stl29tide

April: (Marlon’s daughter) ran away from home at the end of last year. She had started drinking/partying which people attributed to Ross (who has returned to the show) telling her the truth about how her mom Donna died, but in reality April ran away because she was pregnant. She ended up having a stillbirth while homeless and ended up in the hospital with near fatal hemorrhaging. While being homeless she became friends with a homeless boy, named Dylan, who is gay and a drug addict. He showed up briefly in the village and April convinced Marlon to let him stay with them. Marlon didn’t trust him and stole drugs from the vet’s office to plant them on him. Afterward he felt guilty and offered to pay for him to go to rehab. Dylan ended up covering for him with April and kept the truth about what Marlon did to himself, but Marlon ended up confessing later on after he saw April received a letter from Dylan in rehab. *This storyline is going to continue in some way as the character of Dylan is set to return.

Quick update on Ross: He returned last year and revealed that him and Rebecca had broken up, and then she died and custody of Seb was given to some aunt of Rebecca’s that she was apparently close to and no one ever knew about. Upon coming back into the village, he got into a relationship with a woman named Steph, but she broke up with him after being unable to deal with trauma she was going through. More on her family below (it does involve Aaron). Also, just recently it was revealed that Ross has a half brother named Lewis. Emma, his mom, secretly had him, but no one knew he existed. Lewis is also gay and autistic.

Valentine’s Day Tragedy: Two groups (one female, one male) decided to go out on the town, however, Mandy ended up in the boys limo and Liam in the girl’s because Liam wanted to propose to Chas. Caleb (Cain and Chas’s half brother) was driving the limo with the men and Charity was driving the limo with the women when suddenly Charity saw Noah, her son, looking dazed in the middle of the road. She swerved to avoid hitting him and ended up on the frozen lake where the ice started to crack. As a result of the accident, Liam had a serious head injury, Suzy (Vanessa’s girlfriend) instantly died, Amy (Matty’s wife and Kerry’s daughter) died in the hospital from hypothermia, and Leyla (Jacob’s mom) died en route to the hospital in the ambulance.

Jacob/Sarah: Jacob and Sarah had been dating. Jacob wants to become a doctor and has been working in the ER which he’s been struggling with. After the accident he was left grieving Leyla and decided to break up with Sarah because he doesn’t want to love and lose anybody else. (Sarah has Fanconi Anemia so the life expectancy is much shorter). Sarah was left heartbroken but then started to move on with a guy named Kammy (they’re currently not together though). She also thought she might have been pregnant when Jacob broke up with her, but she wasn’t. She has been looking into having a baby on her own though, and in doing so, she just found out she has cervical cancer. Currently Jacob is the only one that knows.

Joe Tate & Everyone: Oh boy. Joe Tate returned to the show, but it was made clear to the audience that he had some sort of illness he was hiding from everyone. Upon his return he also started an affair with Dawn, Billy’s wife. It soon became evident that whatever was going on with Joe involved him wanting something from Noah. He started giving his business bad reviews and as a result offered to help Noah by setting him up with a job in Dubai. Ultimately Noah decided to turn it down. Cue Valentine’s Day tragedy with a dazed Noah in the middle of the road. We later find out that Joe needed a kidney transplant and he had drugged Noah in order to get him tested to see if he was a match (he wasn’t). But basically instead of making sure he was delivered safely home, he got dropped off in the middle of nowhere. So Joe’s actions led to the deaths of Leyla, Amy, and Suzy. Side note about Suzy: she was in a relationship with Vanessa, but kissed Rhona’s mom Mary, who she had feelings for. Vanessa found out about this after Suzy’s death and that’s what the beef between her and Mary (and sometimes Rhona) is. Back to Joe now. When Joe couldn’t get a kidney transplant from Noah, he decided to test Caleb, who is his uncle from the Tate side. Joe tricked Manpreet (town Doctor) into giving him a sample of Caleb’s blood. Once he confirmed Caleb was a match, he had someone attack him. He was supposed to have just been knocked out but instead was stabbed. Joe stole his kidney and had his transplant. Caleb almost died but ended up surviving and was dropped off at a hospital. He knew he lost a kidney but it was thought to be from the attack and he didn’t know the extent of what had happened to him. Finally he figured out the truth, however, at the same time Joe was also figuring out that the father of Caleb’s wife Ruby, may have not left town like people assume, but was actually killed by Caleb (this is wrong - it was Ruby, more on that below, but it was close enough to the truth to where they basically both agreed to keep each other’s secrets). With that said, the rest of the town now knows the truth about Joe being responsible for what happened on Valentine’s Day because Noah found out and told everyone. Joe ended up going through a window (he was pushed by Dawn which he remembered and forgave her for, but the police’s lead suspect was Noah), so in order for Joe to avoid punishment for everything he did, he told Noah to take back his statement or Noah would basically go down for what happened to him. If Noah takes back his statement, Joe will tell the police he slipped. He also gave Noah money, so Noah took back his statement (much to the anger of everyone in town). Dawn also avoids punishment for pushing Joe, and now Joe and Dawn are in a relationship because Dawn is an idiot.

