The first to explode after the baby secret was exposed was Mackenzie Boyd – Charity’s current husband.

His rage made this week’s episode of Emmerdale one of the “most emotional” in months.

Mack has forgiven Charity many times: from the affair, the lies, to her hiding her past as a prostitute – but this time, he couldn’t.

The scene where Mack smashed a glass and shouted “I trusted you!” made viewers’ skin crawl.

Charity tried to explain: she said it was a “mistake in a moment of weakness”, that she had no intention of betraying. But Mack just screamed:

“You said you loved me, but you were carrying someone else’s child!”
Mack’s anger wasn’t just due to jealousy – it was due to his painful past. He had lost a child with Charity due to complications from an ectopic pregnancy, and had always longed for a real family. Charity’s hiding the baby was “a stab in the heart.”

Charity’s sister Chas tried to intervene, but couldn’t calm Mack down. He smashed the glass cabinet, threw the wedding photo on the floor, and then left in the pouring rain. The scene of Charity kneeling down to pick up each piece of glass, her hands shaking and bleeding, while the lights flashed in the background – was one of the most tragic images of Emmerdale this year.

Fans watching the show on social media immediately “exploded”. The hashtags #MackBreakdown and #CharityLiesAgain climbed straight to the top of the UK trends just 2 hours after the broadcast. One viewer wrote: “No one cried like Mack when his heart was broken for the second time by the same woman.”

Despite Mack leaving, the writers hinted that “he still has feelings for Charity” – meaning he may return in future episodes, not to forgive, but to seek revenge.
The flame of love has turned to ash, but the ashes are being blown away by the wind into a new storm in Emmerdale.