Wednesday’s episode featured Callum giving his brother a pep talk about the importance of marriage vows and what they mean, which may have got him thinking about things.
At the Highway flat, Callum’s come round and made himself a cup of tea while they wait for the social worker – and Stuart – to arrive. There’s no real reason for Callum to be there, and it’s interesting how we haven’t actually seen him in his own flat since he kicked Ben out a month ago. I suppose there hasn’t been much reason to, but we’ve seen Callum nearly everywhere else; the restaurant, the pub, the parlour flat, the Albert, the cafe, outside. Is it the show not wanting us to see the flat for whatever reason (like a reveal down the line for how it looks now) or is it that Callum wants to spend as little time there as possible?
I guess in the meantime it works for us if Callum’s spending time anywhere but there, because we wouldn’t see him at all otherwise. So he’s inexplicably here as Rainie’s panicking about Stuart’s whereabouts.
Callum proposes that he go and look for Stuart, reasoning that he can’t have gone far. But as he’s saying that, the buzzer goes and he’s literally answering it as he picks up his coat (a coat, in this weather Callum?)
He has to break the news to Rainie that it’s the social worker here to see her and Stuart. He’d better work quickly to locate Stuart.
Turns out he does just that, heading to the park with Vi in tow. Vi is lamenting how it’s all gone to pot for Stuart and Callum, what with his marital strife and everything. Callum tells her he doesn’t have any marital strife, which is an odd thing to say; does he mean it’s not strife because technically it’s over between them, or does he mean he personally doesn’t feel any angst about it? It would seem to be the latter because he then refers to Ben hiding himself away in his bedroom. If he knows that’s what Ben has been doing, then he knows that Ben isn’t exactly celebrating the end of their marriage. And from Callum’s perspective, if Ben had really wanted both lives as Callum accused, wouldn’t he be grabbing hold of that single man life? Callum already knows that Ben hasn’t been looking after himself, when Frankie pointed it out and he tried to pretend not to care. And now he’s apparently got Bobby backing up the idea that Ben isn’t doing too great (presumably they spoke before Ben went on the trip with Jay.)
It wouldn’t be clear whether Bobby approached Callum or Callum’s the one who asked; except in my opinion, the fact that Vi put forward the idea of Callum checking up on Ben – and Callum not really denying it – means that Callum is the one who did the approaching. Maybe not seeking Bobby out especially, but perhaps trying to casually ask about Ben while being served at the restaurant, for example. He told on himself in the process of trying to be cold towards Ben and even Vi could see it.
Anyway, they’re distracted by Stuart, who Callum spots sitting on a bench across the park. He makes his way over, Vi behind him, and sits next to Stuart, treading cautiously. Then Stuart launches into a story about a fox he saw giving a kebab to his baby fox, continuing the story even as Callum tries to give him a nudge about the social worker and Rainie doing her nut. I think Callum can tell there’s a point to the story, and I did laugh at him trying to answer Vi about what Stuart was talking about. A fox or something, nan. A fox!
It becomes apparent what Stuart’s point is – that it’s natural and instinct to feel something for your child, but he just doesn’t feel it for Roland at all, making the point that if he’d been the fox, he’d have eaten the kebab. Vi doesn’t understand the analogy apparently, but Callum does.
He basically tells Stuart that he can’t help how he feels and there’s no shame in that. That maybe it takes time or the surrogacy is affecting how he feels about the baby – but asks Stuart if he loves Rainie. He can see that talking to Stuart about Roland isn’t going to work, so he focuses on Stuart’s commitment to Rainie instead. And in the process he imparts some advice that he may well need to consider himself. He brings up Stuart’s wedding vows and whether they mean something to him, that he didn’t just say them for the sake of it. And while he can’t really account for Ben’s vows (though maybe he did intend this to be a dig at Ben initially), his own vows are unmistakably things he can take forward – to follow his heart, not his head; to speak honestly and listen; to remember that ‘I am us.’ I really do feel like this will be important for Callum reaching out, as surely there’s a reason he’s picking up on Ben’s behaviour, even asking after him?
His advice to Stuart if his vows did mean something is to get himself home. That he made a promise to Rainie, and talks about the support Rainie has given him regarding the cancer and other things that have really tested Rainie (I wonder if he’s thinking about Thompson being stuffed into a fridge at the parlour, not realising that that was actually a turn on for Rainie. Anyhoo…)
Callum reckons that’s what marriage is about – unconditional support. It gives me hope that he’ll remember this when he finds out the truth and realises how important this is. Because he and Ben are still married and it’s a commitment he can’t just wash his hands of.
He tells Stuart he has to step up, that even if he has doubts about being a dad, Callum knows he can still be an amazing husband – with a little joke about Rainie making kebab meat out of Stuart if he doesn’t hurry up, just to lighten the mood a bit.
One more thing I have to point out in this ep, and it’s that Callum’s poster is back on the side of the Vic, graffiti-free – which was seen earlier on in the episode. No one can escape cop Callum now!
After Callum’s pep talk, Stuart arrived back to the flat, but it all went south from there, ending with Stuart giving Roland back to Bernie despite Rainie’s desperate protests, and then in Thursday’s episode having a meltdown in the markets with some handmade cupcakes. Rainie seemed to think he’d spent the night at Callum’s flat – maybe he had, but we don’t see it for ourselves. Then later on Stuart tries to pull the ‘my brother is a cop’ card when he’s being arrested, which of course gets him nowhere. No one suggests Stuart get any professional help for his behaviour at any point, which is a shame, and Stainie are in tatters by the end of the week.
I saw hints in this episode that Callum is thawing, despite his best efforts to not care. He can’t switch that off, and his marriage vows might come into play down the line, I reckon.
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