Happy Sunday! We’re into our first week of May, and it’s a very eventful one for us – pre-wedding week!
Mon 3rd May – Kim Revill
Whitney tells Callum that she won’t be attending his wedding, as she still suspects that Ben was involved in Kush’s death. Callum is also growing increasingly suspicious, especially as Ben is planning a secret meeting and is behaving strangely.
Callum demands to know whether Ben hurt Kush, but all becomes clear when Ben reveals who he really met up with. Stuart and Ben have teamed up to bring Callum’s grandmother Violet to Walford as a surprise before the wedding.
With the confusion resolved, Ben promises Callum that there will be no more lies. This forces Callum to share a revelation of his own, confessing that his real target was Phil when he went undercover.
Tues 4th May – Kim Revill
Ben is furious after Callum’s confession and demands a further explanation.
Thurs 5th May – Kevin Rundle
Phil is unaware of why Ben and Callum aren’t on good terms, so he tries to help by ordering Callum to sort things out. Callum tells Ben that he’ll be waiting at the registry office on Monday and hopes Ben will show up.
Fri 6th May – Kevin Rundle
Kat gives Vi a piece of her mind when some of her comments rub Phil up the wrong way. Phil is grateful that Kat stuck up for him.
Pictures galore! After dripping doubts into Callum’s head on Friday, here we’ve got Whitney telling Callum she won’t be going to the wedding – and after calling one of the grooms a murderer, I should think not. I guess Callum will be trying to tell her that Ben wasn’t involved in these pictures, but Whitney’s so convinced that he is. She’s put the thought in his mind, and it coincides with Ben acting strangely and planning a secret meeting. Wonder if he’s paranoid Ben is arranging another hit? Or maybe he assumes it’s a dodgy deal that Ben isn’t telling him about, and that makes him worry what else Ben is hiding. Ben’s all dressed up in a suit, and the idea of Callum thinking it’s his dodgy hitman murdering suit amuses me.
He confronts Ben, asking him again if he was involved in Kush’s death, and presumably also pointing out the secret phone call. But no, it’s not a hitman he was on the phone to, it was Stuart, and he’s brought Grandma Highway to Walford as a surprise for Callum. Which means that there’s a high chance Ben’s in that suit just for Granny Vi, which melts me. Of course he’s being the perfect husband-to-be, to directly contrast Callum’s doubts. And these doubts Callum has are clearly little more than niggles because of the timing of Ben’s secret phone calls, and once that’s resolved, the focus of the drama moves to Callum’s own confession – you know, that little half truth that he kept back in January. I didn’t think it would be brought up again, but here we are. I guess they wanted to keep something back specifically for pre-wedding ‘will they won’t they’ drama when they were getting Callum out of the sticky situation with Thompson, and that resulted in the truth-bending. It did always niggle at me though that Ben didn’t know the true extent Callum went for him; he didn’t just immediately go to Jack and work on taking down Thompson, he was prepared to let Phil go to prison if it meant keeping Ben out. Ben’s safety and freedom came before everything, even Ben’s own opinion on his dad being put away in his place (which Callum knew he would be angry about, because Ben doesn’t put Ben first like Callum does.) So, regardless of the complications of it all, everything finally coming out can only be a good thing – even if Ben is initially furious.
Tuesday runs on from Monday, with the fallout of Callum’s confession. Not much else spoiler wise for us, but should be a good angsty argument. Look at their faces! They’re both devastated. I’d hope Callum is clear about why he did it, even if Ben doesn’t want to hear it at first. I’m sure the fact Callum’s covered it up for so long is another factor in Ben’s anger, after all their talk about honesty. But it’s a good thing, that the good/bad dichotomy of their relationship is perhaps readjusted. Because Callum’s not purely good and Ben’s not purely bad. They are a beautiful balance and that’s why they work so well. Maybe other things come to light during this confrontation as well – and I welcome it. Get all the issues out of the way before wedding week!
The spoilers for Thursday tell us Phil is none the wiser about the source of Ballum’s angst – but at least it takes him a bit quicker to cotton on that something’s wrong this time, compared to when Ben and Callum broke up back at Christmas 2019. He decides to order Callum to sort things out – but as we see here, he tries to speak to Ben too. Maybe he makes a reasonable bet that Callum is less stubborn than Ben is (though I dunno, Callum has his moments.) I don’t think Phil will be finding out about Callum’s undercover operation to send him to prison this week, but who knows.
And so, Callum tells Ben he’ll be at the registry office on Monday and all Ben has to do is show up. And I presume that will be the last we see of them together until the wedding – if, you know, Ben turns up.
Because of this, I don’t reckon we’ll see them on Friday – but Granny Vi is still knocking about of course, and she demands Phil take her for a drink on Friday. Looks like Phat might be back on track when she rescues Phil. Vi sounds like quite the character and I’m looking forward to meeting her, and seeing her interactions with Ben and Callum.
In other related news, we got lots of content interview wise. We had Max, Tony and Vi actress Gwen Taylor all discussing Vi’s arrival, Callum’s confession and the wedding. I’ve tried to round them up below, there were a few repeat articles!
Metro – Tony and Max on the confession, wedding and Vi
Digital Spy – Tony and Max on Vi; Max on Callum’s confession and Ballum getting married; Tony on the confession and Ballum getting married
Radio Times – Gwen on Vi and joining EE
The Metro newsletter on Friday also had a fair bit in it interview-wise, with the questions to Max and Tony all laid out, as well as a bit with Gwen saying how lovely they all were to her.
Tony and Max:
Gwen:
I thought this Ben article was cute, on why he’s the best. Just gushing about why he was a good husband-to-be this past week, sorting the wedding out when it went down the drain.
And finally, I wanted to share this great in-depth article by my friend Erin on the subject of Queer Rep in Covid times and discussing the aspect of social distancing. Really worth a read!
Good luck everyone, the angst starts this week!
Jenn's Ballum Blog 