Emmerdale comeback leaves villagers speechless as character returns after five years

There was a big Emmerdale return on Wednesday that saw a character abruptly show up in the village after five years away.

A tragic reason brought the past character back to the ITV soap, and villagers were speechless to see her. But it was no surprise that she was coming back, while they were stunned by her comments when she stormed into the pub during a memorial held by the Dingles.

It was Cara Robinson, the mother of murdered Nate Robinson, who made her big comeback after five years. The episode that dropped on ITVX on Wednesday morning showed her heading back to the village for the first time since 2020, as revealed in spoilers last week.

This article contains spoilers from Wednesday's episode which will air on ITV1 at 7:30pm. The grieving mum made quite the entrance too, gatecrashing her son's memorial held by his dad Cain Dingle and the rest of the clan.

Cara's sudden arrival and unexpected appearance at the memorial, a day before the funeral which Cain and co had been banned from, left them all lost for words. Soon enough as the Dingles remembered tragic Nate and shared a laugh, Cara stormed in and called them all out - shutting them up in an instant.

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She called them out for being cheery when her son had lost her life - when in fact they were simply celebrating his life. Nate's death only came out weeks ago when his body was found in the lake, while he was killed back in September.

No one knows John Sugden is the killer, and the finger has been pointed at Cain as well as Nate's wife Tracy Robinson. With Cara convinced Cain is to blame, Tracy too, she wasted no time in having a go when she walked in to a room of laughter.

Cain could barely speak, watery eyed at the shock of seeing his ex, amid the significance of seeing her now with their son having been killed. Clearly not knowing what to say, knowing there was nothing he could say, he was stopped in his tracks by her arrival.

It was the rest of his family who stepped in to support him as Cara tore strips off him over the 'party' and his potential involvement. After all, Cara would know all about Cain beating their son to near-death just hours before he was killed.

Knowing what he'd done to Nate and then fearing he had gone on to kill him left Cara fuming at her ex with her also keen, like Tracy, that he didn't go to the funeral. Cara also accused Cain of being just like his abusive stepfather Shadrach Dingle after noting he smelled of booze and had been violent.

This comment rattled Cain, who remains guilty over how he treated his son in his final hours. Cara will remain on the show for this week for the funeral, while a full-time comeback is not currently in the pipeline.

With John no doubt set to be exposed as the killer at some point, with more than one resident already onto him, perhaps Cara will return to see the killer face justice. As for killer John, we wouldn't want to be him when Cain finds out he murdered Nate and then cosied up to the family.

Emmerdale airs weeknights at 7:30pm on ITV1 and ITVX, with an hour-long episode on Thursdays * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , and Threads.