The River S5: The Dikanas just can’t catch a break

If you’ve been following The River from the first season, you’ll know that the Dikanas are one of the strongest families on South African television. They’ve been through the most – from burying children, to facing time in prison – but they’ve managed to bounce back every time. But no matter how strong you are, there will be moments that will test you to the point where life doesn’t seem to be worth it anymore.

Here are some heartbreaking moments from the Dikana family so far.

Lindiwe and Zweli’s marriage gets tested

When a new man came into the picture, Lindiwe got too excited for her own good. The charming businessman Mnqobi came in the perfect package and was ready to enter a multimillion mining partnership with Lindiwe. But that’s not all he was interested in … The more time he spent with Lindiwe, the more they fell for each other and even started entertaining the idea of being together.

We never thought we’d see the day where Lindiwe would even dream of cheating on her beloved husband, Zweli. Mnqobi played his cards so right that Madlabantu couldn’t see past the fact the fact that he was a scammer who was just interested in taking everything from her.

While their relationship blossomed, Zweli started getting a bit jealous. He figured that Mnqobi was too good to be true and decided to investigate him. What he discovered was enough to send the conman to prison for a long time. The next step was obviously to arrest him and when he arrived in his hotel room, he found Mnqobi and Lindiwe in a very compromising position.

They almost slept together but Lindiwe came to her senses and stopped before things went too far. However, Zweli was convinced that she had cheated on him and asked for a divorce. That didn’t happen, fortunately, and the two lovebirds are still together. Oh, and Lindiwe killed Mnqobi, obviously!

Andile gets kidnapped

Just as the Dikanas were celebrating Lindiwe and Zweli’s reconciliation, Andile got kidnapped. Talk about another blow! He was held hostage for days and the mastermind demanded millions of rands from the family.

Zweli was stressed, Lindiwe was losing her mind and Njabulo was visibly heartbroken at the thought of losing his husband at such a young age. The Dikanas worked tirelessly with law enforcement agents to try and get to the bottom of the kidnapping. At first, it seemed like their efforts were yielding no results.

When everything else failed, Zweli and Lindiwe teamed up and took matters into their own hands. They were able to track Andile’s location; he was stuck on a boat in the middle of the ocean with his kidnapper. His parents were able to rescue him, and they thoroughly dealt with the man who almost took their son away from them.

Emma and Zolani lose their child

You would think the Dikana family would at least get a few months to breathe after going through all that trauma, right? Well, their days of crying continued after Emma got involved in an accident. She was with her cousin, Beauty, and her daughter, Mbali, in the car.

She and Beauty had been drinking and the crash resulted in Emma and Mbali being in hospital. While Emma was fighting for her life, Mbali didn’t make it. After hearing that her only child had passed away, Emma couldn’t help but feel guilty as she blamed herself for the baby’s death.

After being discharged, she was able to attend her baby’s funeral and it was a very emotional time for her and her husband. Zolani believed that they needed each other more than ever to deal with the situation, but Emma felt herself pulling away because she could no longer hide the truth about what happened on that day.

Beauty tried to convince her to never tell anyone about their drinking spree on the day of the accident, but Emma eventually came clean to the Dikanas.

This made Zolani angry, and he wanted to end their marriage.

Emma couldn’t handle living without her man, and tried to kill herself. We’re thankful that she was discovered just in time! Zolani has now given the marriage another chance and only time will tell if these two will last or not.

Stream The River S5 on Showmax.