Carl King
| Carl King | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emmerdale character | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Tom Lister as Carl King (2009) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Portrayed by | Tom Lister | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Duration | 2004–12 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First appearance | 6 February 2004 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Classification | Present; regular (departing) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Introduced by | Steve Frost | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Carl Thomas King is a fictional character from the British soap opera Emmerdale, played by Tom Lister. He made his first screen appearance during the episode broadcast on 6 February 2004.
Storylines
Carl was the first member of the King family to arrive in Emmerdale as the new driver for Tate Haulage. However, no one is aware that he is there as a spy, reporting it back to his family business, King & Sons. Carl learns what Tate Haulage plan to bid for a new contract and, with this information, his family revise their bid and win the contract.
Despite being married, Carl flirts with Louise Appleton and she agrees to a date. However, Carl's wife, Colleen, turns up and tells Louise that she is Carl's wife and they have two children; Thomas and Anya before telling Carl not to come home. Louise slaps Carl and cancels the date. So Carl moves in with his family at Holdgate Farm but is "persuaded" to go up and do some repairs to the roof, despite his fear of heights. Local postman, Paul Marsden helps him and seeing his nerves about heights, starts teasing him and mucking about but stretches too far and falls, dying instantly. Not wanting people to know they were involved, Carl and his brothers, Jimmy and Matthew King move his body to the back garden of the cottage Paul shared with his his wife, Siobhan. She finds him and assumes he fell from their roof after fixing the television aerial.
Meanwhile, bonding over feeling like they are bad parents for abandoning their children, Carl grows close to Chas Dingle and tells her about Paul's death. They eventually begin a relationship. However, the relationship is rocky and they constantly split up briefly and then reconcile but during one of these breaks, Carl has a one-night stand with Chloe Atkinson (Amy Nuttall). When she finds out Carl is back with Chas, she decides to end their relationship once and for all. She starts a campaign of poison pen letters and undermines Chas's trust in Carl, successfully splitting them up and he reconciles with Chloe but soon grows tired of her and tries to end things. She promptly tells him she is pregnant, despite the fact that she isn't, but starts trying at every opportunity to get pregnant. Chas discovers Chloe's lie and makes her tell Carl the truth, that she isn't pregnant and never was. Before leaving the village for good, she reminds Carl that she still could be pregnant as they weren't taking precautions. Horrified at the mistake he made, Carl tries to reconcile with Chas but she leaves to join the army so Carl gets close to her cousin, Delilah. Realising that Carl doesn't really want to be with her, Delilah encourages him to fight for Chas so he tracks her down and declares his feelings, accidentally dropping her after picking her up, causing her to break her leg. Consequently Chas is discharged on medical grounds and returns to the village. Carl and Chas reconcile and Carl proposes. Chas initially refuses and asks him to do a wing walk to conquer his vertigo. Carl does and Chas accepts his proposal. They move into Home Farm with his father Tom and Chas becomes Jimmy's personal assistant.
Tensions erupt within the family when Matthew begins a relationship with Sadie King and they start a rival company. Matthew uses Carl to pass Jimmy false information so he loses an important deal while Tom and his fiancee, Rosemary, tell Carl that Chas isn't good enough for him and bully/bribe Chas to end things but Chas tells Carl the truth on Tom and Rosemary's wedding day. Tom later dies after falling from his bedroom window and his sons are the primary police suspects but are stunned to learn that they have a half-sister, Scarlett, daughter of their mother's nurse, Carrie Nicholls. Carl struggles to bond with her and he and Matthew try to buy her share of the business. Carl eventually softens but is uncomfortable around Carrie, as they once had a one-night stand. Carl is grateful to Carrie when she helps evict Rosemary from Home Farm. Tom leaves Home Farm Estates to Rosemary but the rest of his estate is divided between his children. Hari Prasad tells the police that he heard the King brothers discussing how they murdered Tom and Louise backs him up but the case collapses when Louise admits she gave a false statement but Carl admits to Jimmy and Matthew that he killed Tom. He reveals that he confronted Tom about Chas, hitting him when Tom called Chas names and then pushed him away, causing Tom to fall out of the window.
Carl begins dating DCI Grace Barraclough in secret, unaware that she is determined to find out who killed Tom, but Carl won't say. Grace ends their relationship and Carl gets drunk, telling Jimmy and Matthew about their relationship so Jimmy takes Carl abroad to clear his head. However, on his return, Carl gets himself arrested for drink driving to get closer to Grace and tells her that he killed Tom and decides to confess. Jimmy watches as Carl and Grace go to the police station and as Carl stops to answer his phone, Grace carries on and is hit by a lorry. Grace dies and despite telling the police that he is a killer, the police ignore him as they are more concerned about Grace.
