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phonenumber01 · 5 days ago

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Hi, hi, hello, and welcome to Anna rewrites Eddie fell first: a look at how you can argue a level of awareness from Eddie since season 3 with Eddie being settled into how Buck just doesn't feel the same so he won't question it, this time with season 8 context.

Things to keep in mind here: this hinges on Eddie not looking at the way that he feels about Buck makes him queer but being aware that he views Buck as a life partner but what he has is all he can get (yk the whole one knows he's gay but doesn't know he's in love and the other knows he's in love but doesn't know that makes him gay, that's Buck and Eddie in my brain rn) and the way I view the whole fell first/fell harder thing being about awareness, the one who fell first is the one who’s had awareness of it for longer and therefore is settled into the feeling, while the one who falls harder is the one who gets hit with it suddenly and can’t keep it in because they end up feeling it all at once. With the way Buck and Eddie handle feelings, for Buck to lose it once he realizes is a lot more plausible, he doesn’t know how to handle big emotions, and Eddie boxes things into portions he can handle, so I think the realization that he is in love with Buck would be a lot more peaceful because I don’t think he would think that changes much, it would be just putting a name to it to something he already understands. Also, the fact that Buck is very explicitly unaware when it comes to canon, considering he said with all the words he’s not in love with Eddie and we don't have that with Eddie. But Anna, Eddie said he's straight. Baby girl, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

So we start this out before Eddie gets to the 118. Eddie’s age is a mystery, but given Shannon’s, we can infer that Buck and Eddie are around the same age. Eddie at that point had been killing himself to make sure Christopher would be properly taken care of. Internet tells me the academy lasts around a year, it also gives me the expectation that Eddie would probably be a bit older than most of the recruits. Eddie is very friendly, but given the fact that we know nothing about his class at the academy, it’s safe to say he did not make any lasting connections there. That means it is safe to assume that the constants in his life in LA were Chris, Pepa, and Abuela, maybe a few cousins, considering he still doesn’t have permanent help with Chris. So honestly, the only constant contact he had was with his 7-year-old and his grandmother.

We know that Bobby wanted a partner in the field for Buck. Considering that Chim is both a firefighter and paramedic, picking Eddie because he was a medic in the army to give Buck a more dynamic partner makes sense. But that also leads me to believe that Buck himself was a selling point of the 118, considering Eddie was persuaded into joining them, he wasn’t assigned a house like the rest of them. Someone good at their job around his age that he could befriend is tempting, considering the past few years of his life, with Shannon leaving, and 3 different jobs, and then the academy. The way we see Eddie when placed in new situations, like befriending everyone on dispatch, that man craves connections in a way that he was not getting.

Which makes the concept of Buck intriguing, even if he had no way of predicting how important Buck would grow to be.

So we are gonna look at Eddie’s first day as Eddie trying to befriend Buck because of that desire to have someone at the same level he could bounce off (unintended pun but he found someone who would bounce on it yay lol). Everyone is telling him that Buck is great, he has to be curious. Because if we look at things like the help with the call, the I'd go lower, and the comment about being in the wrong light as attempts to bond, while having rougher edges that come with not settling down until that moment when he joined the lafd and found a permanent spot, it makes it so it looks like Eddie is trying to be helpful so he can get an opening. It also makes the “you’re badass under pressure” yet another thing to try and get through to Buck.

Eddie was trying, and Buck was being Buck. Until he found the thing that made Buck let him in, the reassurance that Eddie is not there to replace him, that makes Buck imprint on him like a baby duck.

And sure, this was casual, it’s a coworker thing for a few weeks while Eddie gets the feel of the place, we know that due to the fact that Eddie doesn’t share Christopher’s existence during those first few shifts. Christopher is always gonna be the key, sharing Christopher is what Eddie does when it comes to trying harder on his connections. But that makes Buck jump into that space with him. Buck spends the shift making sure Eddie knows Chris would be safe, and we even have a moment where we see just how much Eddie listens to Buck, with the way he repeats Buck’s words to him about highrises being the safest place to be during an earthquake. We also have Buck driving Eddie to Chris’ school. I wish we had a canon explanation for that fact, but I do love that we have a montage of Hen going home to Karen and Denny, Athena going home to May and Harry, and then Buck, Eddie, and Chris become their little unit.

