12th August, H

Have we recovered? Good, me neither. I can’t quite believe that so much of what was speculated about Chris and Callum came to pass tonight – from a story we’ve known about since before I Smell Queer even aired! Let’s discuss…

Screencaps for this episode can be found here.

Vicky turns up at the Vic looking for Callum, and Mick directs her to the funeral parlour. “Is he dead?” Haha. The Vic is obviously Callum’s last known address with the army, as he moved in above the parlour after he was medically discharged. So Vicky finds Callum, introduces herself as Chris Kennedy’s brother, and reveals Chris is dead. Callum (who said he hadn’t seen Chris since Helmand) is stunned and tries to hide it from Vicky by excusing himself.

Turns out Chris died in a car crash six months ago – Valentine’s Day. As Vicky tells Callum this, his hands are set on the desk, as if to ground himself, to keep himself upright. And when she hands him a photo, he shuts his eyes as if he knows what he’s about to look at and that it’s going to be painful. We learn they cooked together, Callum saying he learnt a lot from him. And then the bombshell – Vicky’s here to find the man her brother was in love with while in the army. She says she “got the impression he felt the same” from what Chris wrote to her. Which makes me wonder what exactly was said in those letters, because it sounds to me like a reciprocal love that Chris wrote about that Vicky picked up on. So I think Chris and Callum both knew how the other felt. Vicky says she came to see Callum because she thought he might know who the guy is so she can invite him to the memorial tomorrow, since they were best mates. It’s a double whammy for Callum, in fact almost a triple: Chris is dead, Vicky knows Chris loved another man in the army, and she is here asking him directly if he knows who it is.

“I didn’t know Chris was gay” – sure, Callum. But that is the first time we’ve actually heard him say the g word – after Ben observed way back in June that he couldn’t. Vicky says she knew when he was 4, and he knew when he was 13 (maybe a sign that someone close to Callum was aware before he was. There were signs, as I discussed at the time, that Jonno perhaps knew, hence his digs about being a pansy etc.) and this very relevant line, “some people take a little longer.” Callum is really on edge because it’s hitting home for him, and then she says in the letters he referred to his love as ‘H’, and talked about him constantly. H for Halfway. Excuse me while I go and cry some more. Callum is finding it hard to hear and tries to get Vicky to leave. She agrees and mentions that she still has things to sort for the memorial. Callum tries to give the photo of him and Chris back, and although Vicky takes it, I think she takes it as another indicator that Callum’s her guy – a friend would want to keep the photo, surely. But Callum can barely look at it. She says she wishes she knew who it was because it might mean something if they were there tomorrow, at the memorial. It’s a gentle encouragement – she knows it’s Callum, but doesn’t want to push him as she can see he’s taking it hard and probably also has an inkling that he’s in denial. They both know the truth about his involvement with Chris but neither want to be the first one to say it. Callum is desperately trying to hold himself together as he says he’ll have a think about who it was, and does that heartbreaking thing with his face as soon as Vicky turns to leave. Tony Clay, the King of Emotion.

Callum sees Vicky out. He pulls out a ‘sorry for your loss’ undertaker line, which Vicky sees through, and she takes his hand, telling him Chris would want him there. In that moment, Callum knows she knows it’s him and he crumbles. They hug, Callum holding on for dear life (and goddammit Tony, stop killing me with your face!) and it’s spotted across the Square by Whitney. And it’s annoying that she jumps to the conclusion of an affair – first of all, if she hadn’t seen his little upset face, it could easily have been him comforting a grieving family member – they were literally standing outside the parlour. And if she did see his face, then she’d know he was upset and needing comfort. But I’m assuming she doesn’t ask him about that. And by the way, that little fist clench Callum does as he hugs Vicky is so childlike and adorable.

In our final scene of the night, the hat that we saw Callum gently hold after he failed his army medical, and freaked out over when he saw Tiff wearing it, makes a reappearance as Callum takes it out of the box once again. But this time, we see a label underneath – it’s Chris’ hat. Scream!! Unreal that a theory that it wasn’t Callum’s hat turned out to be true. It invites more questions though. Did Chris give it to him? Did Callum just take it? Or did they swap hats? It’s clear that Callum’s love for Chris ran deep if he not only kept the hat, but brought it to the Vic when he stayed there, and then into a pretty prominent place in their bedroom at the flat.

Callum didn’t open up much tonight so the exact nature of his relationship with Chris is still unknown – like were they properly together or just hide a crush from each other? Did anything physical happen? Or were they seen by anyone? Why did they lose contact? I’m sure a lot of this will be explained tomorrow, which seems to be Callum’s biggest ep of the week. I’m not sure I’m ready to be honest. What this means as well, of course, is that now Callum is experiencing the loss of someone you love – just as Ben did. The conversation they’re going to have about this…. it gives me shivers.

And just how cute were Tony and Max on Twitter today? Firstly, Max not speaking to Tony because his team lost the football, and then saying he’ll speak to him again because he was being brilliant on EastEnders. Then Tony sending out a cute tweet thanking us for the love, and acknowledging some of the praise being sent his way. Which I’m so glad of, because he deserves to know how much we love him and his portrayal of Callum! He got lots of love for his subtle yet powerful performance – it really is all in his eyes – he widens them, shifts them, looks down, closes them… it’s pitch perfect and the pain brilliantly conveyed. Kudos Mr Clay!