Sammy T. Dobson has fast become one of Casualty’s most compelling new stars since she arrived in 2024 as Dr Nicole Piper, a warm-hearted yet deeply scarred medic whose troubled past has slowly been unraveling across the course of this year’s explosive 12-part miniseries Supply and Demand. From the outset, Nicole seemed like a beacon of empathy in Holby’s overstretched emergency department, the kind of doctor who connects instinctively with patients and colleagues alike. But her sudden and seemingly cold decision to dump her partner, nurse Ngozi Okoye (Adesuwa Oni), without explanation blindsided fans, sparking a wave of confusion and outrage online. When the brutal moment aired – with Nicole throwing Ngozi out after she confessed to being an alcoholic – viewers were left reeling, questioning whether they truly knew the character they had grown to love. For Sammy, the script was just as gut-punching. “I don’t think Nicole would do that,” she admits, recalling how she ran upstairs to challenge production. Yet as the layers of Nicole’s trauma were peeled back, the shocking act began to make sense. Ngozi had unknowingly collided with her partner’s most painful trigger, unleashing the abandonment fears Nicole had buried for years. The fallout of that split has since reverberated across the boxset, placing Nicole at the center of some of Casualty’s rawest and most emotionally charged storytelling.

The actress reveals that the reaction from fans was immediate and overwhelming, her inbox flooded with more than a hundred messages from distraught viewers demanding to know why Nicole would behave so cruelly. “All I could say was, ‘I know, I’m so sorry, but I can’t say anything,’” Sammy recalls. “I felt awful, but there’s a good reason.” That “good reason” has begun to emerge in recent episodes, with Nicole’s history of being abandoned by her birth mother finally surfacing as a key element of her current journey. The reveal was timed perfectly with the arrival of Cassie Woods (Charlie Ann Upton), a vulnerable teen ensnared by a criminal gang who bears uncanny similarities to a younger Nicole. Fans immediately speculated that Cassie might be Nicole’s daughter, and while that isn’t the case, their shared connection through foster mother Maggie Findlay has created a dynamic that’s every bit as powerful. In Cassie, Nicole sees not only a sister figure but also a reflection of her own wounded adolescence, forcing her to confront truths she has long suppressed. This week’s episode raises the stakes even further when Nicole attempts to help Cassie flee from danger, only for tragedy to strike as the teenager is viciously attacked before she can escape, leaving her life hanging in the balance.

Sammy explains that filming the Cassie storyline has been an emotionally draining but rewarding experience, with the character’s plight triggering Nicole to confront the ghosts of her past. As Cassie is rushed into resus, critically injured, Nicole finally breaks down her defenses and confesses to Ngozi the truth about her own abandonment. For years, Nicole has avoided facing the fact that her mother left her without explanation, burying the pain under layers of professional competence and personal denial. Now, helping Cassie forces her to acknowledge the shame she has carried – the sense that she was discarded for no reason, that she was unworthy of love. In one of the most poignant beats of the series so far, Nicole asks a social worker not only to track down Cassie’s family but also to retrieve her own care files, desperate at last for answers about who she is and where she came from. The dual search ties her fate to Cassie’s inextricably, entwining past and present in a way that ensures the emotional stakes will only escalate as Supply and Demand races towards its finale.

As Sammy hints, the drama is only set to intensify from here. “Pretty much everything that could go wrong happens in the space of the next couple of episodes and it all comes to a crescendo towards the end,” she teases. Nicole’s quest for answers will take her to unexpected places, pulling at threads that unravel her life with frightening speed. The actress describes weeks of filming where she cried daily on set, immersed in the raw emotions of her character’s journey. Yet while the process has been grueling, she believes it has also been cathartic – for both Nicole and herself. “It’s a hard thing for Nicole to deal with and I wouldn’t say it’s a good thing, but dealing with it is healthy and hopefully she can start afresh,” Sammy reflects. The promise of a potential fresh start suggests that while Nicole’s world may fall apart in the short term, there could be hope for healing on the horizon. For fans, however, the immediate concern is survival: can Cassie pull through her injuries, will Nicole’s desperate search for truth give her peace, and what does all of this mean for her fractured relationship with Ngozi, the woman she pushed away at the very moment she needed her most?

What makes Casualty so enduring, Sammy argues, is its ability to balance this raw emotional storytelling with the spectacle and immediacy of emergency medicine. As the show nears its 40th anniversary in 2026, it remains as vital as ever by constantly reinventing itself, introducing new characters like Nicole who can both break our hearts and keep us hooked week after week. Visiting the set at BBC Roath Lock Studios underlines just how much craftsmanship goes into making Holby’s ED feel so authentic: from the prosthetics room overflowing with lifelike limbs, to the buzzing ambulance station adorned with photos of past characters, to the gory chaos of resus itself. Cast and crew alike emphasize the sense of family behind the camera, with Sammy, Charles Venn, Anna Chell, Melanie Hill, Elinor Lawless, and Michael Stevenson all sharing laughs between takes despite the heavy storylines they carry onscreen. For Sammy, joining that family has been nothing short of transformative. “You constantly want to put the next episode on because you need to know what happens next,” she says. “On screen there’s death, blood and dramatic anticipation, but my experience here is of friends and fun.” That sense of camaraderie is what makes the tears, the trauma, and the heartbreak worth it – for both the actors and the millions of viewers who will be glued to their screens this Saturday night as Nicole Piper faces her most agonizing test yet.