Emmerdale’s Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt) is doing everything in his power to try and save his dad, but he can’t be in several different places at once.

Trying to protect Bear Wolf (Joshua Richards) from the realities of his actions has become a fulltime job for the vet.

Bear is still in a state of trauma from his experience of the human trafficking ring, followed by him accidentally killing his captor, Ray Walters (Joe Absolom). For weeks, Paddy battled to keep his dad from revealing his part in Ray’s death.

Paddy’s priority has remained his dad, even going up against Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) in the face of Cain trying to pry the truth from the frail old man to save his wife Moira Dingle (Natalie J Robb), Paddy firmly put his foot down to protect Bear.

What a waste of time that was. Ultimately, Bear couldn’t cope with his regret and sadness, and told DS Walsh everything. Well, almost everything. He kept secret the parts that Paddy and Dylan Penders (Fred Kettle) played in the body disposal.

Fragile Bear is heading for another bump in the road with Ray’s burial around the corner.

Dylan is also struggling with his complex emotions attached to Ray’s death and Laurel Thomas (Charlotte Bellamy) too is also battling her conscience. She decides Ray should have at least someone there.

For Paddy, Dylan, and Mandy, it’s the contrary and they try and keep it a secret from Bear for fear it may break him. Unfortunately for their best laid plans, Claudette Anderson (Flo Wilson) puts her size sixes in and lets the cat out of the bag.

So now Paddy must cope with a traumatised Bear insisting he attend the ceremony and neither Laurel or Claudette can talk him down.

Paddy doesn’t find out until afterwards though, and is left with the aftermath of the event. In response, he utterly loses his mind at Laurel and her reckless behaviour putting Bear at risk.

And he’s right, Bear rages at his son, revealing his fresh trauma and start of a new spiral.

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Laurel finds Bear drinking on his own and tries to get him to open up.

Actress Charlotte Bellamy shares that the pair have an unusual connection.

‘A really lovely sort of relationship starts to form between them that is kind of a connection. Of course, Bear sort of, a bit like the Stockholm Syndrome, kind of feels the same, like she does. So they’re both kind of conflicted with pain but also, she loved Ray and Bear loved Ray in a weird sort of way.’

But Bear’s struggles are deepening by the second.

Having not got the painkillers he needs from Manpreet Sharma (Rebecca Sarker), he heads to hospital with a cut hand on a mission to get what he needs. But with the state he’s in, chaos ensues. He’s dangerous without meaning to be, who will fall foul of Bear’s mental decline?

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During Friday’s episode of Emmerdale, Bear Wolf (Joshua Richards) sat with a counsellor called Lucy, and began to speak about the horror he went through on Celia Daniels’ (Jaye Griffiths) farm.

Ever since Bear returned to the village, he’s struggled to completely see that what he went through was wrong. This is down to the high level of manipulation and abuse he suffered, which left left Bear believing that Celia was helping vulnerable people, and that Ray was his friend.

Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt) has tried to help his dad see the reality of what he went through, but he realised a couple of days ago that Bear wasn’t going to completely heal without some therapy from a professional.

Charles Anderson (Kevin Mathurin) then organised for Lucy to visit the village. As a victim of exploitation herself, Lucy knew exactly how to approach the session with Bear. She gently tried to steer him in the direction of seeing Ray as a monster, but it wasn’t easy.

This was because Bear spent a lot of time being plagued with visions of Ray. Whenever Lucy spoke the truth, Ray would appear as a figment of Bear’s imagination and counteract her comment.

A breakthrough happened when Bear opened up about his friend and fellow slave Anya, who died as a result of Celia and Ray failing to get her any medication for her ill health. Telling Lucy about Anya’s death saw Bear slowly start to realise that Ray most certainly wasn’t his friend.

The situation for Bear changed when Lucy called him a good man. Overwhelmed with the pressure of keeping his murderous secret, Bear fell apart and confessed to killing the man who kept him prisoner for months.

The instalment ended with a horrified Paddy watching his dad get into a police car. The beloved character has already been through so much, and it sadly isn’t over yet.

Calling Bear’s killing of Ray ‘poetic justice’, actor Joshua Richards recently opened up about the next part of Bear’s story, which will see him questioned by DS Walsh at first.

‘It sets off another dilemma, of course, because this isn’t the end of the horror. Horror continues’, he said.

Teasing what lies ahead in the coming days, Joshua added: ‘I think the police officer is particularly ruthless and obviously wants to get this crime sorted, but also wants to nail as many people as possible. I mean, her remit seems to be quite wide with Moira after Cain and after Paddy, after Dylan, after Bear. She doesn’t want one person, she wants everybody.’

DS Walsh will charge Bear with manslaughter. According to Joshua, his character believes he should face the consequences for his actions.

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‘I think in his mind, taking a life is taking a life, it’s a life for a life…even if it was in self-defence. He was almost the victim of a nervous breakdown and being practically insane at the time, but he still believes he should take the consequences.’

Joshua noted: ‘I think he has this mistaken sense of honour, and that he’s got to own up to what he did, even though he was totally unaware of what he did at the time he was doing it.

‘And it’s just this old-fashioned sort of “Well, I did it, therefore I should take the consequences.” It’s misguided and wrong, but he firmly believes that that’s the honourable thing to do.’

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