Emmerdale spoiler video: Tom has shaken Belle in his evil clutches again but gets a nasty shock
When Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper) was admitted to a mental health crisis unit in Emmerdale recently, the hope from viewers was that getting some distance from evil, controlling husband Tom King (James Chase) would help her to realise that what he’d been putting her through wasn’t normal and needed to be stopped.
It seemed like that might actually happen when Belle and her therapist talked through what had led up to Belle’s current crisis – and a lot of it came back to Tom.
Tom had done so much to gain control over Belle, from tracking her movements via apps and cameras to isolating her from her family and friends, making her afraid in her own home by staging a burglary and messing with her medications to make her think she wasn’t managing her mental health properly.
His controlling and manipulative ways were becoming increasingly violent, but when Belle begged him to seek help he turned the tables by telling GP Liam Cavanagh (Jonny McPherson) that it was Belle who had the problem. When she later pushed Tom over in the street in front of witnesses, that only seemed to confirm what Tom had said.
The fact that she pushed him after he deliberately goaded her with some horrible remarks about her mother was something the onlookers didn’t know.
Tom hated the fact that she was in the unit away from his control, especially when she asked for Lydia Dingle (Karen Blick) to be her only visitor and not him. So he devised a hideous plan to get her to come back.
He drugged the couple’s dog, Piper, making it seem like she was seriously ill and at death’s door. Then he dispatched Lydia to break the news to Belle that Piper was ill – knowing it would bring his wife straight back to the village.
In a new video clip Tom has his wish and Belle is once again at Dale Head, relieved to see that Piper is miraculously on the mend (now that Tom has stopped drugging her). But it seems like Belle isn’t planning on staying around.
She tells Tom that Debbie Dingle (Charley Webb) has invited her to go and stay with her and Zak (Steve Halliwell) in Scotland for a while and Belle thinks it’s a good idea. She can clear her head and go for walks.
‘You can do that here,’ Tom tells her, and Belle looks defeated as she has no strength to debate the issue with him.
He then asks her about what went on at the assessment unit and cautiously Belle says that they talked about how a lot of things have changed in her life recently, including not being married for very long.
‘What’s our marriage got to do with it?’ Tom asks. In a word: everything. But before Belle can answer, Lydia and Sam Dingle (James Hooton) arrive and Belle rushes over for a hug.
Tom’s fake smile quickly vanishes as he realises that he may have succeeded in getting Belle back home, but while she has the Dingles around her she will never be as isolated as he would like.
As he ruffles the head of the little dog he was prepared to kill to get his wife back, what’s going through Tom’s mind?
What else is he capable of?
