23rd March, puff

It was another one scene wonder last night, this time with Ben on his own – but again, it was a good ‘un thanks to Daran.

Screencaps for this episode can be found here.

First though, we see Stuart back on the phone to Callum, checking he’s passed the message on to Frankie. Turns out he’s tricked Callum too, by pretending he’s working a shift at the car lot to help Jay and needs help with a deaf customer. Frankie meets him there, then realises what his intentions are, but luckily he doesn’t get to do much before Mick stops him. Mick admits that Frankie is his daughter – news that has Stuart backing down. Not sure why Frankie being Callum’s friend wasn’t enough – or, you know, the fact that she wasn’t the one abusing kids – but there we go. His paranoia had him wondering if Frankie knew about the abuse and even helped; but of course that’s not true; he just wanted to feel like he was getting justice, even if it’s not. It was a very in character moment for Stuart, and a reminder that he has that dark side despite the lighter shades they’ve given him in more recent times.

We also hear about Ben before we see him, with Suki calling Kheerat out for his new partnership with him – but then conceding that Ben might be the ally they need. She’s shaken by the graffiti painted on the shutters of the Minute Mart, and is presumably taking it as a sign that they need to do more about building their reputation as a family to be feared. We also learn that Vinny went to the police to give a statement after all, on Callum’s advice – and that he suspects it was the thief he reported that’s behind the graffiti. And if it was; then the police must have caught up to him, right? Otherwise how would he know Vinny reported him? Bear with me on that..

We finally see Ben as he strolls up to stand next to Kheerat and observe Vinny painting over the graffiti, as he’s been ordered to by his mum. Ben relays his own experience with hateful graffiti – admitting he’s been targeted before as well for being gay, but is very nonchalant about it; making out like his gripe with it was not the homophobia itself, but the fact they spelt ‘poof’ as ‘puff.’ And poor Ben, a tired millennial, sarcastically despairs at the general quality of hate crime being taught in schools these days. It’s his way of saying to Kheerat that he’s been there, and he relates and empathises – but doing it in a way that retains the outward appearance of indifference.
When he hears that Kheerat has an idea of who did it, he offers his help in teaching them a lesson; allowing Kheerat to make the call, which I loved. He reasons that they’re partners now; still with that air of nonchalance like he doesn’t care if they go for revenge or not (but I think he does.)
Kheerat takes a while to respond, like he’s deciding whether he should accept the help. Eventually though, he swallows his pride and admits that he could do with help in tracking the people responsible down – informing Ben that it was the thief who shoplifted from them the other week and who then returned to intimidate Vinny. Ben’s quite quick to respond to that info, telling Kheerat he reckons he could get an address.
I’ve decided I’m allowed to clown a bit more, because we didn’t actually see Ben at the Arches in this episode, meaning my headcanon that he actually ran out of the shop on Monday to get something for Callum is still valid. So here’s what I’m thinking – Ben knows that Callum helped Vinny out the night they did the deal with Stas, and I reckon Callum probably told him that he was trying to encourage Vinny to report the people who roughed him up; one of them being the guy who stole from the shop. So when Ben sees the graffiti and learns from Kheerat that it was probably those thieves who intimidated Vinny, he’d have gathered that Vinny did report them after all and this is retaliation for getting the police involved. And if the police are involved and have the thief on record…… then Callum may be able to look into it and get him an address. Right? I know in soapland people can track down other people inexplicably, but with all the info Ben has (i.e. not much), I can’t see him finding an address any other way, with the confidence that he seems to have in this scene. Unless he has underground connections, but I think I prefer the thought of this all tying together somewhat. And would Callum hand an illegally obtained address over to Ben if he knew Ben was planning on using it to teach a racist a lesson? Yes, I reckon he would. Callum’s been made aware of the police’s shortcomings on several occasions – when they didn’t do enough for Whitney when she was being stalked by Leo, when they couldn’t find Callum himself when he was holed up in the warehouse; and even last Christmas, when he was questioning the Panesars over Ian’s attack, and Suki told him the police did nothing about the thieves in their shop back then. Sometimes needs must, and as long as Ben promises to not get caught on CCTV (again), I reckon he’d have Callum’s support.
Anyway, with that clowning out of the way… Ben warns Kheerat that things with him tend to be a bit messy – and Kheerat doesn’t miss what he’s implying. And I know what he was trying to imply as well, but the only one who ends up in any kind of mess is Ben himself. His hardman act is adorable though. Kheerat approves of the implication, and so a plan is tentatively formed – make the racist thief pay, and make it messy.
Ben turns back towards Vinny to shout that he’s missed a bit, reverting back to casual conversation like they haven’t just agreed to beat someone to a pulp. Vinny’s not impressed – and he’s probably thinking that reporting the thief was more trouble than it was worth at this point.

So basically, my hope is that Callum is aware that Ben’s off doing vigilante stuff prior to his birthday celebrations, and as long as he’s not too late, it’s all good. Some cute birthday scenes would be nice, wouldn’t it? Thursday is a double episode now as well, with Friday’s being moved forward due to an unexpected rugby match, so don’t forget!