If anyone could use a miracle at Christmas, it’s Emmerdale’s Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper), and she’s about to get the best gift she could possibly ask for, next to Tom King (James Chase) getting sent down.
It’s centred around the return of a beloved character who disappeared earlier this year.
In case you hadn’t guessed already, it’s Piper the not-dead dog who is winging her way back to the village in the most epic of discoveries which further compounds Tom’s pure evil. Belle’s 2025 is set to start off exponentially better than her 2024.
With Piper’s return she brings more damning evidence against Tom, her former abusive owner.
Piper disappeared after Tom cooked up an awful plan to hurt Belle by pretending he’d hit the dog with the car.
He convinced a devastated Belle that he’d worked on her all night at the vets practice before she succumbed to her injuries, but the truth was he took her off to a couple and gave her to them.
He went so far with his lie that he even gave Belle Piper’s ‘body’ to bury in the garden.
Belle still believes Piper is dead and heads to her grave for a moment of contemplation. As she stares at the grave, she starts putting two and two together. The penny drops that she never actually clapped eyes on Piper’s body.
‘I think the main thing is, when she never actually saw Piper’s body, she never really saw what actually happened, she was just told’, star Eden Taylor-Draper said.
‘I think she has that in her head and she can’t get it out of her head. And he’s obviously lied about so much, so she just thinks, “We never saw the evidence. We buried a casket, but who knows what’s in there?” kind of thing.’
Now, knowing what she does about Tom, she’s wondering if Tom had a hand in that too.
She tells Vinny (Bradley Johnson) her suspicions and they grab a shovel to get digging. They reach the coffin, and Belle sits in front of it wondering what she might find inside.
To a mixture of both horror and relief, Belle discovers Piper is not inside.
Eden explained Belle’s thoughts after this moment: ‘Belle’s just certain, so she speaks to Rhona and she’s like, “What can we do? She’s chipped. How can we find her?” And Rhona’s like, “Nothing’s coming up on the system. We don’t know where she is. If she gets sent to the vet’s we’ll be alerted but there’s no way of knowing.” It’s actually Vinny and Gabby who end up tracking her down.
‘They get in touch with the people Tom gave Piper to and explain the situation. They’re like, “That is your dog and we’re really sorry for what she’s been through.”
Belle considers her next move and decides she’ll have to face her fears and visit Tom in prison to find out what he did with her. But she won’t, due to a beautiful turn of events.
On Christmas Day she visits her dad’s grave for some comfort. But while she’s there, she gets the best gift of the day – Piper runs over to her having been found by Vinny and Gabby Thomas (Rosie Bentham).
Finally, some good news for poor Belle, and another middle finger up at Tom. Is this the start of good things for Belle?
Pondering over the new year and hopes for her character, Eden told us: ‘I think justice would be the main thing she wants, and to fully understand what she has been through and start the journey of healing and understanding and accepting that this is not on her, this is not her fault, this happened to her, she did not create this and there’s nothing wrong with her. I think probably just to get life back on track.
‘Obviously Tom stopped her working so she has nothing, really. I think she needs to start from scratch and build herself back up again.’
