Emmerdale star Paige Sandhu explains Meena's double murder decision

Emmerdale spoilers follow.

Paige Sandhu has explained Meena Jutla's double murder decision ahead of upcoming Emmerdale episodes.

Meena's killing streak looks set to continue as she has vowed to strike again after holding her sister Manpreet Sharma hostage for more than a week.

However, events transpire that force Meena to improvise next week, as Vinny begins to suspect she may know about Ben's disappearance and her baby lies also unravel.

Now, Paige Sandhu has lifted the lid on Meena's mindset when she ends up with both Vinny and Meena as her hostages.

"I think we have got a bit of exhilaration. As we go on, I wouldn't say that she's out of her depth, but I would say that she is definitely feeling the stress," she explained.

"She's having to juggle so many things while also having to keep her mask in the village, like we've seen Rishi is very suspicious of her, Liam is starting to get suspicious, there's Billy and Dawn snooping around and with Vinny, that adds all of the Dingles into the mix.

"All of that is adding to the stress that she is feeling. But at the same time, she thrives off being spontaneous. It's thrilling to her to be able to kill another person, which is horrible. There is both going on."

Continuing to keep Manpreet hostage is one thing, but the question remains over whether Meena can actually go so far as to kill her sister Manpreet in cold blood.

"She's 100% sold. Like we saw over New Year, she was really trying not to do that to Manpreet," Sandhu said. "But when Manpreet tried to run away on New Year's Eve, all bets were off and Meena felt very betrayed.

"That was a moment when that tiny bit of empathy she felt towards Manpreet that stopped her from committing the heinous crimes she did to other people without a thought, just disappears. She no longer feels any guilt or anything to stop her."

Asked how long Meena could hold the two hostages, Sandhu hinted: "I think at the beginning, she definitely is trying to keep up the mask so that she can stay in the village. Then, after a while, it becomes clear that things aren't working out for her so she goes to her second plan which is to reveal her true colours to everyone.

"There is something thrilling about that, that everyone will finally know about all the things she's done."

Meena does actually move forward with a plan to get rid of Vinny and Manpreet by gassing them both, which goes against her original plans to methodically kill her sister.

"It's not exactly what she wanted because her original plan was to make it all seem like an accident," Sandhu said. "But she's willing to roll with the punches and, like I said before, there's something quite thrilling about everyone finally knowing who she really is and what she is capable of. In her eyes, it's like 'look at my greatness' rather than 'look at my evilness'."

She also teased: "We see just before as Meena starts the van in the barn, she looks at Manpreet with her version of love. Which isn't anything like what you can feel. There is a sadness there that she still feels and there's the history that they shared.

"We find out a lot about that over these weeks. We find out how much they've been through together but with Vinny, she doesn't care at all. With Manpreet, there's something more there which is interesting in Meena."

Will Manpreet and Vinny survive?

Emmerdale airs on weeknights at 7pm on ITV, with an extra episode at 8pm on Thursdays.

Read more Emmerdale spoilers on our dedicated homepage

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