It’s going to be a busy Christmas in Emmerdale for Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock), Rhona Goskirk (Zoe Henry) and their family this year as Rhona’s ex husband Gus (Alan McKenna) and new baby Ivy end up staying for the festive period.
Mary (Louise Jameson) brings Gus back to the village when she visits him and realises he’s not coping with the new baby after the death of his wife. And according to Mark Charnock, it’s not an easy situation for Marlon to accept.
‘To have them for Christmas is a huge act of will on his part to accept that,’ he told Metro.co.uk.
‘While he will say that he accepts it, it’s like somebody’s just detonated a bomb in his world. It’s kind of like it’s nothing to do with him, but it’s everything to do with him.’
The reason that Marlon is willing to accept having Gus and Ivy in his house is because Ivy was conceived using an embryo that Gus and Rhona had frozen when they were married – so the baby is genetically part of Rhona.
And Marlon absolutely adores Rhona, according to Mark.
‘He worships the ground she walks on. He’s gone through a few marriages and he’s arrived at this person who’s got him through the awful ordeal of his stroke. The kids are happy and he’s in a completely happy relationship. I think he feels they’ve got this perfect unit.’
Marlon’s priority is Rhona, but he’s worried on her behalf.
‘The biggest part of it is he can see how this could go badly wrong for her and I think that’s his priority,’ Mark told us.
‘He can see it more than she can. I don’t think she’s even thinking about how it could go wrong for her. She’s like “Whatever the outcome, I need this now.” She’s telling herself that she’s helping them. I don’t think that’s what’s happening, I think she just wants to be with that child.’
It’s set to be a dramatic time for one of Emmerdale’s most solid couples, with no rights or wrongs in the situation and emotions running high.
‘Marlon’s devotion to Rhona means he knows what she needs, so he’s going to continue to seesaw between one thing and the other – almost within episodes it’ll change,’ Mark observed.
‘What he would hope would be finding some resolution to it. I think he would rather that Gus stepped up as a dad and looked after the baby.’
As to whether Marlon and Rhona can get through this difficult period, Mark isn’t sure yet.
‘I think so,’ he suggested. ‘Who knows – we haven’t had the scripts yet, I might find out next week that they’re not!
‘I would hope that they’ve both been through so much each individually that you’d thing being together now they’d be stronger. But something like this is so heavy and so divisive and almost impossible to imagine the connotations of it. There could be any outcome to this story.
‘I think Marlon wants what’s best for her, but he’s scared of what having that baby in their lives might mean.’
