Hawley

All hell will break loose in bombshell scenes as Robert Sugden goes above and beyond to save his ex-husband Aaron Dingle from John Sugden’s grasp – but things will go awry.

Two lives are left hanging in the balance next week and it may mean trouble for Robert Sugden as he’s left to grapple alone with the aftermath.

Ryan Hawley’s Robert Sugden goes all out to protect his ex-husband Aaron Dingle from John Sugden’s clutches in Emmerdale – even if it means putting himself back on the firing line.

“His suspicions are renewed when he hears Tracy talking to Charity,” says Ryan. “She says there’s something more going on. He then finds out that Aaron and John are away at this cottage. He’s worried about Aaron, who’s in danger. That’s his primary focus.”

Aaron (Danny Miller) has been torn between love and loyalty in recent months. John (Oliver Farnworth) offered him security but Robert’s return to the village reopened old wounds – and old passions.

But from the moment he met his half-brother John, Robert sensed trouble. “He thinks there are too many things that don’t add up,” Ryan says, “He’s always had the suspicion there’s something wrong about John.”

John, who has blood on his hands from Nate’s death and Mackenzie’s disappearance, knows Robert is circling. To keep his crimes under wraps, he isolates Aaron and tightens his grip.

But when Robert tracks them down with help from Eric Pollard, the façade breaks wide open. Robert accuses John of murder, triggering an explosive confrontation.

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“He suspects that John is to blame for Nate’s murder,” Ryan says. “Robert gets banged out in one go. He’s not very good at fighting.” The drama escalates in the woods, as Robert regains consciousness and gives chase. Paranoia then collides with betrayal. “John instantly thinks that Aaron’s been lying to him,” Ryan says.

“He knows that Aaron and Robert have had an affair so he instantly suspects there’s more betrayal. Then John comes up with his own survival instinct plan.”

That plan turns deadly. As truths about Nate and Mackenzie emerge, John drags Aaron into his spiral – literally. In a shock move, John pulls Aaron with him down a gorge, leaving Robert horrified.

“There’s so much going on,” Ryan says, “They’re on the edge of a cliff, there’s a revelation about Mack and another about Nate. It’s a very perplexing situation. He approaches the gorge and looks over. And he sees two lifeless-looking bodies at the bottom.”

But the nightmare doesn’t stop there. For Robert, who only walked free on parole in May after serving time for Lee Posner’s murder, the fallout could be catastrophic.

“I don’t think he realises at that moment,” Ryan says. “It’s only later in the hospital that people start accusing him.” Could the accusations send Robert straight back to prison?

Behind the scenes, the intense stunt work tested everyone involved. Filming the gorge scenes took a gruelling three days. But Ryan reveled in the challenge. “It’s fun to see people do cool things and make the scenes look great,” he says.

For Ryan, who returned to Emmerdale after six years of absence, this storyline has been worth the wait. “I’m very much enjoying it,” he says, “I get to work with everyone.”

And while Robert’s future hangs by a fragile thread, John’s fate seems much darker. “It’s a great climax, a great ending to the story of this serial killer,” he says, “I read every single scene in it all the way through. I loved it.” Are the walls finally closing in on John?

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SAN DIEGO — Sydney Chandler has wanted to attend San Diego Comic-Con as a fan for years.

So it’s “surreal” that the actor’s first experience with the annual pop culture expo is to promote her upcoming FX series “Alien: Earth.” Chandler stars in the “Alien” prequel as Wendy, a young girl whose consciousness has been transferred to an android.

“To be able to do it in this capacity is just mind-blowing,” she tells The Times in advance of the show’s Hall H premiere on Friday. “It’s emotional because we worked on this for so long and I learned so much. … I’m kind of at a loss of words.”

She does have words of appreciation, though, including for what she’s learned from her character.

“Her journey of finding out how to hold her own and stand on her own two feet taught me so much,” says Chandler. “I’m an overthinker. I’m an anxious person. I would have run so fast. I would not be as brave as her, but she taught me … that it’s OK to just stand on your own two feet, and that’s enough. That’s powerful.”

Even before the show’s Hall H panel, fans have gathered on the sidewalk outside of the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego to catch a glimpse of Chandler and her “Alien: Earth” cast mates Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin and Babou Ceesay, along with creator Noah Hawley and executive producer David Zucker, on their short trek to the bus that would transport them to the convention center for the show’s world premiere.

On the ride over, Hawley betrays no nerves about people seeing the first episode.

“I really think, in a strange way, it plays for all ages because it is about growing up on some level,” says the showrunner. “But it’s also ‘Alien,’ and it is a meditation on power and corporate power. ”

Huddled together on the bus with Lawther and Blenkin, Ceesay is surprised to learn that this is the first time attending San Diego Comic-Con for all three. There’s plenty of good-natured ribbing as they talk about the early interviews they’ve completed at the event.

“I just sort of want to make jokes with you all the time,” says Lawther as he looks towards his cast mates. “I find it quite giddy in the experience, and I had to remind myself that I’m a professional.”

“Sometimes the British sarcasm instinct just kicks in,” Blenkin adds.

