Sue Haasler
Published December 11, 2025 8:55pm
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She’s been in this game a while (Picture: ITV)
Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock) and his family in Emmerdale are currently trapped in a terrible situation – and it’s becoming increasingly hard to see a way out for them as all possible avenues of escape have been cruelly sealed off by Celia Daniels (Jaye Griffiths) and Ray Walters (Joe Absolom).
April (Amelia Flanagan) has been coerced into dealing drugs by Ray. He started by manipulating her into believing she owed him a huge debt which could only be paid off by continuing to do his bidding.
Ray has a further hold over April, as she thinks she killed a man who had paid to have sex with her – another branch of Celia’s evil empire. Viewers know that the man is alive and well, but April lives with the guilt of what happened.
Telling her parents about what was going on seemed to be the first step in bringing about an end to the horror that April had been going through. But since then, every time Marlon and Rhona have tried to take action against Ray and Celia, they’ve been thwarted.
Marlon has desperately tried to find a way to protect his family from Celia (Picture: ITV)
Ray has made sure they’re too terrified to go to the police – and in case they were in any doubts as to how serious the threat was, they were forced to watch Ray aiming his car at Dylan (Fred Kettle) and mowing him down.
Trying to flee was also ended by Ray, who reminded them that he has eyes and ears everywhere in the village.
Marlon and Rhona scraped together money they could hardly afford and even took out a pay day loan with massive interest payments in a desperate bid to pay April’s debt, but Ray simply took the money and informed them nothing had changed.
April confessed the truth to her dad last week (Picture: ITV)
In Thursday (December 11)’s episode, April was resigned to there being no way out and she told Ray she’d go back to ‘work,’ doing more drug dealing for him. Appallingly, he told her parents that she was his ‘best girl,’ because she’s so innocent-looking.
Before April went off to do Ray’s job, she wanted to go to the hospital to see Dylan. In a heartbreaking scene she sat by his bed as he lay unconscious and talked to him about Christmas. She said she didn’t want dealing to make her become hard – and that she wished he was there properly.
Paddy (Dominic Brunt) was also at the hospital and there was a moment when Marlon seemed about to open up to his best friend, but then Ray appeared exactly at the wrong moment, as he has a habit of doing.
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But there was better news later, when the doctors told Paddy that Dylan was doing really well and they planned to wake him from his induced coma soon.
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When Marlon heard this news he was obviously relieved for Dylan and for April. But his overriding thought was that as soon as Dylan was awake he’d be able to tell the police everything he knew about Ray running him over and about Ray and Celia’s activities, and the vile duo would soon be behind bars.
But that glimmer of hope didn’t last long, as April pointed out that Dylan would be so terrified of what the consequences could be of him talking to the police that he wouldn’t dare do any such thing.
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Marlon, Rhona and April really are trapped in a nightmare, with every possible escape route closed off. As soap fans we’re always confident that bad people will get their comeuppance eventually – but at the moment it’s hard to see how Ray and Celia’s stranglehold on the village can be broken.
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