The Wild Ride That is Ballum

It has been a decade since I visited Albert Square and I'm not disapointed

The YouTube algorithm has recorded in the eternal logs that I may perhaps be a tiny bit #gay 🏳️‍🌈. I shouldn’t be surprised after rocking through Space Gays, but I am not happy because having this recorded about you by Evil Tech can really fuck you over if things go authoritarian.

Considering I haven’t really watched EastEnders for a long time, I’ve been skipping over the suggestion for Ballum1, mainly because much like the critics I never really vibed2 with the Ben Mitchell character when I was more serious on the soaps.

Because I’ve been funemployed for so long, struggling for content, and let’s be honest, the recast of Ben has made him pure DILF3 material, I clicked that video and spent the next four days binging four whole years of storyline.

Max Bowden as Ben Mitchell - DILF

I’m not going to spoil everything here, but I have to say there is a lot packed in to New Ben and the storylines they have him and Callum go through. I didn’t see the coming out story arc and it isn’t on iPlayer, so I don’t have a lot of the previous Phil and Ben history, as well as the Paul part (which comes up a fair bit in the Ballum storyline).

Ben Mitchell and Callum Highway

For me personally, the stories that they dropped on Ben really cover the bases and open up both characters in that trademark EastEnders style. The topics cover a lot of my personal experiences and a wide variety of good portion of the gay community : self-acceptance, opening up to vulnerability, realising you are worthy of love, and the more darker topics like drink, drug, and self abuse, sexual assault, also what looks like a set-up for an eating disorder.

Ben and Callum - Police Station

Ticks a lot of boxes on my list and I got lost in Albert Square through out the full viewing. It also kind of got me back in to the soap.

Ben and Callum - Tears

There are a lot of tears and I’m sure what must be a basic requirement of anybody on EastEnders they can clearly pull of a convincing tear or two on demand. If you’re not careful you could start, I plead the 5th here but I’m told by a friend of a friend of a dog.

Ben Mitchell

So in closing, I highly recommend catching up on Ballum, you won’t regret it.

Ben and Callum - In Prince Albert

1

Ben and Callum

2

Ben as played by Jones received generally negative reviews from critics. The Guardian’s Grace Dent called him a “spooky little git”, and her fellow Guardian writer Daniel Martin deemed him “gormless”.

3

An acronym for “Dad I’d Like to F**”. A dilf is any man (typically between the ages of 30-50) who is incredibly attractive and has kids. They are usually really cut, from activities such as pushing strollers, giving piggyback rides, and intense trips to the local park or Disney World. They also have a killer smile and sense of childlike joy, because they play with their kids all the time. Unfortunately, getting with them is hard, as they are typically very faithful to their wife (see MILF).*