Bear Wolf (Joshua Richards) feels like a broken man in Emmerdale.
The beloved character returned to the village in January after spending months on Celia Daniels’ (Jaye Griffiths) farm working as a slave. When he entered his house again, he found Ray Walters (Joe Absolom) attacking Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt).
Bear grabbed Ray and held his neck so hard he ended up dying. Paddy and Dylan Penders (Fred Kettle) were then forced to try and hide Ray’s body, desperate to protect Bear from the police.
Recovering from months of abuse is difficult enough, but Bear has the added trauma of killing the man who kept him captive, who he also thought of as a son. It’s a complete whirlwind of emotions and negative thoughts, it’s no wonder it feels like he’s taking one step forward and ten steps backwards.
As this evening’s episode opened, Paddy discovered that Bear hadn’t slept all night. Yesterday, he went to the Chapel of Rest with Laurel Thomas (Charlotte Bellamy) to say goodbye to Ray, so it was possible that was playing on his mind.
Another thing that was bothering Bear was his injured arm. He hurt it while on the farm, but he was continuously given drugs by Ray afterwards. The problem Bear has now is that even if he thinks he needs painkillers for his arm, he cannot get any.
Manpreet Sharma (Rebecca Sarker) tried to explain this to Bear, pointing out it’s important he doesn’t have anymore of the drugs Ray gave him because it would just feed his addiction.
The alternative of more counselling and over the counter medication wasn’t enough for Bear, so he wandered off and grabbed some beer from the shop to block the pain out instead.
Bear was found at home by Laurel and they chatted about how they both saw a side to Ray that was different to the monster so many others saw.
Bear connected with Ray through trauma, while Laurel loved the version of Ray that probably would’ve existed in this universe if Celia never found him.
They weren’t exactly on the same page, but more reading from the same book.
The chat helped Bear realise that he wasn’t completely on his own, so he told Laurel about how tired he is, and how he’s desperate for something to fix the pain in his arm.
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She really wanted to be able to do more, but all Laurel could do to help was take the crate of beers away from Bear.
Laurel updated Paddy when she saw him in the street a while later, and he wasn’t entirely pleased that she had been interfering again.
While the conversation was taking place, Bear was inside. The poor man was completely consumed with the horror that he’s been through and, after staring at his reflecting in the mirror, he punched the glass and injured his hand.
Tomorrow, Bear takes himself off to A&E in the hope someone will give him the painkillers he’s been craving.
Just how will this play out?