Emmerdale begins next chapter of Jacob’s ordeal amid cryptic Dr Todd claim

Emmerdale has started the next chapter of Jacob Sugden’s bullying ordeal amid a cryptic claim from Dr Caitlin Todd.

In Friday’s episode, Dr Todd retired from the hospital, announcing that she had decided to take early retirement following her dad’s death, leading Jacob to question whether his ordeal was finally over.

Meanwhile, Dr Todd knows the truth about Charity Dingle’s baby, after finding out that the surrogate child she was carrying for Sarah and Jacob is actually Charity’s biological baby with Ross.

In tonight’s episode, Dr Todd attended her father’s funeral while Jacob began to worry that the feud had gone too far.

He confided in Sarah, saying he felt guilty for how nasty things got, leaving a confused Sarah looking shocked after all the villain put him through.

Hoping to move on, Jacob visited Dr Todd to offer his condolences for her father’s funeral and apologised for their past conflict.

“I was hoping we could both move on and go our separate ways. Draw a line,” said Jacob, and when Todd accepted the apology, Jacob dared to hope that they had made progress.

Later, in the pub, Mary pushed Vanessa to ask out Dr Todd and Todd accepted, with the pair setting up a date.

Just when Jacob was beginning to think their relationship had stabilised, Todd suggested that she was privy to a secret that could make his life hellish.

“I was all a bit blindsided by you showing up, to be honest,” she said. “But you said something about us going our separate ways and moving on.”

She continued: “But that’s going to be a bit difficult that first bit, isn’t it? Because we both live here.”

Jacob said: “I just meant getting on as best we can. We don’t have to be best friends or anything.”

Todd replied: “No, we don’t, do we? But I’m going to have a lot more time on my hands, as you know, what with no job and no dad to worry about. I wonder what I’m going to do with it.

“Hopefully it won’t involve finding new ways to make your life as hellish as when you worked with me… Especially with what I know.”

With Todd set to start blackmailing Charity over baby Leyla’s parentage this week, will Jacob’s ordeal ever end?

The following article contains spoilers from the episode of Emmerdale dated May 7. It hasn’t aired on ITV1 yet, but can be viewed on ITVX.

Jacob Gallagher (Joe-Warren Plant) is at breaking point in Emmerdale, and it’s all thanks to his boss Doctor Caitlin Todd (Caroline Harker).

The absolutely vile surgeon is taking great pleasure in chipping away at Jacob’s confidence. It started at Hotten General Hospital, but his ordeal is continuing in the village due to Caitlin choosing to move in with Vanessa Woodfield (Michelle Hardwick).

Jacob is seeing a lot more of Doctor Todd right now as he’s currently on paternity leave. A couple of days ago, Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins) gave birth to a baby girl called Leyla. Jacob and Sarah Sugden (Katie Hill) believe the baby belongs to them following a surrogacy plan, but the little girl is actually Charity and Ross Barton’s (Michael Parr) daughter.

With access to medical records, it didn’t take Doctor Todd very long to discover Charity’s secret. She used this to her advantage and told Charity to get Jacob to drop the complaint against her that he was in the process of making with the hospital’s HR.

Jacob did this, but has still proceeded to face Doctor Todd’s awful behaviour. This week, she made a comment to Sarah about how Jacob couldn’t wait to get back to work after his paternity leave. Frustrated, Sarah confronted Jacob, leading to him breaking down and revealing the true extent of what his boss is putting him through.

Sarah vowed to help Jacob, and had to give him some words of encouragement in today’s episode when it became clear he was close to giving up the fight.

With a newfound confidence, Jacob visited the HR rep at the hospital again and wondered how on earth he’d prove that Todd is bullying him, when she’s so meticulous in what she’s doing. To Jacob’s horror, he then discovered that Caitlin had filed a complaint against him. The HR rep revealed that Caitlin had created a file full of evidence that seemingly proves Jacob is being inappropriate with her.

Believing he needed to take matters into his own hands, Jacob headed to see Doctor Todd at Tug Ghyll and tried to force a confession out of her, while recording the entire thing on his phone. It seems Caitlin has done this sort of thing before though, as she very quickly worked out what Jacob was up to.

With the recording now being pointless, Jacob left the house and wondered if this nightmare would ever be over. Completely alone, he screamed in an attempt to let his negative emotions out.

Jacob is trying to remain strong in this fight, but the scene at the end of the episode confirmed that there’s now a worrying darkness growing inside of him.