Monday’s episode gave us a glimpse of Ben back on the Square as his family try different ways of getting justice for him.
When the car pulls up outside the Mitchell house (shoddily parked by Phil, got to say!) Ben ignores Phil’s comment about being glad to be home – possibly because he’s not, not really. Nothing’s changed as far as he’s concerned. Instead he asks who died, referring to the funeral procession taking place out on the Square. The answer is Mitch’s brother Avery, but it’s not like Phil has any idea and he says as much. They were both around when he died, but were also very much pre-occupied. Nor would they pay much attention anyway, as, to quote Dot, they’re not really ones to gossip.
It’s clear that Phil assumes Ben will be staying with him and mentions his old room being ready for him. However, Ben tells him, rather gently, that actually he’s going to stay at Kathy’s. I get the feeling that Ben thinks staying under Phil’s roof means tacit agreement of the Mitchell rulebook; in other words, fists not feelings, revenge instead of healing. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the last time Ben stayed at Phil’s, he’d just dunked Peter in the sink at Walford East and was very much leaning into the Mitchell stereotype. But the rest of the time he’s been seen to be avoiding his dad’s house even when he has nowhere else to go. And this scene has Ben explicitly stating he’d rather be at Kathy’s.
Phil doesn’t accept it at first, insisting that he’ll be looking after Ben (and if you needed further proof that Phil’s really trying; calling Ben ‘love’ instead of ‘son’ or ‘mate’ really felt like Phil leaning into his feelings and it got me in the feels as a result!), but when he informs Ben that he’s booked them a holiday for just the two of them, Ben tells him that he already tried that with Jay, but it didn’t work. Didn’t make him better, didn’t help him forget. He’s grateful that Phil’s trying but lets him know that nothing he does is going to make a difference, and Ben’s resigned to that knowledge.
Phil is desperate to do something though, and as he watches Ben’s forlorn figure walking across to Kathy’s in the rear view mirror, he gets in touch with someone he’d ordinarily rather pull teeth than voluntarily meet.
Yep, it’s Keeble, Mitchell arch-nemesis who might have gotten Phil out of jail, but she’s been waiting for him to uphold his end of their deal for a while now. She’s full of sarcasm and witty comebacks as Phil tries to ask her for a favour, even as Phil says Ben was attacked. However, when Phil clarifies that it was a sexual assault, her demeanour changes and she’s genuinely sorry to hear that it happened. She asks if Ben’s reported it, but from Phil’s response it’s clear he hasn’t, and Keeble puts that down to the Mitchells being their own worst enemies – even though she then admits that getting a conviction for a rape is notoriously difficult when Phil tells her he wants the book thrown at Lewis. She points out the slim chances of there being firm evidence for something like a rape and how it usually just comes down to the word of either side.
Phil is determined to get some sort of outcome though and suggests that they pin him for something else, just as long as he gets put away. Keeble doesn’t like the suggestion of being a bent copper, which is hilarious to me considering the lengths she went to in order to get Phil to agree to her certainly-not-totally-legit deal. They’re quite the comedy duo it turns out, because Phil then starts talking about how one sided their deal is as if Keeble owes him. Maybe he’s thinking that if he doesn’t acknowledge the whole thing about him being a grass then it means it doesn’t exist.
The conversation is over, and it’s not that Keeble refused to help Ben really, there was just nothing she could do (legally). It’s disappointing for Phil who wants Lewis to be punished, but is also clearly still sticking to the No Violent Revenge promise as Kathy requested, and as he assumes Ben wants. Note that no one actually asked him, though.
The episode ends with Zack picking Sam up in a car with plenty of boot space, after having revealed to her that he’d found Lewis. Details kept vague of course, so we’ll just have to guess how he managed it. But Sam’s taking over now, kicking Zack out of the driver’s seat so she can get in, gun just fully visible in her handbag. She’s going hunting, with a form of justice that Phil’s been deliberately trying to avoid. It won’t be the last time I say it this week, but there are shades of 2019!Ben all over Sam, including this revenge plan because she thinks it’s what Phil wants. They might not particularly like each other but Ben and Sam have so much in common as Mitchells trying to live up to their name. Anyway, we can imagine just how Sam and Zack between them manage to bundle Lewis into the boot…
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