Joe Tate’s (Ned Porteous) health appears to be getting worse in Emmerdale.

Shortly after he returned over Christmas, Joe was seen in a great deal of pain. He took painkillers to help ease his symptoms, and has seemingly been managing his problem by doing this ever since.

Yesterday, Joe found a distraction in the form of sleeping with Dawn Taylor (Olivia Bromley). After this, Dawn had to hide out in Joe’s room because Lydia (Karen Blick) was cleaning, so it gave them time to talk.

As a result of their conversation, the connection between Joe and Dawn started to grow, which meant she was genuinely worried when she came across Joe’s car in a ditch during tonight’s episode.

Joe had previously agreed to meet Noah (Jack Downham) in the pub for a drink. He set off, but suffered a dizzy spell as he left Home Farm.

His symptoms clearly developed on the drive, as Dawn found the car and Joe in a bad way. Beside Joe was the bottle of painkillers, but he insisted he was fine.

Back at Home Farm, Joe told Dawn that after Cain (Jeff Hordley) attacked him in 2018, he still deals with side effects to this day. He explained that he gets terrible headaches, and the medication helps.

Dawn tried to get Joe to open up about a potential addiction to the drugs, but he was certain things weren’t that bad.

While this was happening, Kim (Claire King) was overhearing a conversation between Noah and Charity (Emma Atkins) about Joe.

Suspicious and convinced he’s up to something, Kim planted a recorder in Joe’s room and later discovered something important.Kim listened to a phone call with Joe and an unknown caller. He spoke about how the thing he feared would happen, has now happened.

‘It’s getting a bit more obvious now, I don’t know how long I’ve got until people start noticing’, he added.

Intriguing – is Joe referring to his health issues?

And will Kim confront him about it?