In a week when everyone was running for their lives, Rhona experienced a different kind of pain, the pain of familial love.

Mary’s return to the village should have been a heartwarming event, another person to rely on, to share with.

But in Emmerdale, those who return often carry danger, not because they are bad, but because they see too much.

Mary is the perceptive type; the more she observes, the more she asks, and the more she asks, the more likely she is to stumble upon dangerous spots.

Rhona understood Celia very well who she was and what Celia was capable of. Therefore, Rhona understood that if Mary stayed, she would be targeted. And when you know your loved one is at risk, you will do everything to prevent it, even if it means making that person hate you. That’s where Emmerdale plays the painful game: Rhona had no beautiful choice. Rhona only had the least bad choice, and the least bad choice was to hurt her own mother.

So Rhona could enter a very intense situation: deliberately acting cold, deliberately saying things like cutting ties, saying she doesn’t need Mary anymore, saying Mary’s presence is just a nuisance. Those words sound like betrayal, like ingratitude, but the real goal is to push Mary out of the village as quickly as possible. Rhona will make herself the bad guy in Mary’s eyes, because to Rhona, Mary hates Rhona more than she is in danger. This is the kind of plot where the viewer knows the motive but still feels choked up, because they understand everyone is trying to love in the wrong way.