The following article contains spoilers from the episode of Emmerdale dated August 24. It hasn’t aired on ITV1 yet, but can be viewed on ITVX and YouTube.
Caleb Miligan (William Ash) has played the long game in Emmerdale – and it appears to have worked.
In early 2025, Caleb’s nephew Joe Tate (Ned Porteous) targeted him after discovering that he needed a kidney transplant. He had searched for a donor with dodgy surgeon Doctor Crowley, and Caleb was the only person who proved to be a match.
Joe wasn’t going to sit and beg Caleb for his help, though, because he knew that he’d say no. Instead, Joe kidnapped Caleb, knocked him unconscious, and got Doctor Crowley to perform the transplant without him knowing.
Caleb has tried to get revenge on Joe for this, but nothing has really worked. Last month, however, he spied an opportunity to completely destroy Joe’s life when Billy Fletcher (Jay Kontzle) was rushed to hospital.
Billy had suffered a brain bleed after getting hit over the head. As the police began their investigation, Caleb worked hard to give the detective reasons why Joe could’ve attacked Billy.
When he woke up from his coma, Billy stated that he couldn’t remember much, but decided that Joe was responsible after Caleb planted a few seeds in his mind.
Billy told Dawn Taylor (Olivia Bromley), which led to her deciding to leave Joe and start a new life elsewhere with Billy and their children.
Their escape plan was created by Caleb and Ruby Miligan (Beth Cordingly), who are both quietly buzzing to see Joe with absolutely nothing.
The duo faced a hurdle a couple of days ago when Billy found out that Kev Townsend (Chris Coghill) was actually responsible for putting him in hospital. Billy told Caleb that they wanted to leave the village asap, but he stated that he wouldn’t get the fake passports until the day of Dawn and Joe’s wedding.
Caleb has been controlling Billy like a puppet, and it’s simply because he wanted the satisfaction of seeing Joe’s life fall apart on the day of his wedding.
The all-important day was finally upon us in today’s episode of the ITV soap. Joe was with Graham Foster (Andrew Scarborough) and young Lucas (Noah Ryan Aspinall), while Dawn was busy packing up the last of her things before the getaway.
She came across an emotional challenge in the form of Kim Tate (Claire King), but it ultimately wasn’t enough to get Dawn to back out of the plan.
Things were going relatively smoothly – which meant something had to go wrong soon enough. Outside the stables, Dawn was putting the final few things into her car when she was spotted by Graham. Earlier in the day, he had managed to work out what Dawn and Billy were up to thanks to some careful choice of words in a chat with Lucas.
In an attempt to stop Dawn from leaving, Graham pointed something out that she clearly hadn’t thought of. How did Billy know that Joe attacked him, if the hit happened from behind?
Dawn thought about it – but not for very long. Desperate to go, she smacked Graham over the head with a shovel and jumped in her car.
Billy and the children had been collected. It was time to leave.
As the family drove out of the village, Caleb was in the pub. He had spent hours listening to Joe speak about how great his life is, and had reached the point where he could no longer keep quiet.
Caleb enjoyed every single second of alluding to Joe that he had done something awful, and what was perhaps the best part for Caleb was that Joe couldn’t work out what it was.
‘What I’ve done, is blow your entire world apart’, he said with a smile.
With Dawn, Billy and the kids leaving Emmerdale – has Caleb won?
Or is another hurdle waiting for Dawn and Billy along that road?
