Emmerdale villain makes final exit – and it’s pretty bog standard
John Sugden’s (Oliver Farnworth) reign over the Emmerdale village has officially come to an end.
The character was introduced to us in 2024, when Aaron Dingle (Danny Miller) found him stuck at the side of the road.
The two men slept together, and then found each other again when John’s van broke and was forced to ask Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) for some help.
John was confirmed as Victoria Sugden’s (Isabel Hodgins) long-lost brother and due to the complete lack of family she had in the village, she was keen for her new sibling to stick around.
John didn’t really want to, but found himself slotting into the community nicely when he began making friends, seeing Aaron, and starting a job at the surgery.
The medic had a weird vibe about him from the very beginning, but his true nature wasn’t confirmed until 2025. Through flashback scenes, we learnt that John had a hero complex, which meant he felt the need to orchestrate deadly situations so he could swoop in, save the person involved, and get praise after.
Situations with the likes of Jacob Gallagher (Joe-Warren Plant) and Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter) worked in John’s favour, but there was a time his plan ended in tragedy.
After finding Nate Robinson (Jurell Carter) battered and bruised, John injected him with a drug, but he had a bad reaction to it and died. John threw Nate’s body into the river, and it wasn’t found for months.
As John grew desperate to keep his murderous secret, he became more and more unhinged. In the summer, he moved out of the Dales to a remote cottage with Aaron which, in a weird twist, turned out to be his childhood home.
At the same time, John was keeping Mackenzie Boyd (Lawrence Robb) hostage in a bunker near his house. Mack had discovered the truth about John, but was kept underground for weeks as he was adamant he wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer.
After the showdown on the gorge, which saw John throw himself and Aaron off a cliff, Aaron was placed in a coma. As soon as he woke up, Aaron confirmed John’s true nature, which eventually saw Mackenzie freed from his nightmare.
With help from Caleb Miligan (William Ash), who was trapped in a blackmail plan, John went on the run. He disappeared for a couple of months, but made his way back to the village in December to try and get revenge on Robert Sugden (Ryan Hawley), believing the man needed to be dead so he could be with Aaron.
History repeated itself this time around, which meant John’s plan didn’t work. He was caught by Aaron, who forced him to drive to the police station.
Life behind bars was the last thing John wanted, so he created a diversion by taking his hands of the wheel and asking Aaron to take control instead. This led to them crashing into a car that was being driven by the Swains from Coronation Street. It set the scene for Corriedale, which saw Victoria find her brother in the woods for one final showdown.
In a poetic or ironic twist, depending on how you’ve viewed this story, John died the same way Nate did – by having a drug injected into him, reacting badly to it, and dying.
The guilt Victoria has felt over killing John has completely consumed her. While Robert and Aaron have tried to help her move forward, all Vic has thought about ever since it happened was that she took a man’s life.
That, and the fact the situation with Moira Dingle (Natalie J Robb) would’ve played out differently if she didn’t kill her brother.
In this evening’s episode, Vic was at Mill Cottage flat picking up a suitcase ahead of her flight to Portugal. She could sense Aaron was acting strangely, and then soon discovered why.
Aaron turned around and presented Vic with John’s ashes, explaining they were dropped on the doorstep that morning. No-one wanted them, but Aaron was down as John’s next of kin still, which meant he didn’t get a choice.
In the pub, Aaron and Robert pondered over what to do with them. Tracy Metcalfe (Amy Walsh) then arrived, and knew there was only one place the ashes needed to go.
In the pub toilets, Tracy took great pleasure in tipping John’s ashes down the loo. She told Robert she’s barely felt any happiness since John murdered Nate, and getting rid of the man who killed her husband in a pretty grim way suited her just fine.
John’s storyline in Emmerdale ending by the flushing of a toilet certainly wasn’t on my 2026 bingo card, but maybe that really is what he deserved.
Considering this was someone who deliberately created horrific and chaotic situations because he wanted to be known as a local hero, he would’ve wanted to finish his time in the village in a blaze of glory.
Instead, there were no fireworks — just porcelain and pipes. For a man obsessed with controlling the narrative, it’s fitting that his final chapter was reduced to background noise.