Emmerdale spoilers: Serial killer Meena’s return ‘confirmed’ as Ella’s connection ‘exposed’ at last

Exactly what is the connection between Ella Forster (Paula Lane) and Emmerdale’s most notorious serial killer, Meena Jutla (Paige Sandhu)?

Meena killed Leanna Cavanagh (Mimi Slinger), Liam Cavanagh (Jonny McPherson)’s daughter, by pushing her off a bridge, as well as claiming the lives of Andrea Tate (Anna Nightingale) and Ben Tucker (Simon Lennon) during her reign of terror.

She also held Billy (Jay Kontzle) and Dawn Fletcher (Olivia Bromley) at gunpoint on the day of their wedding and this was something Ella was previously very interested in finding out about when she quizzed the couple about the experience.

Fans also spotted Ella’s reference to a friend of hers who was a nurse – like Meena – when she was talking to Liam.

Apart from this and the odd mention of an uncle, she hasn’t really opened up about her past or her family and friends, so any mention she does make is significant.

In Tuesday (May 14)’s episode, these suspicions that Ella has some connection with Meena, and what happened to Leanna, seemed to be confirmed.

Ella had spent the night with Liam at Tenant’s following their successful date in the scrapyard. She came downstairs to find a note that Liam had popped out to get croissants.

Ella looked relaxed and happy at this point, but when she looked around the room she spotted a framed photo of Leanna. She picked it up and sat down in a chair to look at it.

She was interrupted by Liam coming back and she moved to the table to have breakfast, leaving the photo on the coffee table. Liam was obviously over the moon with how things were going between them, but in his usual awkward way he kept apologising in case he was being a bit much.

Ella told him to go with the flow, but as he was talking on a couple of occasions she glanced back at the photo of Leanna.

Then Liam started talking about his daughter, saying that Ella’s spontaneity was ‘refreshing. Especially after… Leanna.’ He said she put him at ease and made him feel more like himself than he could remember.

‘Not that I’ll ever be the same again, not since Meena stole Leanna from me,’ he said – and at these words Ella’s expression changed and she said she had to do something and dashed off, leaving Liam wondering what had happened.

Ella had seemed to be OK with the mentions of Leanna, but was it Meena’s name that made her react strangely?

Later Liam found Ella in the Woolpack knocking back the wine.

She apologised for her earlier behaviour and said it was because she’d never been that close to someone before and it takes a lot for her to open up. They agreed to take their relationship ‘one step at a time.’

Prior to that Mandy Dingle (Lisa Riley) had found Ella sitting in the shelter and asked her what was up, and Ella said she’d felt ‘awkward’ when Liam opened up about Leanna.

Mandy thought it showed Liam trusted her and wasn’t a problem. ‘You’ve both got baggage, so what?’ she pointed out.

Though of course we still don’t really know what kind of baggage Ella has and what her true intentions are.