the first one being with Sadie when they held Tom King Hostage and it appeared as tho Cain shot her dead only for it to be revealed next episode that it was faked in order to scare Tom.

the second being when he seemingly killed Joe Tate by accident with a punch only for it to later be revealed that Graham had faked his death so he could get away from Kim.

and of course the third being when we were supposed to believe that he shot Al only for it to be revealed that Kyle actually did it.

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so yeah leaving aside the crap of repeating the same sorta storyline 3 times over the years with the same character can we talk about how the Al one just doesn't make any sense as an idea for a plot twist.

Cain not having killed Al was meant to be a surprise to subvert our expectations but this didn't work for most people because of who Cain's character is he's someone who's a violent thug but never a murderer.

he loves to give out empty threats to scare people but over the years the writers have never let him cross that line and had at that point already pulled the same stunt twice of trying to make us think he killed someone only to reveal he hadn't.

so expecting us to believe that he had finally killed Al even tho it took place off screen just doesn't work from a basic writing level I and many other fans I talked to at the time knew there was going to be some lame attempt to subvert expectations and once again not allow Cain to follow through on a murder.

and while I admit I didn't think it would be Kyle at the time I was convinced it would be Aaron who shot Al but the fact is we all knew it wouldn't be Cain.

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this kind of writing decision would make sense if it was someone like say Moira who we were led to believe killed Al only for it to be revealed to be someone else since she has crossed that line before and thus we would be able to believe that maybe the writers would have let her do it again.

but with Cain they never do even tho they have him give out constant empty threats and expects us the audience to take them seriously it's become so predictable that even people in the show itself started calling Cain out on it like Al did during their Feud and Caleb has done.

so yeah my point is it just doesn't work on a Basic writing level and it baffles me how the Emmerdale and the EastEnders writers for that matter expect us to believe that Cain and Phil could be capable of murder yet never let them actually do it.

and you can't argue its due to moral reasons of the writers not wanting to let a character get away with murder because Moira killed Emma and got away with it Carl killed his dad and got away with it for many years in EE Stacey killed Archie and got away with it Ryan killed Rob and got away with it Janine got away with killing Michael for many years.

so yeah its just Baffling to me.