Emmerdale viewers took to social media on Thursday evening during the soap’s hour-long episode to beg soap bosses for a major change to the ongoing John Sugden/Nate Robinson murder storyline.

As long-time fans will know, John accidentally killed Nate in September last year when he gave him a sedative that caused a fatal allergic reaction. Hero-wannabe John had intended to save the bruised and battered Nate, but after his death he dumped his body in the village lake. Nate was only recently discovered, almost nine months later, due to the area being dredged.

Now, a panicked John has been trying to frame Nate’s ex-wife Tracy for his murder by planting his phone in her daughter Frankie’s playhouse. It didn’t take police long to discover the device and it has all played exactly into John’s hands. In Thursday evening’s episode, detectives arrested the mum-of-one for the murder of her ex-husband.

While many viewers were delighted to see Tracy get framed for the murder, lots of people took to social media to beg Emmerdale writers to get to the bottom of things as soon as possible.

One user penned: “Emmerdale you’ve lost your way – get this storyline starring #John wrapped up pretty sharpish now, I’m sick of it!” Another person wrote: “Need John to be rumbled very soon before my head explodes.” And someone else wrote: “Can we get rid of John already please Emmerdale writers. So sick of this boring s**t now.”

On Wednesday (11 June), police hauled Tracy to the station for a chat where they revealed that they had found Nate’s phone and that there had been unusual activity on Nate’s bank cards. Tracy confessed that she had been using them to buy their daughter Frankie things but the fraud admission left detectives on the case suspecting her even more of murder.

During Thursday evening’s episode, Tracy, played by Amy Walsh, asked her sister Vanessa to give her an alibi for the day Nate was supposedly murdered.

She told her sibling: “I’ve never had a nightmare as bad as this.” Vanessa tried to comfort her, but her acting skills weren’t up to scratch when she tried to back up Tracy’s alibi after she lied to the police. After police told her they didn’t believe what she or Vanessa had said, Tracy was arrested and hauled off to the station.

Emmerdale airs on weeknights at 7.30pm on ITV1, and streams on ITVX.