Emmerdale favourite ‘dead’ in gruesome twist as John strikes again in early ITVX release

The following article contains spoilers from an episode of Emmerdale that hasn’t aired on ITV1 yet, but can be viewed on ITVX.

Mackenzie Boyd (Lawrence Robb) got into John Sugden’s (Oliver Farnworth) van at the end of last night’s episode of Emmerdale, ready to be take to the train station ahead of a trip to London. As John started the engine, Mack remained unaware that he would no longer be going to the big city.

This was because of a major discovery Mackenzie made yesterday. He was snooping through some of John’s belongings in the vehicle and came across a scrapbook.

On one page was a photo of John and a man called Ben. The new face appeared in the shop earlier that day, and was recognised by Tracy Shankley (Amy Walsh) as the person who picked up Nate Robinson’s belongings a couple of months ago. If Mack wasn’t in the shop during this period, the next few hours would’ve played out entirely differently.

Ben Flint told DC Cole that Owen Michaels (Simon Haines) organised the removal, therefore adding weight to the theory that he definitely murdered Nate. This of course isn’t true at all.

When Mack saw the photo of John and Ben, the penny dropped pretty suddenly. The text below the picture said ‘Brothers in Arms’. The development allowed Mack to work out that 1) John might not be a Sugden and 2), he paid Ben to lie to the police.

The drive out of the village was beyond tense. Mack’s brain was going ten to the dozen as he tried to work out whether he was in danger.

And he absolutely was.

After John pulled over at the side of the road, he asked for Mackenzie’s help to sort a problem in the back of the van. With fear running through his veins, Mack feigned ignorance for a little while, claiming he was being quiet because he just had a headache.

But by this point, John was already five steps ahead of Mack. He confirmed that he knew Mack had looked at the scrapbook and as a result, a bit of a problem had been created.

As far as Mack was concerned, he was perfectly happy to just go to London and ignore everything he had learnt about John but in a haunting twist, John told Mack he wouldn’t be going to London anymore.

With no time to process the twist about Nate, Mack shoved John and tried to buy himself some time. They fought and Mack raced into the woods, kickstarting a very deadly game of cat and mouse.

As Mack ran, John followed behind him with a bow and arrow in hand. He tried to get John to stop but outrunning him, literally and metaphorically, wasn’t ever going to be possible.

Mack managed to call Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins) at one point, but he dropped the phone when John appeared. Unaware of what was going on, Charity took a stab in the dark (sorry) and hoped Mack was listening when she said that she wanted him to come home.

John pulled another arrow and it went right through Mack’s chest, sending him flying. He was still alive but the prey was wounded, he could no longer run.

John told Mack that he never wanted things to go this far, but he does what he has to do to survive. John felt like he had to do something because if he let Mack go, he wouldn’t hesitate in telling Aaron Dingle (Danny Miller) everything.

With that, John found a giant boulder, lifted it above his head and threw it down, seemingly killing Mack in that moment.

Back in the village, John and Aaron’s farewell party was wrapping up. John returned and joined Aaron in saying goodbye to the likes of Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter) and Victoria Sugden (Isabel Hodgins).

He then glanced over to his van and noticed blood dripping down the door. He quickly covered, telling Aaron that he needs to get fuel before they leave.

Quickly wiping away the evidence, John hopped into the seat. He glanced behind him, staring at the blanket covering Mackenzie’s body.

‘Guess I really am the bad guy’, John said as he suffered a flashback from the murder.

Just as John became hopeful that the ordeal with Nate was coming to a close, another nightmare has started.

What will he do with Mack’s body?

The scenes tonight were pretty gruesome and certainly looked like Mack was killed but friends, this is a soap, anything is possible…