He intentionally murdered pet animals, so moving on to humans would not be a real surprise.

Although Emma will probably do the deed, before she also leaves.

Why would it be a whodunnit though? I hope it isn't, the Robert one was rubbish. I hope if Emma ploughs a tractor into him, I get to see every moment.

Seriously though, deaths work better if you actually see it happen properly, rather than make them into fake mysteries.

Have they actually said he gets murdered? He might just get caught in some crossfire, trying to save someone else.

The only way I think they could get away with Cain being the killer is if James no longer takes no for an answer with Moira and rapes her. If that happened and Cain found out he would absolutely kill him and most of the audience would probably be cheering him on. It would destroy James's character but who cares, he is leaving anyway and there wasn't much there to destroy in the first place.


Debbie will be back before long though and the whole Debbie/Ross snooze fest will start up again. It's obvious he's been shelved to await her return - yawn.

I would care, if they went down another sensationalist route like this. It'd be the end for me and this soap if they did.

Totally agree

James is not a rapist.

The next departure I am dreading will be Cheryl's

The actress announced on twitter a few weeks ago that her and her long time girlfriend are having a baby. I hope they give her a good exit. I was really hoping for a follow up after those flirty scenes between her and Alfie. But alas, you can't mess with the beautiful gift of a new doggy life.

I think for sure it's to do with Holly's ex drug dealer Dean, he's popped up recently again too. The whole "Final Destination" style stunt week is surely to do with this and paves the way for at least 2 character exits.

No doubt it will link in with the exit of Holly.

Is that why she tried to smother him as a baby? Nothing she does is ever very successful.

You know, I'M m an animal lover but I' m sure there's s a huge difference between killing a dog and killing another human. Serial killers kill animals because they get off on killing - then they move n to humans- but Cain had different reasons. Bad reasons, it's s true but it didn't seem to be about the enjoyment of killing. Dross on the other hand could kill a human without batting an eyelid for cold hard cash

I could sympathise with Emma if she does it. James's cheating with Moira cost her her family and her mental health. Now . The only way I' d sympathise with Dross is was if he was sticking up for Emma.

Why? He has a long-standing hatred for his dad. He' s also shown that he has the capacity to kill for money. If he can kill for money he can certainly kill for revenge because

It takes a special kind of hatred though to kill a parent, maybe long-standing abuse, but cheating? If Ross is made into a patricidal maniac, then I really think there would be no way back for the character, so I guess this kind of storyline all depends on Michael Parr's standing with TPTB.

Absolutely brilliant news, I sensed sunshine shining in some part of the virtual world and I was right. James is being killed off, hurrah.

I actually think it would be a fascinating twist if Finn killed him accidentally and everyone tried to help him cover it up. Or one of his brothers did. I love Finn and it would finally give him some decent, dramatic material to work with.

Might be a Carl King sort of scenario - an argument.

Ross has never even hit his dad before so I doubt he would kill him. If the explanation for Ross killing James is because he has an affair with Moira then it's pathetic. I doubt Ross would even care, he only supported James and Emma getting back together to wind Pete up. Yes, Ross has done evil things but he never actually attempted to kill Pete, he was banking on Andy doing it for him and the second time on the via duct he bottled it. He won't have it in him to do it IMO.

As I was saying though, it could be in the course of an argument. Actually, I thought that Ross in so e way caring about Emma and defending her was a positive and might go some way to explain him being violent to his Dad. He has almost killed other people to get their cash and hadn't t even shown the slightest degree of regret, plus he made a deal with someone to kill his brother, so he's s not far off being able to kill someone in an argument.

Duplicate

Bill Ward was so good in CS but has been dire in ED.

I completely agree. He was a big loss to Coronation Street when they killed him off.
But, in Emmerdale, he must be the most dreary character ever to exist in a soap. The way they have written his character you would think that we are watching some kind of farm documentary rather than a soap. To be honest, I think a farm documentary would probably hold my interest more.

I'm quite looking forward to this, to be honest. I won't miss James, and it'll give all of the other Bartons a nice big juicy storyline to get their teeth into. Probably Cain as well. Exciting. I feel like I've been waiting for it for a really long time as well - one of those weird storylines that Kate Oates started but just kind of dropped and went off in a different direction.

I don't really blame Bill Ward for the iffiness of James tbh, he said he was a bit nervous when he started, and he was really awkward on screen - I laugh when I think about him barging through all those flimsy set doors like John Wayne. But they totally rewrote James's entire character history as well, wiped out his bad history with Ross, and it made him really dull. He was more interesting when they let him be slightly stalkerish instead of trying to pretend he was OK.