At the beginning of Monday (July 15)’s Emmerdale episode, Sam Dingle (James Hooton) was planning to help his son Samson (Sam Hall) flee the country. The ferry tickets were booked and Sam was planning to pawn his wedding ring – the one from his marriage to Samson’s mother Alice (Ursula Holden-Gill) – to give Samson enough spending money to set him on his way.
Lydia (Karen Blick), overhearing this scheme, was not on board with it at all. Knowing that Samson lied about what happened when he was stabbed at the Hide, Lydia was angry to think he’d save his skin by doing a runner, leaving Matty Barton (Ash Palmisciano) to face the horror of being in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
Sam countered that if Samson confessed to the truth, he could be the one who ended up in prison. His son had to come first, he insisted.
Back to the scheme, and Sam thought it would look suspicious if he and Samson were seen leaving the village together so they agreed to meet at a lay-by. Lydia said she’d drive Samson there herself. She used the intervening time to reason with her step-son: could he really live with himself knowing that Matty was in prison because of him?
So Samson finally did the right thing and went to the police, confessing to his own role in what happened at the Hide. In fact he made it sound even worse for himself, as he was determined to keep his friend Josh (Osian Morgan) out of it as much as possible so he made it sound like he was the chief instigator and not Josh.
When Sam heard what had happened from Lydia he was fuming. ‘It’s exactly what happened with Liv,’ he said, referring to the time that Lydia shopped Liv Flaherty (Isobel Steele) to the police over Ben Tucker (Simon Lennon)’s murder – going against the Dingle Code. He said he would never forgive her for her betrayal.
Despite this, Lydia was confident that she – and Samson – had done the right thing and she went to the Woolpack to tell Moira (Natalie J. Robb) and Cain (Jeff Hordley) that Matty could soon be free.
By the time Sam arrived, Moira was cautiously optimistic but Cain was still angry in case the police didn’t believe Samson. For Sam, the most important thing was that he might be about to lose his son.
Cain rounded on him, telling him that he’s always been too soft on Samson. ‘Don’t worry,’ he taunted. ‘Saint Alice would be proud of you.’ Sam warned him to leave his late wife out of it.
Cain said he knew what Alice would really think: ‘Her son’s a deadbeat and his dad let it happen.’ That was too much for Sam and in a rare instance of him standing up to his brother he punched Cain.
Samson might have finally told (most of) the truth – but the Dingles are a family divided as his previous lies have left brother against brother and husband against wife.
