ITV Emmerdale fans slam ‘boring as hell’ characters and beg for serial killer to return and murder them all

DEADWEIGHT characters have become a pet peeve for TV watchers as many believe too many of them are roaming the Dales.

Multiple Emmerdale viewers have taken to , wishing a dearly missed serial killer would return to do some tidying up.

The ITV soap kicked off the new year with a tragic loss as Heath Hope succumbed to fatal injuries after a joyride gone wrong.

While the drama continues, tearing two of the village's biggest families apart and pitting them against one another, viewers of the Yorkshire-based program have been scratching their heads as they wonder why other characters have been standing on the side-lines for months and continue to do so.

The conversation began on Reddit with one poster focusing their attention on village hunk Billy Fletcher, played by Jay Kontzle.

Billy has mostly been standing away from the limelight in recent weeks, despite welcoming his first child with his wife Dawn Taylor.

Prior to the happy event, he was involved a brutal feud with villainous Aaron Dingle who couldn't move on from their shared past behind bars.

"I find he’s the least interesting, dull character on the show", the viewer commented on Reddit before adding: "If he wasn’t married to Dawn I would not even understand why he’s there."

This prompted other Emmerdale fans to start a debate around which of the Dales men needed to be given the boot and Jurell Carter's Nate Robinson was thrown into the mix, along with Matty Barton aka Ash Palmisciano.

"Nate is just a big, boring, monotonous oaf", one of them claimed as a second agreed: "I feel the same about Nate."

A third pointed out: "Don’t forget Matty who exists solely to be snapped at by Amy."

Several other characters in the likes of Victoria Sugden (Isabel Hodgins), Ethan Anderson (Emile John) and Cathy Hope (Gabrielle Dowling) were also mentioned.

Soon enough, another viewer responded with a solution - what if Emmerdale bosses brought back an infamous but beloved serial killer to purge the eponymous village of any characters deemed unworthy of sticking around in the Dales.

"That’s why Meena should have killed him off. Now that would have been deffo interesting", the soap watcher commented.

Played by Paige Sandhu, Meena was thrown in prison in mid-2022 after being sentenced to a minimum of 75 years behind bars.

During her reign of terror, the sinister nurse murdered a total of three people in Emmerdale and two off-screen characters - her former best friend Nadine Butler and her own father, which she admitted to during a showdown with her older sister Manpreet Sharma at the end of her trial.

Meena came close to ending the lives of Dawn Taylor (Olivia Bromley) and Billy Fletcher on their wedding day in February, 2022, and she even managed to shoot Leyla Harding (Roxy Shahidi) who had tried to come to their rescue.

Since her incarceration, many fans of the long-running program have been hopeful to see her break out of prison to wreak more havoc in Emmerdale.

In July, 2023, she was suspected of having killed Rishi Sharma after he was found dead at the bottom of his staircase on the day of his son Jai's wedding.

But with fans continually pleading with bosses to plan a comeback for the serial killer, Emmerdale boss Jane Hudson decided to bring closure to viewers shortly after Meena's exit.

During a chat with , the producer revealed Meena's time in the Dales had well and truly come to an end.

"Once you’ve done a story as big as Meena’s story, you have to know when to bring it to a close."

"I think we played it to its fullest and it was absolutely brilliant, and Paige was absolutely brilliant – and Meena is now behind bars."

However, as Caleb Miligan, Cain and Aaron Dingle all proved in late 2023, anything is possible, particularly unexpected returns.

Never say never?

Emmerdale airs weeknights from 7.30pm on ITV.