Jai’s van, and with a whole line up of suspects, it’s not clear who would be the one to end his reign over the village.
Will the callous delivery of his dad’s death news be enough to make Paddy snap?
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