Their playful dynamic continues as they joke about crashing Ceesay’s other panel, and also backstage at Hall H as they try to sneak up on each other in the dark.

After the panel, the cast is whisked away for video interviews and signing posters at a fan meet-and-greet at a booth on the exhibit floor. (“Timothy, you’re the man!” shouts a fan passing by.) Later, Hawley, Chandler and Ceesay will hit the immersive “Alien: Earth” activation where they will explore the wreckage of a crashed ship.

“It’s such a safe space for people who just enjoy cinema and enjoy film,” Chandler says of Comic-Con. “And that’s me. I’m a complete nerd for all this stuff, so just to be around that group — it reminds me of why I love film so much in the first place.”

OK, I’ll say it. I’m sick of superheroes. I blame the Marvel Cinematic Universe (36 movies and counting over 17 years) and the DC Extended Universe (43 movies and counting, mostly since the late 1970s). Maybe Earth’s not big enough for two universes. They’re running pretty thin these days, down to rebooting reboots, making sequels for prequels and squeezing every ounce from the intellectual property tube to fill out streaming platform minutes.

But there’s always Superman. The Krypton-born alien, orphaned, sent off into space for survival and then raised by adoptive parents in Kansas. He’s now been with American pop culture for 10 decades (eight in film). Despite an outfit modeled after a circus strongman, he’s become a durable, transcendent symbol of the ultimate immigrant and somehow a simultaneous embodiment of “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”

Superman’s the classic American good guy, and so this weekend’s opening of the new “Superman” with David Corenswet is a great time to think about the real good guys and gals in American life — that is, if you can find any. Where are all the good guys and gals in America? What qualifies someone for the title these days?

The idea has definitely shifted. It’s as if by sheer screen volume the fake superheroes overwhelmed the public consciousness. Superheroes are dialed up so high we can’t hear what real heroes sound like anymore. A 2008 poll in Britain found almost a quarter thought Winston Churchill was fake, while a majority of Britons believed Sherlock Holmes was real.

We’ve become confused: We prefer to watch fake heroes on screen rather than expect real ones to emerge in life. And so the fake ones become the only kind of hero we recognize.

The historian Daniel Boorstin described this transition from heroism to fame in his 1961 book “The Image.” He noted that heroes in American history were typically known for great public contribution through immense difficulty and danger. It didn’t matter much what they looked like because their deeds had saved lives and mattered to so many.

But pictures and movies changed everything in the 20th century. Heroes became celebrities. We traded away enduring contributions to the public good in exchange for flimsy, flashy fame that works for a paycheck. Value over values; money over all.

This isn’t hard to see. Look at how college sports has been conquered by contracts and name-image-likeness deals. How law firms kowtowed to an administration making unprecedented demands. How media heavyweights keep bending knees to the same. And let’s not get started with social media “influencers” except to say that doing the right and honest thing has been swept aside by the twin tsunamis of popularity and the Almighty Buck.

Where’s our real truth, our real justice, our real American way?

Not in Congress. The “Big Beautiful Bill” is a perfect example. It might take a Mt. Rushmore makeover to honor the profound contributions to cowardice in the votes surrounding this act. Rep. Jeff Crank (R-Colo.) couldn’t vote fast enough to add trillions to the national debt despite arguing, less than a year ago, that Congress is “turning a blind eye to this $35 trillion in debt,” that it’s “unsustainable” and that “we have to get our fiscal house in order, and we have to do this for our children and our grandchildren.”

Or Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), long-time fiscal hawk on the debt, who repeatedly railed against the Big Beautiful Bill’s deficit spending in the final stretch. And then he voted for it.

Or Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), known for saying “we must ignore calls to cut Medicaid” because “slashing health insurance for the working poor” would be “both morally and politically suicidal.” That was in May. But come July, Hawley voted to cut Medicaid.

The final vote came down to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). In a mid-June town hall, she said, “I have made clear very early on that we cannot move forward with a bill that makes cuts to Medicaid.” And yet, despite the fact that nearly 40,000 Alaskans (more than 5% of the state’s population) will likely lose their healthcare coverage as a direct result of the bill, Murkowski caved.

Sarah Longwell, founder and publisher of the Bulwark, spared nothing in her criticism of Murkowski. She wrote that this one action “defines our pathetic political moment,” embodying:

“Selfishness: I’m taking care of me and mine, the rest of you can pound sand;

Lack of accountability: I know the bill is bad, hopefully someone else will fix it;

Cowardice: I’m scared of Trump and his voters and need to go-along to get along with my GOP colleagues;

Moral rot: I know the difference between right and wrong, and actively chose wrong.”

Not exactly Superman. Sounds more like Lex Luthor at his most self-serving and callous.

We don’t need someone faster than a speeding bullet in the House. We don’t need senators leaping tall buildings in a single bound. We don’t need Superman.

But we do need our Clark Kents and Lois Lanes to step up. We do need our real heroes right now. Maybe Crank or Roy or Hawley or Murkowski will see the movie this weekend. Maybe they’ll find some courage for the next vote.

Maybe.

ML Cavanaugh is the author of the forthcoming book “Best Scar Wins: How You Can Be More Than You Were Before.” @MLCavanaugh