The week ahead (week 32)

We have Ballum together next week – but looks like it’s just for one day. And with the boxsets at an end now that the Olympics is over, it’s just typical that it’s Friday they’re making their appearance, isn’t it?!

Luckily for us, it’s a Jonny penned ep, so it should be good. I think there was bafflement all round when we heard Ben was having money troubles and being threatened with a loan shark of all things, but in actual fact, it sort of makes sense to me. Hear me out!
Firstly, and probably most importantly – money is always an extremely vague aspect of EastEnders, and anyone can be flush or broke as and when the story requires. Look at Phil, Ian and Ruby – all of them business owners who are sometimes loaded, and sometimes barely scraping by. Money is often used as a motivator for character actions, making them do things they wouldn’t do if they weren’t desperate (like staging a robbery, or flogging diet pills, or agreeing to be a surrogate…) so in most cases EE tend to keep it up their sleeve in case they need it to further a plot. No one knows the exact ingoings and outgoings of a character’s earnings (my following ramble is just guesswork!) so it’s one of the easiest plot devices they can use.
Next, we’ve got Ben’s change of cash flow. We don’t know exactly what he had going on with Phil before the wedding, but any business he had going with his dad through the Arches (and all those chicken shops) would have been withdrawn when Ben left with Callum (Ben confirmed this when he said that Phil wanted nothing to do with the Arches.) I’m inclined to think Phil just lifted his deals from the Arches rather than leave them with Ben. This means all Ben has is what he’s got with Kheerat and the (presumably) ongoing joint business with Stas – which, as Phil pointed out at the time, means he only gets half the cut. There’s the gold bar business where Ben apparently gets 30 grand, but I’m presuming that’s a gradual earning estimate from the melting down of the gold into separate pieces, and it’s not a guaranteed sell. And yes, he was looking to buy the gym back then – but maybe that’s why he took out the loan, hoping to pay it back with the money he’d have saved if they melted the bars themselves, but then it didn’t happen and he fell victim to the loan shark system just like the people he used to target when he was a money lender (soap karma if you will). And that’s maybe where a lot of the money he’s getting from Kheerat goes – trying to keep on top of those payments.
There’s also the fact that the Arches is also a legitimate business, but it’s a business that is struggling, and has done for a good while. We know there are employees working there, so Ben has to pay them, as well as maintenance for the garage, car parts… maintaining a business is a lot, especially if not much is coming in. He could be losing money there instead of earning it. He has helped Jay with the car lot but I’m not sure he works there regularly; it seems to be Jay’s full time venture now as Stuart and Rainie are in charge of the funeral parlour.
Then you’ve got all the wedding business. Ben and Callum had pretty much everything booked – and then the hotel went bust. If the hotel went bust, I very much doubt they got their money back for the venue, and possibly lost deposits for everything else they’d booked for that date – caterers, flowers, reception entertainment. Weddings are expensive, and I think they potentially lost a lot there, even if they were able to rescue it with the cheaper options (or not so cheap – Ben said there was no intimidation needed for the registry office but that doesn’t rule out a bit of bribery, does it?) So that leaves Ben with less money to invest.
I think because they’re framing it as Ben’s money troubles, it’s more about his business struggles rather than about Ballum’s joint income. None of Callum’s money goes into the dodgy stuff after all, and I think this is about Ben struggling to keep the businesses going rather than just cutting his losses. And it makes perfect sense to me why he wouldn’t want to just do that – especially after the other week where Phil highlighted Ben’s business as one of the indicators that he’s grown up, and why Paul would be proud of him. Ben wants to prove he can do it, can keep things afloat and provide for his family, and not admit that he needs help or needs to let go of these ventures that lose him money. No one ever admits they need help on a soap; it’s why they turn to dodgy or illegal things to try and get the money instead.
