In Monday (December 2)’s episode the prison contacted Tom’s uncle Jimmy King (Nick Miles) by email, because Tom wanted to add Jimmy to his list of contacts.
Previously Jimmy was the person who stood by Tom when almost everybody else had turned against him. He genuinely believed that his nephew couldn’t be capable of the vile things that Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper) accused him of.
Recently, however, Jimmy’s eyes have been fully opened to the fact that Belle was telling the truth and he apologised to her for doubting her story and making the whole situation worse for her by supporting Tom.
But when he got the email in this episode, it seemed that he might be about to be drawn back in by Tom, as he hid the email from Nicola (Nicola Wheeler). Jimmy isn’t the brightest spark in the village, though, and he’d forgotten that he and Nicola share the same email address so she was fully aware of what was going on.
Jimmy still had a shred of sympathy for Tom, reminding Nicola he knew Tom since he was a little boy. Nicola reminded him that he also knew Tom’s father Carl (Tom Lister) – Jimmy’s brother – who turned out to be a psychopath.
She said that Tom had done the crime and he would do the time, and he should be dead to them. Reluctantly Jimmy agreed she was right and said he’d email the prison and ask them to delete their details from their list of contacts.
During the conversation, their daughter Angel (Rebecca Bakes) was listening, although she had earbuds in and seemed like she wasn’t. Later, we saw Angel opening the email from the prison and approving the request to add Jimmy to the list of contacts, filling in her dad’s details as she did so.
In a previous episode we saw Angel listening as Belle and Amelia Spencer (Daisy Campbell) talked about Tom, with Amelia finally agreeing that Belle had been telling the truth about Tom’s coercive and controlling behaviour.
Amelia finally saw that she’d been deceived by Tom and, like Jimmy, apologised that she’d made things worse for Belle.
Not knowing everything about the situation, it seems that Angel might have decided that Tom needs an ally.
Because of her experience of being shunned by many people in the village after she accidentally killed Heath Hope (Sebastian Dowling), Angel possibly feels like she and Tom have something in common. She’s previously said that she feels there’s ‘something wrong’ with her and she’s ‘evil.’
Her naivety and this feeling that she’s an outsider in the village and in her own family could make her the perfect person for Tom to manipulate. Could Angel’s involvement give him a glimmer of hope that he can evade justice?
