Next week on Emmerdale, John’s secrets threaten his and Aaron’s big day, Sarah receives devastating news, and Ross and Mackenzie are at the mercy of Lewis.

1) John’s plagued by nightmares on his wedding day

John (Oliver Farnworth) and Aaron’s (Danny Miller) wedding day finally dawns next week, but it’s anything but a joyous time for John as any number of his dark secrets threaten to ruin the occasion.

The big day will play out over all five episodes next week, each day beginning with a different tormenting nightmare for John.

“Each episode has a different start–essentially a different possible outcome to the wedding,” Oliver Farnworth told EverySoap and other press at a recent preview of the episodes. “A lot of those are in John’s mind until we get to the actual real event.”

At the beginning of the week, John’s worries centre on the impending dredging of a small lake near the village—a consequence of him dumping slurry on one of Moira’s (Natalie J Robb) fields.

The location is of particular concern to John, as it’s the same spot where he disposed of Nate Robinson’s (Jurell Carter) body following his accidental death last year.

“It’s all his own making,” Oliver continues. “He tried to stitch Mack up and it backfired. The water supply got poisoned and people ended up in hospital. So he feels terrible about that.

“But then the revelation that the whole thing’s got to be drained and dredged, it’s just the worst thing that could happen when he’s meant to be getting married.”

As he and sister Victoria (Isabel Hodgins) make final preparations that morning, John is plagued by visions of his being arrested during the ceremony.

Cain’s (Jeff Hordley) confirmation that the dredging has already begun soon sends John into panic mode.

He quickly begins packing to leave the village, only to be caught red-handed by Aaron.

Brushing off his behaviour as typical wedding nerves, John buys himself some time. But once Aaron’s gone, he resumes his escape plan and drives off.

Hiding out near the lake, John receives a loving message from Aaron that gives him pause. When he then learns the dredging has been unexpectedly halted, John decides to return and proceed with the wedding.

2) Will Aidan reveal all?

But John’s day is only thrown into further chaos when Cathleen (Julia Watson)—the mother of his former fiancé Aidan (Geoff Dignan)—rocks up at the house.

Aidan has been in a coma for the past three years, after being injured whilst serving with John in Afghanistan, but recently defied all the odds and regained consciousness.

The news horrified John, who has not only been whispering to a comatose Aidan with threats to finish him off, but has also been confiding his recent exploits in the village.

“Aidan was a massive part of his past,” Oliver explains. “And we still don’t know exactly what happened to him. Whether John engineered the situation or saved him, regardless, Aidan is in this position.”

John was able to take some relief from the fact that Aidan appeared to be non-verbal when he awoke, but it seems all that has changed now with Cathleen informing John that Aidan is asking for him.

“That’s just massive because we don’t know what Aidan is going to reveal,” Oliver tells us. “Not necessarily what John has imparted on him about recent events, but possibly about events from quite a long time ago. So there’s that jeopardy as well.”

As we move into Tuesday’s episode, John’s now tormented by visions of Aidan being the one to interrupt his and Aaron’s wedding.

Snapping back into reality, clearly unsettled, John agrees to accompany Cathleen to the hospital. His departure doesn’t go unnoticed—Aaron, increasingly uneasy about John’s recent behaviour, quietly follows them.

At the hospital, Aaron sees John at Aidan’s bedside and jumps to the wrong conclusion.

Interpreting it as a sign that John still has unresolved feelings for his ex, Aaron makes a snap decision. Unable to hide his hurt, he breaks off the wedding plans on the spot, leaving John stunned and desperate to explain.

3) Will the wedding go ahead?

Moving onto Wednesday, John experiences yet another vivid dream in which his wedding is going ahead—until Aaron backs out, citing a lack of trust. The unsettling vision gives way to reality in the hospital car park, where John watches helplessly as Aaron drives off.

Back at The Woolpack, the mood is tense as Belle (Eden Taylor-Draper), Chas (Lucy Pargeter) and Victoria do their best to manage the crowd of guests, who are beginning to wonder where the grooms have got to.

Eventually, John catches up with Aaron and tries to reason with him, laying bare his feelings and hoping for a breakthrough. Aaron, however, gives little away, leaving John unsure of where they stand.

As the clock ticks, the pair finally reappear at the venue, to a wave of visible relief from those waiting.

With Mackenzie (Lawrence Robb) curiously absent, Aaron turns to Paddy to step in as best man, and the ceremony gets underway.

But as the week continues and we see further visions unfold, will the wedding actually go ahead as planned?

4) Dawn and Billy are questioned by social services

Elsewhere in the village, the dramas continue up at Home Farm when Dawn (Olivia Bromley) receives an unexpected visit from a social worker.

Dawn’s ward, Clemmie (Mabel Addison), has previously clashed with Joe (Ned Porteous) after she caught him and Dawn sharing a kiss before their relationship became public.

Realising this was the reason Dawn and Billy had split, a distressed Clemmie bit Joe during the resulting confrontation.

When she later rejected his attempt to buy her silence, Joe responded with threats, suggesting he could report her behaviour and hinting that she might be taken back into care.

Eventually, Clemmie confided in Billy, revealing what Joe had said and sparking serious concerns about his treatment of her.

The public revealing of this, and Joe’s other dark secrets, during Lydia’s 50th bash, culminated in Joe being pushed from an upper storey window of Home Farm. Although the culprit was later revealed to be Dawn, Joe has chosen to forgive her.

“You didn’t see on screen what actually happened, but how I imagine it was that Dawn came in and tried to confront Joe, he turned on his manipulation and enough was enough,” Olivia Bromley told EverySoap and other press after a screening of the episode.

“I think it was a pure accident. It wasn’t like, ‘I’m going to kill you’, it just happened. It was an accidental push, basically, but it was because of the way he was acting to her.”

