Emmerdale airs new shock in Christmas Day episode

Emmerdale spoilers follow.

Emmerdale's Meena Jutla storyline has taken its most dramatic twist yet, as the serial killer was at the centre of a huge explosion on Christmas Day.

The ITV soap's hour-long festive episode featured a long-awaited showdown as Meena (Paige Sandhu) was confronted by her sister Manpreet Sharma over her sinister secrets.

Manpreet (Rebecca Sarker) was horrified as she caught Meena on the phone to social services, making false allegations that her love rival Dawn Taylor (Olivia Bromley) is back on drugs.

The local GP later caught Meena out for a second time, rumbling her as she tried to break into Dawn's house to plant heroin as "proof" of her false claims.

ITV

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As these disturbing developments came following warnings that Meena killed her best friend Nadine, Manpreet was left to question what her sister was capable of.

In tense scenes, Manpreet demanded proof that Meena is genuinely pregnant with Billy Fletcher's baby as she's claiming. She vowed to expose all of Meena's wrongdoing – including the Nadine situation – if she couldn't.

As the showdown moved towards The Woolpack, the timing and location for this row couldn't have been any worse.

Inside the pub, Al Chapman (Michael Wildman) had engineered a devastating "accident" in the kitchen while the Dingles were all away in Scotland for the holidays.

ITV

Al set up a situation that would cause a microwave fire, turned on all of the gas and then put the appliance on a timer, allowing him to get away to safety.

The scheming businessman believed that these drastic measures would be enough to finally drive out Chas (Lucy Pargeter) and Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock), who have been refusing to sell the pub.

Al headed off to spend the rest of Christmas with his new love interest Kerry Wyatt (Laura Norton) after his secret sabotage.

Outside, Meena advanced towards Manpreet with a broken bottle and threatened to kill her.

ITV

As they edged ever closer to the pub, the building suddenly exploded – sending both sisters flying and leaving their lives hanging in the balance.

Both will survive the incident, as recent Emmerdale spoiler pictures show that the next storyline twist will involve Meena holding Manpreet captive. But does this mean that Manpreet's days are numbered?