Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt) and Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock) friendship in Emmerdale could be considered the ultimate soap bromance.

They’re the epitome of the concept of BFF; unflinchingly loyal to each other, emotionally open and vulnerable and carrying a boat load of history, having met all the way back in 1997.

While they’ve encountered many a challenge to their friendship, namely a love triangle surrounding Rhona Goskirk (Zoe Henry), their bond has only grown stronger over the years with the duo proving to be each others rock through incredibly tumultuous times, such as Marlon’s stroke and Paddy’s mental health crisis.

The latest of those challenges? The emergence of the insidious Celia Daniels (Jaye Griffiths), a drug and human trafficker who set up shop in Emmerdale, establishing a modern slavery operation.

Marlon and Paddy have been dealing with the fallout of the plot separately, until now…

Paddy finally turns to Marlon

Celia and her equally evil son, Ray Walters (Joe Absolom), ensnared Paddy’s dad, Bear Wolf (Joshua Richards) and pseudo-adopted son, Dylan Penders (Fred Kettle) into their vile enterprise, while Marlon’s daughter, April Windsor (Amelia Flanagan), was also groomed and exploited.

While Marlon is happy to put the hideous experience in the rear-view mirror, Paddy isn’t able to. In a final showdown with Ray, who’d previously killed his mum, he attempted to murder Paddy and Dylan, too. When Bear emerged, he moved to protect his son, wrapping Ray in a wrestling move and, ultimately, choking him to death.

Crucially missing from Paddy’s life as he navigates the awful situation he’s found himself in has been Marlon, who’s still in the dark as to what exactly happened to Ray. That’s all set to change, though, according to Dominic.

‘There’s an episode coming up with me and Mark [Marlon], just a two-hander, where we spill the beans to each other and we become bonded again, which is lovely because they’ve got a three-decade-long friendship.

‘So that’ll be really great, I’m looking forward to that.’

Protecting Bear and Dylan

Bear is barely clinging to reality after his ordeal as a forced worker. Ray groomed him into believing that he was unloved and unwanted, all while feeding him drugs that quickly became an addiction. Murdering Ray whom, he believed, was his best friend and saviour, has delivered another devastating blow to his sanity.

With Paddy and Dylan actively involved in covering up the murder, attempting to hide Ray’s body before it was driven away by Jai Sharma (Chris Bisson).

‘He’s juggling everything at the moment, trying to keep everybody out of being done for murder and keeping the story straight. But it keeps unravelling and he keeps pulling all the strings back in, going: ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to stick to the story’, explained actor Dominic.

‘But of course they’ve got some wily policemen and detectives on their backs, which is not making it easy.’

What’s driving Paddy? Fear of losing his dad, once again: ‘He thought he was dead and he’s back. And now Bear might go down for murder. I think he trusts the judicial process, but the fact Bear is struggling so badly from what he’s been through, he’s heavily drugged up, he’s psychologically in the midst of this Stockholm Syndrome.

‘So Paddy is really doing it to try and save his dad, and save the fact that Dylan would be implicated in it as well, because we all hid the body, really.

‘I think he truly believes that they’ll get through this, it’ll go away and nobody will be blamed and it’ll just become a village secret.

‘But soaps being soaps, there’s got to be a moral outcome. His worst fear is that it all unravels and of course I think it does. I think! I know about two weeks ahead.’