Emmerdale stars explain why Dr Todd is cruelly targeting Jacob

Emmerdale actors Caroline Harker and Joe-Warren Plant have explained why they think Dr Todd is targeting Jacob Sugden specifically in the workplace bullying storyline.

Dr Todd has gone from demanding high standards from Jacob and pointing out genuine mistakes, to making inappropriate comments about his family and past trauma, and making out like he’s in the wrong to call her out on it.

According to Harker, Dr Todd is the way she is due to how she was raised by her father, who recently died.

“I don’t think anyone is born nasty, is the truth”, she said. “You learn it and there’s a father storyline – he was an amazing consultant himself, her father, and she’s trying to live up to him. And I think she’s repeating history, but with Jacob. She will do it with other people and probably has done it with other people.

“She can put it all down to needing high standards. Honestly, you could think that a lot of the things she says to him are absolutely correct – about having high standards, getting him to wake up, getting him to be on the ball, getting him to be his very best all the time.”

Dr Todd isn’t like that with other employees, and Harker believes that she picks on “the ones who she can have that effect on and [leaves] the ones that she can’t have that effect on”.

The actor also doesn’t believe that “she’d call herself a bully, I think she’s just playing. That cat and mouse thing going on, it’s a bit of a game”. She also notes that Dr Todd thinks that her position protects her from any real blowback.

Plant added that Jacob is “such a people pleaser” that it, along with being “hot-headed and spontaneous”, makes him an easy target for Dr Todd.

But while Jacob is going through a hard time lately, for the actor it’s “probably the most fun I’ve had at work”.

“I’ve been so busy,” he said, adding: “I think those moments where you don’t really get a moment to rest is when you learn the most about yourself, and just kind of gain another level of consciousness with the things that we do.”

The storyline looks like it’ll finally take a turn for the positive next week, after Todd was caught out in a lie last night.

Spoilers reveal that Jacob is going to take matters into his own hands and try and kerb Dr Todd’s bullying behaviour.