Despite Dawn’s insistence that their relationship was over, it hasn’t stopped Joe from trying to win her back, much to the frustration of Clemmie, who overheard the pair flirting. Out of desperation, Clemmie phoned social services herself, claiming that she was scared of her mum’s new boyfriend.

Any potential rekindling of the romance between Dawn and Joe is soon put on the backburner when Dawn opens the door to the social worker (Julie Lockey), who explains that she’s had a report of a safeguarding concern.

The social worker goes on to interview Joe, Dawn and Billy to assess the situation, and afterwards, they’re told no further action will be taken. Although this brings some reassurance, it also underlines the ongoing tension within the household.

Joe soon realises he needs to make an effort to work on his relationship with Clemmie, particularly after she goes missing briefly while in his care.

Meanwhile, Billy suggests that Dawn and the children should leave Home Farm to avoid further issues with Joe. Dawn refuses to do so, which prompts Billy to accuse her of still having feelings for Joe.

As the emotional toll of the ongoing conflicts with Billy starts to wear Dawn down, Joe steps in with a new plan, hoping to ease tensions and win back some trust.

But will his scheme work, and what does it mean for Billy…?

5) Ross betrays Lewis

As Butlers Farm faces financial ruin following the slurry incident, Mack has been bearing the burden of trying to find a way to raise money to help Moira out, believing that he was responsible.

It was Ross (Michael Parr) who came up with a money-making scheme, when he learned that his newfound half-brother Lewis (Bradley Riches) had an illicit sideline in growing cannabis in order to make medicinal CBD gummies and oils.

After requesting some plants from Lewis, who was more than happy to oblige, Ross and Mack realised they had nowhere near enough, and schemed to swipe a few more from Lewis…

This week, Ross suggests to Lewis that they should go kayaking for some brotherly bonding, before secretly swiping Lewis’s house keys without him noticing. Handing the keys over, Ross instructs Mack to let himself into Lewis’s home and take some more plants.

At first, Mack struggles to find anything worthwhile, but then stumbles upon a large cannabis operation hidden away in the attic.

As Mack tries to figure out how to handle the unexpected volume of plants, Ross starts to get nervous when Lewis considers heading home. The tension rises when Lewis then receives an alert on his phone, notifying him of an intruder in his attic!

It doesn’t take long for Lewis to see that it’s Mack, and he demands an explanation from Ross…

6) Lewis turns the tables

Coaxing a confession from Ross, and having trapped Mack in his attic, Lewis speaks to Mack through the security app on his phone.

Lewis agrees to release Mack but only on one condition—Ross tells him the truth about how their mum Emma really died all those years ago.

Their cousin Adam (Adam Thomas) was the one who had been charged over Emma’s death, after she plunged from a viaduct in 2017, but had only confessed in order to protect the real culprit, his mum Moira…

7) Will Moira’s dark secret be revealed?

Whilst Adam fled overseas, Moira admitted what she had done to Emma’s surviving sons, Ross and Pete (Anthony Quinlan) and has lived with the guilt ever since.

The arrival of Lewis’s letter a few weeks back, explaining that he was a long-lost fourth son of Emma who had been adopted out, threw Moira into turmoil. She feared it was only a matter of time before difficult questions about Emma’s death were asked all over again.

It didn’t take long before Lewis was requesting to meet Moira and, as expected, quickly began interrogating her about his mother and Adam’s involvement in her death.

Ross could see that Moira was close to breaking point as Lewis continued to fire questions, and quickly brought a halt to the meeting, frustrating Lewis, who felt that he wasn’t being told the whole truth.

But as Ross and Lewis return to Butlers and face Moira again, could Lewis now be aware of Moira’s guilt? And if so, will she find herself at his mercy over her future freedom?

8) Sarah’s worst fears are confirmed

Over at Jacobs Fold, it’s the moment of truth for Sarah (Katie Hill) when she receives a call from the hospital asking her to come in to receive her biopsy results.

Sarah recently confided in Vanessa (Michelle Hardwick) that she was longing to have a child following her false alarm earlier this year, despite knowing the difficulties she’d face with having Fanconi anaemia.

Undergoing an examination to explore her suitability to undergo IVF, Sarah was thrown when the consultant noticed some inflammation on her cervix and advised her she’d need a biopsy to rule out anything sinister.

When Vanessa asked about the outcome of her hospital visit, Sarah couldn’t bring herself to open up. She later intended to share the news with her grandmother Charity (Emma Atkins), but her plans were derailed when the family was blindsided by unexpected news—Sarah’s absent mum, Debbie (Charley Webb), had quietly tied the knot and relocated to Australia.

Heading to the hospital alone, Sarah receives the news she dreaded. She’s in the early stages of cervical cancer.

Though the consultant offers hope that her plans for a baby might still be possible, the reality of the diagnosis hits her hard.

Struggling to process it all, Sarah puts on a brave face—until she crosses paths with Jacob during his shift.

Sensing something’s wrong, he offers support, and the facade finally crumbles as Sarah confides in him about her diagnosis.

Jacob is supportive, but when the conversation turns to how the cancer was discovered, Sarah hesitates. Eventually, she admits she was undergoing tests to see if she could have a baby. Jacob’s blunt reaction, however, isn’t quite what she expects.

Still grieving his own mother, he questions whether it’s right for Sarah to consider parenthood, given her life-limiting condition and the impact that losing a mum can have on a child.

Later in the week, Jacob continues to berate Sarah’s selfishness at wanting a baby. However, he’s soon shocked to realise that he’s the only one out of Sarah’s friends and family that actually knows about both the IVF and cancer.

Will he be able to persuade Sarah to open up to her loved ones?

9) The Dingles are thrown by Kyle’s announcement