Harriet crushed by a coffin as Will takes revenge in Emmerdale
"What he does is pretty horrific" says Katherine Dow Blyton
Emmerdale vicar Harriet Finch (Katherine Dow Blyton) comes face to face with stalker Will Taylor (Dean Andrews) – her bad boy ex-lover who she believed was dead – and is subjected to a terrifying attack in the church where he throws a coffin at her!
Evil Will was exposed as being behind the creepy intimidation campaign last week, when Harriet's colleagues from her days as an undercover cop revealed the toxic Taylor hadn't died when he was released from prison some years ago as the horrified holy woman believed.
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In her old job, Harriet had posed as 'Michelle' and infiltrated Will's life by faking a romance with him back in the day as part of a deep undercover sting that eventually saw the gangster jailed. When his daughter Dawn Taylor (Olivia Bromley) came back into Harriet's life recently and explained that her father was dead, the vicar reconnected with the now grown-up girl she had once been a step-mum to, but viewers were soon let in on the secret that Will was still alive and in cahoots with Dawn to get revenge on Harriet for setting him up.
On Thursday 16th May, Will clashes with Dawn as he questions her loyalties, fearing she's getting cold feet about their vengeance plan after she finds a box full of orders of service as if it were Harriet's funeral… Their disagreement over how far he's prepared to go turns violent, with Dawn smacking her head on a table during the showdown with her dad, who then storms off. Harriet finds an injured Dawn then heads to the church where she sees Will for the first time in all these years, and he throws a coffin on top of her! Can Dawn come to Harriet's rescue before her dad does lasting damage and her actual funeral has to be arranged?
Is Harriet still secretly in love with Will?
"It's a terrible shock," Dow Blyton tells RadioTimes.com. "This person that you thought was dead is now there trying to murder you with a coffin! What Will does is horrific. It started off with Harriet getting hit with a coffin lid, and then it became the whole coffin. So we've got potential death by coffin squishing – I think we've invented a new Cluedo thing there!"
Presumably the incident confirms to Harriet that Dawn has been lying to her and working with Will all along, complicating the women's relationship even further – although Dawn now genuinely seems to care for the ex-police officer. "Harriet feels guilty that Dawn's life turned out like it did because she disappeared when the undercover operation was over and left Dawn who ended up in care and having a bad time," continues the actress.
"Maybe Harriet thinks she's partly responsible for what happened to Dawn, her becoming involved in drugs and getting her child taken by social services… When she found out Will was still alive she never thought it had anything to do with Dawn."
If Harriet survives her coffin assault, could there be any hope for her and Will to move forward, forgiving and forgetting the past? "In a way they were a proper happy family when Harriet pretended to be Michelle and posed as his partner. But that was her last experience of being in a proper loving family, and she hasn't been in one since. It was a solid, if slightly fake, relationship!
"She does like a bad boy so if Will is hanging around perhaps she'll try and fix him? There could be a fascination there. Although I'm not sure how it would go down with the rest of the village if she declared she was in love with the guy who'd just try to murder her!"
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