It’s been one of the big soap whodunits of recent years: who pushed Emma Barton to her death in Emmerdale? Well, now viewers finally know.
The reveal came during the second episode of the show’s Thursday double bill, as the sort-of-husband killer was laid to rest.
As vicar Harriet conducted the Barton matriarch’s funeral, flashbacks revealed her fate during her last day on earth.
While Pete stormed out of the church, Laurel was arrested. The pair of them – alongside Moira and Ross – talked through their last experiences with Emma before she died.
Learning the truth about Emma killing his father James, Ross drove Emma to a bridge and was planning to push her off, just as she had done to his dad.
But then decided to tell his mum to jump instead.
Emma wanted him to push her – and she offered her forgiveness – but refused to take her own life because that’s a sin in the eyes of her God.
(She’d squared off taking another person’s life with Him, apparently…)
Ross ordered her again to jump, before walking off…
And then Moira appeared, initially trying to talk Emma down. And it looked as though she had succeeded, but then Emma hit upon a plan to die – as her son wanted – without having to commit suicide.
The unhinged nurse set about goading Moira into doing her deadly dirty work, hitting the new mum where it really hurts – spitting out vile accusations about her baby son and her dead daughter, Holly.
“You drank like a fish, worked yourself into the ground, because you wanted to kill my grandson,” she teased.
And the provocation continued, with her saying: “Shame I didn’t shoot Adam, your precious little love child. Thick as two short planks.
“All your kids are failures. Holly… the druggie, someone else you ignored. It was easier to pretend it wasn’t happening.
“Imagine if you’d paid attention and noticed there was something wrong, If you’d cared enough she;d still be alive now. You could have saved her but you left her to die all alone.
“You knew that you killed her, you might as well have injected the heroine yourself.”
And with that Moira reached out and pushed Emma, and she expired.
Hmmm, so if Emma wanted Moira to kill her, can we really blame her? She was a pawn, no, NO?! Viewers were pretty satisfied with the outcome after such a long wait…