Carrie's daughter, Lexi, visits her sister and becomes involved with Carl. He joins De Souza Enterprises, angering Matthew. Donald De Souza (Michael Jayston) appoints Carl the new MD of his business, disappointing his daughter, Anna (Emma Davies). Carl hires Lexi to be his PA, but discovers she has been passing information to Matthew and breaks up with her. Carl and Anna are attracted to each other and he is jealous of her relationship with Matthew. Carl reconciles with Lexi, but when he decides to end things with her, Lexi reveals she knows that he killed Tom. Donald buys Mill Cottage for Carl and he and Lexi move in there together. Donald dies and Matthew tells Carl that he refused to give him his heart medication. King & Sons is declared bankrupt and the bailiffs move in. On the day of Matthew and Anna's wedding, Carl reveals Matthew's involvement in Donald's death. Matthew and Carl fight and Matthew drives a van at him. However, on seeing Anna standing with Carl, he swerves and is thrown through the windscreen, dying on the road.
Carl realises his only assets are Mill Cottage and a mortgage he gave Debbie Dingle and begins pressuring her for money. Carl, Jimmy, Lexi and Scarlett manage to scrap enough money together to start a new haulage company. Carl tells Chas that he still loves her, but she insists they are history. Lexi proposes to Carl and he accepts. Lexi sets a date but Carl goes missing on the day. He meets Chas and asks for a reconciliation, but she turns him down. Carl goes to the church and marries Lexi. He is furious when he discovers she is trying to get pregnant without his knowledge. Lexi discovers she is pregnant but loses the baby almost immediately as the pregnancy is ectopic. She then learns she is unlikely to conceive again without IVF and Carl agrees to try because he feels guilty but soon changes his mind. Nicola insists that Carl tell Lexi this, which he does, and they argue. She also argues with Nicola and Nicola goes into premature labour after falling down the stairs. Lexi apologises and Nicola forgives her. Later, after a nurse gives baby Angelica to Lexi while Nicola is in the shower, she takes her up on to the roof, simply wanting to show her the world but on seeing Lexi sitting on the roof with baby Angelica, making Jimmy, Nicola and Carl panic that she is going to jump. Carl tries to talk her down and is forced to admit that he does not love her so she returns the baby to Jimmy and Nicola and leaves the village. Carl moves out of Jimmy and Nicola's house and he has sex with Chas. Carl tells Chas's partner, Paddy Kirk, about her infidelity and they get back together.
Carl begins an affair with Eve Jenson (Suzanne Shaw). Chas proposes to him and implies she is pregnant. Carl accepts and gives her money to organise the wedding and ends things with Eve but on the day, Chas reveals Carl's affair with Eve to the village and humiliates him. Carl becomes bitter towards Chas for stealing his money and is accused of starting a fire near her house, which engulfs the village and kills Terry Woods and Viv Hope. Carl is arrested but later freed. He and Chas have a one-night stand months later and he comforts her when her son, Aaron, is charged with murder. Carl borrows money from Scarlett to hire a lawyer for Aaron but when Aaron refuses to take it, invests it in his business instead. Disgusted, Scarlett discovers what he has done and leaves the village. Carl is caught speeding on CCTV and he convinces Rodney Blackstock (Patrick Mower) to take his speeding points for him, in exchange for a job. The police reveal that a cyclist was hit during the incident and Carl is shocked when he learns Rodney could go to prison. Rodney blackmails him into giving him money and a job. Jimmy discovers what is happening and confronts Carl. Carl discovers Chas has been having an affair with Cameron Murray and begins blackmailing them both for the £30,000 that Chas' originally stole from him. Carl asks Chas to run away with him and she agrees. However, after she marries Dan Spencer, Carl realises that she has no intention of being with him. He tries to rape her, but she hits him over the head with a brick and runs off. Cameron finds Carl and they fight. Cameron then picks up another brick and hits Carl over the head, killing him.
Reception
The Guardian's Grace Dent commented that "Carl King is powerless when presented with sexy golddiggers like Eve. Carl absolutely cannot and will not stop marrying these awful women until he's living in the back of a Land Rover heating up Heinz London Grill with a lighter his wife's lawyer owns half of. A fool and his underpants are easily parted."[1]
See also
References
- ^ Dent, Grace (26 June 2010). "Grace Dent's world of lather". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 19 April 2012.