On the one hand it feels like Tom King’s (James Chase) abuse of Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor Draper) is escalating exponentially in Emmerdale, and on another it feels like he’s slowly building subtle tactics into one big crescendo.
Having recently been incensed that she has insisted on continuing to work instead of devoting her life to him and having children, Tom has been finding new ways to control his wife. But at the same time, he’s beginning to struggle to hide his true colours.
During Marlon’s (Mark Charnock) 50th birthday celebrations, Tom lost his cool and smashed the ceramic pig containing Lisa’s ashes.
Belle was heartbroken, but somehow, he made it her fault. She attempted to stand up for herself, but he managed to break her down.
He also cleverly manipulated the situations so that Charles witnessed Belle losing it at him instead of the other way around, planting the seed that Belle is the abusive one.
Then he went on to put a tracker on her phone, which led to him trashing their house in anger when she wasn’t where she said she’d be. And most recently, to force her to give up work, he got a dog. This too has failed, so now he’ll up the ante.
One of his biggest bugbears is her love for her family, and he’s been determined to come between them. He sees her spending time with Vinny (Bradley Johnson) and the dogs and in seconds it has his blood boiling.
His mind jumps into action in how he can ruin this for her.
When Belle is called into work, she leaves their dog Piper with Vinny. But there’s bad news when Vinny reveals he’s lost the dog. Everyone is distraught except Tom, who sweeps in to calm the panic.
But he delights in the fact that Belle is raging at Vinny for losing their beloved pooch, which rings alarm bells.
This smacks of Tom’s antics. Did he have something to do with this?
