Tonight’s Emmerdale focused entirely on Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper), and her state of mind following months of abuse from her husband Tom King (James Chase).
Viewers have seen Belle attempt to take back control from Tom by telling him that their marriage is over and trying to move on. But Tom has made that incredibly difficult, by secretly filling her house with cameras to watch her and monitoring all the activity on her laptop.
He’s also distanced her from friends and family by making out that she’s struggling with her mental health and he’s an innocent victim. Even those closest to Belle have swallowed this version of events to some extent.
In a recent sinister development, Tom started a relationship with Amelia Spencer (Daisy Campbell). Terrified that Amelia was now in danger of being abused by Tom, Belle begged him to leave the younger girl alone in the previous episode. Tom chose to interpret this as jealousy and that Belle wanted him back.
Belle was horrified when he kissed her, saying, ‘We belong together. You’ll see, in the end.’
In this special episode, we saw three different scenarios play out in Belle’s mind as she contemplated how the future could turn out for her, Tom – and Amelia.
In one of the future versions Belle had managed to escape from Tom’s clutches and had moved on with her life. She was working again with Suzy (Martelle Edinborough) in the wedding planning business, and it was quite striking to see Belle as we used to know her – confident, happy, dressed up for work. We’ve become so used to seeing her looking downtrodden and sad, wearing the same clothes day after day and too defeated to bother.
One of the weddings that Suzy was working on was, chillingly, Tom and Amelia’s. And Belle was clearly worried for the bride-to-be.
In later scenes Belle happened to see Amelia outside her house, and she had a burned hand like Belle previously did when Tom scalded her when he discovered she was still on the pill. Belle tried to support Amelia, saying she was there if Amelia wanted to talk, But, like Belle previously, Amelia wouldn’t admit anything was wrong in her marriage.
And then later we saw Amelia’s lifeless body being taken out of the house after she apparently ‘fell’ down the stairs.
This followed other potential realities where Belle stayed with Tom to protect Amelia and ended up pregnant and subjected to further violence, or where she disclosed what was happening only for Cain (Jeff Hordley) to end up in prison for life after battering Tom.
Ultimately the idea that Amelia could end up dead as a result of Belle keeping silent pushed her to take the hardest step of all, as she went to Charity (Emma Atkins) and finally told her everything that had been happening – and Charity promised Tom would never hurt her again.