When Ben is threatened by the loan shark (or at least, their 12-year-old representative on a bicycle, a bit Line of Duty-esque!) in Friday’s episode, Callum and Vi clock them and Callum wants to know what’s going on. So how much does Callum actually know? He must know that Ben’s got cashflow problems, considering the fact they are still on an airbed in the flat with seemingly no plans to leave. So maybe the surprise comes from the fact that Ben’s turned to a loan shark, that the problem is that serious. Ben’s income is hard to quantify and is rather sporadic, and if any money he gets goes back into trying to repay the loan and keep everything else afloat, it’s possible Callum didn’t know about it.
So why wouldn’t Ben just tell Callum? Maybe he did a bit of compartmentalising himself – that because it’s related to the businesses, it’s not something that Callum needs to know; it’s just work, he can handle it; that sort of thing. A bit like when Callum didn’t want to tell Ben about the stabbing; because if he said it, then it would become a real thing he’d have to get help for rather than something he could convince himself was going to go away.
Maybe Ben is burying his head in the sand and refusing to see the problem himself until it’s literally cycling up to him. And going back to the point about soap characters never admitting they need help for their money problems and resorting to high risk solutions – that shame around money is something that’s really relatable, and therefore it’s understandable that characters do out-of-character things in response to it, as a lot of us are familiar with that shame. Ben could simply have been too ashamed to admit he’s having trouble keeping on top of the businesses, especially if it reinforces the ongoing good/bad dichotomy of Ballum – Callum with a steady income on a ‘good’ job and Ben losing money on dodgy ventures.
Whatever Callum knows, or whatever Ben’s told him, I’d say it’s definitely not going to be the dodginess Callum’s worried about but more about the danger Ben now seems to be in, and the fact he let things get to this point. It also seems to me that any issues about secrecy between them is short lived, as the focus then turns to Ben asking Phil for help (which is something that I would say adds weight to the idea that Phil withdrawing his businesses from the Arches is part of why Ben is struggling.) Maybe Ben has heard that Phil is leaving to help Louise and naively thinks it means that he’ll help Ben too – but turns out it’s a no. Not that we are surprised. Though interesting to note that Phil is leaving the country, and leaving Kat to look after his house. Sounds like he’s out of the way for any upcoming stuff.
Then, we’ve got Vi gossiping to Kathy about her son’s money troubles, which Kheerat overhears. Yeah, you can see where this is going. I’m not sure what Kathy’s reaction to Ben struggling will be, but it doesn’t sound like she offers to help. I am rather intrigued to hear what she does say though. Maybe both Vi and Kathy downplay the problem to each other, especially if Ben had downplayed it in front of Vi earlier – but then Kheerat hears and works out from what he knows about Ben’s business operations that he does needs help. Which I’m sure is the point of all of this money stuff – Ben feeling like he has little choice but to accept Kheerat’s offer despite the risks that Callum is worried about (and at least he’s in on this whole thing now, knowing about the offer and discussing it with Ben). It brings Ben and Kheerat even closer, uncomfortably so as it presumably puts a lot of Ben’s livelihood in Kheerat’s hands, and if he were to find out about the Jags stuff… well, it would not be good for Ben, as it’s not just emotional and physical fallout he risks, but financial fallout now as well. Not to mention prison to worry about on top of that, considering Kheerat knows there’s evidence linking Ben and Callum to his own assault on Simon, but nothing connecting himself. If he was angry enough he could make things very difficult for Ballum indeed. I’d say he’ll be holding an uncomfortable amount of power by next week. If Ben says yes to his offer. Which he will, of course, because soap.

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If you read all that, well done! Now in other news, Ben’s made Digital Spy’s list of 50 groundbreaking soap characters in their magazine, available on Apple News. It seems you can only get access if you have a subscription, or sign up for the free trial, so see below for Ben’s entry!

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And as you may know, it’s Tony’s birthday today and he’s 30!! I hope he has the best day. He shared some pics last week of his friends and him climbing Mount Snowdon in Wales. It couldn’t be me, but looks like he had a great time!

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