Ruby/Caleb/Steph/Anthony/Aaron/John/Chas/Cain/Moira/Nate/Tracey:

Moira had a brain tumor no one knew about that was causing her to act erratic/forget things. During one of these episodes she tried to kiss Nate, Cain’s son. Caleb saw and exposed this. This came after Caleb had, had an affair with Tracey, Nate’s wife. Cain thought something was going on between Moira and Nate again (they slept together years ago) so he kicked off. After Tracey’s affair and Cain turning his back on him for the Moira situation, Nate decided to leave town for a new job. Since then his family thinks he cut himself off from everyone, including his child as he hasn't been sending any monetary support for her which has led to Tracey being broke and even stealing money from Eric for a period of time. What they all don’t know is that Nate actually wanted to make things work with Tracey but he never got the chance because John killed him. John dumped his body in the lake which Amy saw during the Valentine’s Day tragedy when she went under the water. She tried to tell people when she briefly woke up in the hospital but they didn’t understand and then she died. The body that was discovered this past week was his, not Anthony’s, so that’ll come out shortly.

Anthony, the father of Ruby, Caleb’s wife, shows up in town and it is eventually revealed that he used to sexually abuse Ruby when she was a teenager. Chas figures it out first, recognizing the signs from Aaron’s past, and then tells Caleb. It is also revealed through a paternity test that their daughter Steph is really Anthony’s daughter and the product of incest. There are only select people who know the truth about Steph's paternity (Ruby, Caleb, Cain, Moira, Chas, Aaron, John, Steph, and Ross). Jai doesn’t know about Steph’s paternity but he does know about Ruby’s sexual abuse. Anthony and Aaron get into a confrontation and Anthony begins to push Aaron regarding Ruby and his abuse, saying how they both wanted it etc. Aaron ends up losing it and beats Anthony. He goes home and ends up taking John back to the site where they discover Anthony dead. Thinking it was due to Aaron, John covers it up, but it’s later revealed that after Aaron left Anthony, Ruby came in and was the one that killed him. The same people that know about the sexual abuse are also the same that know about the murder (with the exception of Ross and Jai - they don’t know Anthony is dead. Joe believes Anthony is dead but thinks Caleb did it because he was abusive to Ruby but doesn’t know it was specifically sexual).

Also as a side note: After Anthony first came to town, Ruby was a mess. Cain was also a mess thinking Moira was going to die during her brain surgery. They ended up sleeping together. It didn’t mean anything, but Anthony found out, told Caleb, and then he exposed it in front of other people so Cain had to tell Moira. Both couples worked it out and are still together, but the relationship between Caleb and Cain has still been strained, though it’s gotten better since Caleb lost his kidney.

John:

Showed up into town and was a hookup that Aaron met on an app. Was eventually revealed to be a long-lost son of Jack that he had after Robert’s mother died. At first he didn’t want anything to do with Victoria and planned on leaving town, but ended up staying for Aaron who he was falling for. Basically everyone thinks he’s the greatest cause he’s constantly saving people. Some people he actually helped without hurting them. Some people he hurt in order to save them. He has a MAJOR hero complex and is a complete psycho. I’m just going to give a rundown of everything he’s done that I can remember off the top of my head.

His ex-fiancée, Aiden, was in the military with him and he was “injured” on patrol when he was alone with John and ended up in a coma. We don’t really know what specifically John did to him but it’s implied he did do something to him as Aiden just recently had woken up and John was going to kill him to prevent him from ever telling anyone what he did, but he couldn’t go through with it at the last minute and then Aiden had a heart attack. He was going to let him die, but then his hero complex kicked in again and he pulled the alarm and started CPR. He’s alive but is in a coma again.

Drugged Nate to “save” him, but ended up killing him instead and then threw his body in the lake.

Drugged Chas to “save” her and then made it look like Liam’s ex-girlfriend, Ella, was responsible.

Attacked Liam from behind to get revenge on him for “humiliating” him for missing a diagnosis at work and continued to frame Liam’s ex-girlfriend for the injury.

Put Jacob into an anaphylactic shock to “save” him and to also win Liam’s favor back.

Messed with the slurry tank at the Farm in order to frame/get payback on Mack, who didn't like him, and to also “help” with the cleanup. Ended up poisoning a few residents, including his own nephew (Victoria’s son) after it got into the town’s drinking water.

After Aaron got mad that Mack said he wouldn’t be his best man anymore (everyone hated him for the slurry tank incident so he thought it would be best to not be involved in the wedding), John tampered with a trailer Moira was working on so it would collapse on her, and then got Mack up to the farm so he [Mack] could save Moira and people would forgive him so he’d agree to be Aaron’s best man again.

Also important to note that John has lied a lot. Obvious about his crimes, yes, but he also lied about Aiden to Aaron and told him he was dead and what his funeral was like etc. Eventually Aaron found out that Aiden was alive and in a coma but John basically gave Aaron a story about how he felt guilt for not being able to save him and he was never going to wake up and all this other stuff. Idk. His go to seems to be to get mad and then make people feel sorry so they forgive him. He also does NOT like to be reprimanded. For a while Mack hated John and it didn’t seem like Liam liked him either but now they both seem to be okay with him, so unfortunately there isn’t anyone left in town that doesn’t think he isn’t a good guy.

Other random village bits:

Eric has Parkinson's and was scammed out of all his money. Recently Brenda and Cathy went on a 3-month cruise, but I believe that the actress who plays Brenda is leaving the show for good so I don't think she'll be coming back. Paddy and Mandy are still a couple. Rhona and Marlon are still a couple (but boy did that get rocky for a while). Liv's former husband Vinny is with Gaby now. Victoria is single. She was dating David and then she got with his son, Jacob, for a while and that caused David to leave (gone for good). Belle is also single. She was in an abusive marriage with Tom King, Jimmy's nephew and after a long time finally got some justice with him going to prison (unfortunately it wasn't a very long sentence).