Hollyoaks spoilers follow for Tuesday’s episode (March 25), which is available to watch now on streaming service Channel 4 and hasn’t yet aired on TV.
Note: This article discusses topics including suicidal ideation.
Hollyoaks’ Diane Hutchinson has made a devastating discovery about her son Ro’s bullying ordeal, in the show’s latest episode.
Ro is currently being bullied by Marie’s son Arlo, with the teenager making his life miserable with transphobic comments and threats.
Diane previously realised that Arlo was terrorising her child, but Ro has always felt too scared to admit the truth and Diane wasn’t believed by Marie.
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Meanwhile, in this week’s episode, Tony and Marie made a spontaneous decision about their relationship and decided to get engaged.
In today’s episode, Diane found out that her ex-husband planned to get married again, and she congratulated the couple. As the family celebrated, Ro realised that he would be further tied to his bully.
Diane realised that Ro was still being sent nasty messages and demanded to know who was responsible. But Ro kept quiet and urged his mum to stop asking questions.
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Arlo made sure that Ro hadn’t told Diane anything, and he threatened to seriously hurt him if she ever found out about the messages. To keep up appearances, Ro told his mum that he felt better after his chat with Arlo.
Diane later wished Tony and Marie the best and apologised for making accusations about Arlo and said that he and Ro seem to be getting on well.
That evening, Ro fell asleep on the sofa and as Diane tried to wake him to go to bed, she heard a notification on her son’s phone and spotted a horrible message from ‘Alex’.
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She took drastic action and secretly used Ro’s fingerprint to unlock his phone, which led Diane to discover the true extent of the cruelty he is being subjected to.
Devastated, Diane sent a message back as Ro, asking the person to stop. But when she heard a notification from a device upstairs, she realised that Arlo is behind the messages.
Diane continued a conversation with oblivious Arlo and was horrified when he encouraged Ro to take his own life.
How will Diane deal with this disturbing revelation?
Hollyoaks airs on Mondays-Wednesdays with its Channel 4 streaming premiere at 7am, then an E4 broadcast the same night at 7pm. Full episodes are also released on YouTube a week after their Channel 4 release.
