Ballum Part 4 - Jay Explains Himself To Lexi 

It angers me, too - and he is by far the best of the bunch. I always worry that Tony would be let go from the series because "Billy" is far too important even though he has been drifting arunaimlessly for decades.

Yes, not only have they at times relegated Callum to the side-lines, they have also neglected developing the relationship between Ben and Callum. And yes, where was Callum in this scene? As you said, he was there when Jay arrived, but then???

Honestly I think that if the viewers are really going to fall for jay's bullshit then they'll believe anything I don't know why jay is doing the "cry me a river" act considering they literally live near the river Thames I am worried that the next EastEnders stunt week will involve a flooding plotline 😂 He simply had to tell Lexi that uncle jay is going to go away for a while to clean himself up and hopefully Ben will be in a more forgiving mood I wanna point out that I am 100% on Ben's side here and I am pointing out that the character assassination of jay isn't necessary to make the plot work when a slightly better idea would have been Callum and Ben decide that jay living with them is just one person too many and the flat is starting to feel cramped and stuffy and jay finds a place but it's a little bit further afield and Ben, Callum and jay are trying to work out how Lexi's living arrangements can work with jay being a bit further away only for EastEnders to have their own Deus ex machina moment and someone dies leaving their flat available and it's mostly affordable and within jay's budget It's more realistic than the show trying to convince the audience that Lexi and jay have always had a father-daughter kind of relationship

Lexi his step daughter he did not have to be there and he heard Jay out the last three weeks. Give Cullum a break and he probably had to go to work

@@barbaraswingle5114 No-one is picking on Callum, Barbara. They're criticising the show's producers for leaving him out of the scene, when he was there at the beginning, then just disappears. The feeling of a lot of fans is that they don't like the way Callum is often left out and neglected. Cheers

Reread my comment that is NOT what I said

@@barbaraswingle5114 Yes, I read exactly what you said the first time. BY the way, it's Callum.

You’re very welcome & I’m doing alright, thank you for asking 😊🤍

I think the problem is that most of the audience that only sees these videos instead of the soap itself only sees things from Ben's perspective, and only sees Jay as some recurring character that shows up every once in a while instead of the complicated character he is supposed to be portrayed

No one is saying that Ben doesn't make mistakes. The character himself said that he had made several mistakes and that he didn't want Jay to make the same mistakes as him. If Lola didn't let Ben near Lexi when he was using drugs, why should Ben let Jay? Lexi is 11 years old; she has no idea what drugs or drug users are. An 11-year-old can't decide absolutely everything she wants. This conversation shouldn't even exist. If it were Ben, people would be slaughtering him or asking him to lose custody of Lexi.

No drugs around kids, not hard to get, Lola also banned Ben for a time because of it. Callum and Ben suggested therapy, and not seeing Nadine, Jay just laughs in their faces. Lexi only hears the sanitized version, "my grief, woo is me" from Jay, who just seems to use Lexi as an anchor to her mom, just as with Nadine.

@@jckun100 Yes Julio ... this is a very astute observation of yours. I often think, myself, that I'm probably not getting the full picture of the characters and what's happening generally in EastEnders, because I only watch this Zebra Ben and Callum series and not the whole show. The vitriol directed towards Jay was intense, with numerous comments about how terrible he was being in neglecting Lexi and putting her safety in jeopardy and how he should be stripped of his parental responsibility! I don't even particularly like the Jay character, but the attacks on him were really unfair! Cheeers, Terry

Was thinking the same

Some kids can be far more intelligent these days than given credit

She's not that young. She's 11 and has started secondary school.

@@CoolShorty The next family crisis will probably be Lexi smoking a spliff. Luckily Lily has saved us from the teenage pregnancy trope

She didn't know Ben was doing drugs, she only knew he was struggling with something. Lexi a kid she will forgive easier.

I know right People should be hypocrite

@@tashastoma yeh I know I meant when he came from America

Going to America to find a doctor for her mom is a tiny bit different than doing ketamine with a pro that looks exactly like her dead mother. Billy and Lexi don't even know the worst part.

If you're asking why people are complaining, it's because this past year, Callum has been put in the position of a mere background character that we see sometimes, instead of a central piece of this storyline as he should be. Before this whole prostitution and drugs thing, in almost every important scenes involving Lexi, Ben or/and Jay, Callum was in the background or straight up not there. The writers seemed to have tried to reinforce Jay's position as a step dad to Lexi by completely erasing Callum who, objectively, should have as much if not more rights than Jay (he actually has a very strong relationship with Lexi to begin with, with her calling him "Dad 2" on multiple occasions, and he's as much of her step dad as Jay is if we're talking about martial bonds between them and Lexi's parents). Basically, people (me included) are sick and tired of Callum being put in the background (I mean, he wasn't even there now even if he was in the scene just before...), and of this whole storyline/all these characters trying to portray Ben as the "bad guy" (as usual), on top of putting their relationship and mental health through even more hardships (Jay asking Callum to lie to Ben to protect him even though he was the one complaining that they were keeping secrets from him, Jay bringing up Ben's ED as an argument against him even though he basically forced Ben to tell him about it). Overall, this storyline is just wildly inconsistent and honestly pretty damn homophobic for many people (including me), trying very hard to make it seem like Ben and Callum, the main gay couple of this show, aren't fit to take care of a child without the help of their straight friend. In short, it just seem to me like the writers put Callum in the background to try and give Jay a bit of importance and relevance, which ruined Jay's character for me.

@@KyonGakuyou actually see this as homophobic, I bet you’re one of those angry people that see’s isms, phobics and ist’s everywhere you look. I’d even go so far to say I bet you’re one of those people who’s identity is your personality and you get offended on behalf of other people 😉

@@KyonGaku Not to mention, remember when ben and callum wanted to propose to eachother, Lexi said and I quote "There's no one else in the world who I'd want as my other dad" yeah, so much for that 🙄

I don't think anyone in the crew understands. And that's a big problem.

There's so many queer writers on the show who also don't seem to understand.

@@ShatteredMirrorExactly. And these writers clearly have internalized homophobia. And this shows how even being part of a minority group doesn't stop anyone from reproducing stigmas and prejudices. Not everyone has queer literacy. As I always say, the fact that they don't realize that this storyline is homophobic is a problem in itself. It's absurd that this storyline is happening in 2023.There's a whole team of writers, executive producers... There's simply no excuse.

Tony the actor who plays Callum

I might be missing something but which storyline is homophobic?

Honey the only female lexy can turn too and she Billy's Mrs Honey has been the back bone of those immature Adults,