Since Joe Tate (Ned Porteous) materialised in Emmerdale at Christmas, there’s been a huge question mark about what he was up to.
Originally he was the shadowy figure behind Will Taylor (Dean Andrews)’s plan to get his hands on Kim Tate (Claire King)’s empire, but he soon distanced himself from that idea.
He stood by Kim in the aftermath of Will’s death and quickly established himself as her right hand man, taking up a role in her business and moving into Home Farm.
Very soon he was making a move on Dawn Taylor (Olivia Bromley) and the two have been having a secret affair. It’s not such a secret any more, though, as Kim was nowhere near as gullible as Joe hoped and had bugged his room so she could find out what he was really up to.
And what he’s really up to doesn’t actually involve Kim at all, as it’s his brother, Noah Dingle (Jack Downham), who seems to be the focus of his attention. He’s offered Noah a job as an electrician in Dubai, having first taken care to scupper Noah’s current business in the Dales by posting bad reviews about him online.
Nobody on Emmerdale likes the thought of a loved one moving any further afield than Hotten, so when Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins) heard about the Dubai plan she was deeply worried – not least because she doesn’t trust Joe Tate one little bit. Trying to reason with Noah has only made him more determined to stock up on the factor 100 and head for the UAE, so Charity decided she needed proof and ‘borrowed’ Kim’s laptop.
On there she soon found sound files recorded on the microphone in Joe’s bedroom, and it wasn’t long before she realised exactly what was going on between Joe and Dawn.
Armed with this intel, in Monday (February 10)’s episode she headed off to confront Joe and demand that he either drops the Dubai plan or she’ll reveal everything to Billy Fletcher (Jay Kontzle).
Joe proved just how ruthless he is by shrugging this off and saying he wasn’t bothered about possibly blowing up Dawn’s marriage. He might be a bit more bothered about Billy rearranging his face, but Charity didn’t threaten him with that. Instead she went back to Plan A – trying to reason with Noah.
This time, with help from Sarah Sugden (Katie Hill) who pointed out that Dubai might be a bit lonely and miserable and just too darn hot, Noah realised it wasn’t what he really wanted.
He went to tell Joe that he’d changed his mind – and was shocked at how fiercely Joe reacted. He seemed absolutely furious, telling Noah he had no idea what he’d done.
This can’t be about Noah’s skills as an electrician. He hasn’t been doing it that long, for a start. Nor is it about Joe wanting to form a close bond with his little bro, as Joe isn’t planning to join him in Dubai apart from ‘visits.’
So what has blood relative Noah got that Joe might want?
We’ve seen that Joe isn’t a well man. He’s collapsed in pain on several occasions and is taking some kind of medication regularly. Could it possibly be that one or other of his organs is failing and his best chance of a transplant could be an organ freshly harvested from his little brother? Perhaps in a hospital far away where they won’t look too closely into little things like whether the donor actually consents to having a bit of him inserted into Joe?
It’s a horrific idea, but Joe might be desperate enough to do it.
