Emmerdale star confirms Nicola ‘doesn’t recover at all’ after dramatic Jimmy funeral

Nicola King’s (Nicola Wheeler) entire world fell apart when her husband Jimmy King (Nick Miles) died after a car crash in Emmerdale.

Last month, Jimmy was forced to swerve his car to avoid hitting Vinny Dingle (Bradley Johnson), who was on his phone while driving.

Jimmy smashed into Joe Tate (Ned Porteous) and Dawn Taylor’s (Olivia Bromley) wedding marquee, and died as a result of his injuries.

In the aftermath of the devastating loss, Nicola got a massive shock when Sadie King (Patsy Kensit) returned to the village. She revealed that she had been in a secret relationship with Jimmy for three years, and was back to pay her respects to the man she apparently loved.

This story regarding Jimmy is false but in Sadie’s eyes, Nicola doesn’t need to know that. It turns out the claims about Jimmy are all part of Sadie’s real plan, which is to locate a large sum of cash that Jimmy hid before he died.

Next week, the day of Jimmy’s funeral arrives. Amid the emotional ordeal, Nicola of course still believes that the man she once loved betrayed her in such a massive way.

Ahead of these scenes, star Nicola Wheeler has shared that her character will continue to struggle with losing Jimmy once his farewell has happened.

‘We will see that with her – she doesn’t recover at all. She still struggles with his death for months to come. It’s not a quick fix. He’s part of her life all the time.’

She added: ‘She can’t even see beyond Jimmy. Her future is that Jimmy was and is still the love of her life -and that will always be. And although there is some comfort in that, it’s quite a lonely place to be.

‘But where Nicola is really lucky is she’s got Laurel, who has been through what she’s been through. She’s got a great friend to take her on the journey of grief.’

‘She’s got mixed emotions’, Nicola said, explaining how her soap alter-ego really feels in the lead up to Jimmy’s funeral.

‘She would preferably not go to the funeral but she realises she has to make it special for the children because they deserve to give their dad a good send off. But as far as Nicola is concerned she’d dig a big hole and dump him in it.’

The star sighed: ‘Nicola is caught between a rock and a hard place. She has to be respectful to Jimmy and show she cares for the sake of the children but, apart from his death, it possibly is the worst day of her life.

‘If the love of your life goes before you, you like to be able to tell the world how wonderful that person is and how much you loved them but she begins the funeral day feeling like Jimmy has taken that away from her – she can’t express her love.

‘There’s some nice scenes with Charles encouraging her to write something kinder but she ends up writing something impersonal and doesn’t want to speak.

‘She feels utterly betrayed – It’s the one time she would want to say just how great a man Jimmy was but she just feels like she can’t.’