Emmerdale fans were left unexpectedly heartbroken watching last night’s episode of the ITV soap as they watched a potential romance get ripped away from them in mere moments.

Amid Amy Wyatt (Natalie Ann Jamieson) and Leyla Harding’s (Roxy Shahidi) funerals, flashback scenes aired that confirmed three members of the village are hiding secrets from their friends.

One of them revealed Tracy Shankley (Amy Walsh) has been stealing money from the till in the shop, and another revealed Manpreet Sharma (Rebecca Sarker) has been making money through a site similar to OnlyFans.

The third flashback from last night saw Mary Goskirk (Louise Jameson) talk to Suzy Merton (Martelle Edinborough) about their connection.

Suzy admitted that it feels like she’s in a relationship with the wrong person. This left Mary taken aback, and she told her friend that they could never be together because she’s old enough to be Suzy’s mum.

The age gap didn’t matter to Suzy at all. Moments later, the two characters kissed – just as Leyla walked in on them.

Of course, not long after this happened, Suzy was killed in the limo crash disaster.

The flashback explains why Mary has felt so unbelievably heartbroken in the aftermath, as she comes to terms with the fact the chance of a relationship got taken away from her in a matter of days.

And it’s left many fans of the ITV soap devastated as well.

Taking to social media platform X, one user wrote: ‘We were totally cheated out of emmerdale exploring the wlw age gap relationship with Suzy and Mary!! As much as I adore vanessa her and Suzy weren’t right!! #vanity obvs!! But Mary and Suzy had so much chemistry! Emmerdale you missed a golden opportunity!’.

‘Emmerdale so foul for taking away Mary and Suzy before they’d even begun’, another wrote online, echoing the thoughts.

The flashback moments from last night’s episode also allowed us to learn that Tracy was the person who brought Frankie a birthday present and pretended it was from missing Nate (Jurell Carter).

Elsewhere, just before the instalment ended, Manpreet received a worrying text, confirming someone else in the village knows about her secret photo taking side-hustle.