[globule]

[robrondingles]

It feels like they’re so close to touching upon something of genuine worth and depth with Serena bringing Aaron’s trauma over John to the surface but considering the direction that absolutely everything has gone so far this year I have no real expectation that it will go anywhere important so what now 😭

[alright-fuckhead]

Emmerdale | 02.07.2026

[rcbertsugden]

Serena knows about John, a killer. Serena is asking questions about crimes. Serena knows a guy who was in prison for 20 years and has been in and out since then. Serena had a job working at a busy pub. Serena knows how to pull on people's heartstrings and get them to offload their darkest secrets to a stranger.

All of this adds up to her being a journalist who has reported on Kev's crimes in the past and used her position as a barmaid to get local news stories. Presumably she's been sent to the village to use her connection to her family to launch a major investigation into the village where serious crimes are happening all the time - maybe it involves following in the line of her distant relative and writing a book.

She's going to be found with some of her notes or previous articles on her phone that she's using as research.

[thelovetheystole]

A collection of Robert related promo shots.

[bobbie-robron]

Emmerdale announces four huge summer spoilers as secrets and lies explode

"It's set to be one of our most explosive summers."

[dingleautomotives]

EMMERDALE | May 29, 2026

[bobbie-robron]

Happy one year anniversary of Robert’s return 🎉

[rcbertsugden]

Robert's doing okay. Didn't ask. I know, but whilst we're talking about the one.

[dingleautomotives]

[robrondingles]

At this point I’m just glad we’re moving on from this ID mess and that with what’s coming up we might actually see Robron at the centre of their own story instead of being plot devices for everyone else’s.

[dinglesugden-af]

Sarah’s going to be involved with The Sugden’s?

Arrivals for both Sugden’s and Tates?

Kev is leaving Robron alone?

I’m sat give it to me 😍😍

[robrondingles]

All in all I enjoyed today’s episode, but I can’t help but feel like the prospect of Robert returning to prison wasn’t given nearly enough emotional weight.

I get that Moira’s trial put a time pressure on everything and the dialogue was mostly hitting the right beats (I particularly enjoyed Aaron’s comment about so much time being wasted with John and Kev because boy don’t we all feel that), but I wanted them to lean more into the desperation of everything slipping through their fingers again in the same way it did last time.

The significance of Robert choosing to go back to a place that caused him so much trauma and suffering after months of clumsily trying to rebuild a life for himself, Aaron and their family. Of Aaron back to drifting through life without his other half, consigned to prison visits and waiting for him no matter what, left to hope that Robert will even let him wait this time, because it always ends with them together. There is no other option. So much of this was there (the emotions of it all felt most palpable to me in the bed scene and that barely had any dialogue so I’ll put that largely down to Danny and Ryan’s performance), it just felt a bit like every time they touched the surface it was all yanked out of our reach before we could delve into it any further.

I suppose that’s what happens when this has far more to do with freeing Moira than it does about Robert and Aaron themselves. It’s a plot device more than it actually is their story. And if I’m being generous, there are narrative ways to explain the approach they took. Robert’s despondency isn’t exactly a massive stretch when he has such little self worth, when there’s probably a part of him that never fully believed he deserved the happiness he was trying to take hold of. I can understand why Aaron is so in denial about reliving his worst nightmare that he’s hyper-focused on avoiding it and finding another way around it rather than lingering in his devastation.

Robert’s continual apologies and Aaron’s continual attempts to prolong their separation really worked for me, but with so much still left unsaid about the six years they lost each other (and how that still hangs over their heads in so many ways) this felt like the perfect opportunity for what’s unsaid to finally be said.

[sugdun]

29.05.2025 vs. 12.04.2026

[robrondingles]

I’ll wait for you. And you don’t get a say this time.

[robrondingles]

The thing about Robert is that even in his selflessness, in his unflinching devotion to protecting the people he loves, he is still inherently selfish.

Everything he does is for them, but never on their terms. He cuts off and divorces Aaron because he doesn't want him to put his life on hold, despite the fact that in doing so he leaves him with his own life sentence. He doesn't consult Vic about Joe's blackmail, despite the fact his actions implicate her, that he's playing with her freedom.

He does those things out of love, because he feels like he has no choice (in some ways doesn't), but he also gives Vic and Aaron no choice either, detonates the bomb and leaves them wading through the debris. Sometimes it feels like they're just waiting for the next explosion.

And it's so important to understand that his intentions are good, he's not the same man who was once only out for himself, and he's right to call Vic out on that because she still insists on treating him like he is. It's a beautiful, tragic, messy nuance that he's so desperate for people to understand.

But in some ways he still operates like he is on his own. He's still out here trying to carry something on his shoulders that he can't even fully grasp in the first place, trying to control something he's not actually in control of.

It's such a deliciously complicated, heart-wrenching tension and I just want to grab him and shake him by his beautiful arms and tell him to stop taking everything on his own.

[robrondingles]

Bringing this back because it feels very relevant to today’s episode. I think it’s worth bearing in mind that in this particular instance, Aaron has just committed to stepping up for his family, but both by virtue of him choosing Robert and simply by him and Robert moving through life as a pair, he has unknowingly been implicated in something that has caused a significant amount of harm to them. So Aaron himself is judged based on Robert’s actions because they’re seen as a unit, despite the fact that Robert doesn’t always operate as one when the going gets tough.

And that’s the crux not only of this argument but of most conflict between Robron. Robert sees unburdening Aaron as an act of protection, while Aaron sees it as an act of betrayal. All Aaron wants is to carry that burden together, and that ultimately supersedes any anger he feels towards Robert’s (unwilling) part to play in Moira’s impending prison sentence.

[sugdun]