But that all actually starts the moment I believe is when Eddie was gone for good. Which isn’t Carla, but Buck clearing with Bobby for Chris to stay at the station. Because Eddie is loyal until it kills him, and that moment at the station that eventually leads to Carla, is the moment that Buck becomes Eddie’s ride or die. Because Eddie’s whole life has been about people telling him he’s not doing enough, he’s failing as a son, he failed as a husband, he feels like he is failing as a father, but the way Buck steps in isn’t about doing something better than Eddie and making him feel inferior, it’s about Buck seeing a need and helping without allowing Eddie to feel like a failure for not doing it himself. You can see it on Eddie’s face.

He never had that thing Buck is offering with no expectations. And the way that Buck makes sure that Christopher’s life is gonna be improved. He’s not only offering Eddie help, he’s making sure Christopher is gonna have the support he needs. And that is what seals Eddie's faith here.

And, yes they're both tied to each other in some way at this point, but I feel like Buck's crush upon meeting Eddie turned I'll never look at the fact that he's very hot again because he's the best friend I've ever had has a different feeling from Eddie letting Buck in as much as he possibly could. I feel like there's a level of intention in the way Eddie chooses Buck to be the person he trusts the most, while Buck stumbles into it and keeps telling himself it doesn't mean anything more. Which puts Eddie in this space where he knows but won't define, and Buck defines wrong.

But obviously, everything there is complicated as hell, he can’t look at the way Buck makes him feel, not with Shannon coming back, and the way he does love her in some way, but he doesn’t trust her.

Who even invites their best friend to a family outing he denied his honest to God wife and mother of his kid? Eddie Diaz apparently, because why wouldn’t he take Buck with him to go see Santa while denying Shannon all access to Chris? And it’s interesting that Eddie doesn’t try for real until Buck tells him to. Both with letting Shannon back in Chris’ life, AND with the whole “we should be a family” speech, it comes from Buck. Buck sees the best in the situation in a way Eddie doesn’t, and that pushes Eddie into things.

But then Shannon dies after asking for a divorce, and that complication is gone, but is tangled in a whole layer of new problems because Buck almost dies right after. The season 2 finale it’s interesting on this point because we see the first moment of irrationality from Eddie when it comes to Buck. He’s just there, holding Buck’s hand. Hen is more than capable of treating Buck. Chim took over the other bombing. Bobby is also there. Eddie is objectively stronger than all of them, he’s also not a paramedic, the rational thing would be for him to be one of the people trying to lift the truck, but no, Buck needs him, so he won’t leave Buck’s side, and it’s not like doing much, he’s holding Buck’s hand, he’s riding with him to the hospital.

We also get a really overlooked thing with the way Hen says things are back to normal, and Eddie looks all wistful, saying almost, because Buck is not there.

Also, the way Buck fresh out of surgery, fresh out of being bombed, is like, nope, this is more important, because he needs to be there for Eddie’s shield ceremony (yay buddie hug number 1, and the way that their last interaction in season 2 is a hug, and their first in season 3 is also a hug.)

So, there’s something on Eddie’s mind about Buck, Buck is very tied to his sense of normalcy already. But season 3 is the one that kicks things into gear.

It starts with Eddie’s choice to hand Chris over to Buck after Buck quits, to remind Buck he still has things to live for. That he still has him, even if they’re not working together. But then the tsunami happens.

The tsunami is a key piece for their dynamic, not just because it is the moment that makes Buck a parent, but because at no point does Eddie think to blame Buck. Buck is beating himself up, but even when both of them think that Chris is gone for good, Eddie doesn’t even think there’s something to forgive Buck for. And that leads to the first of the moments that makes me go “Eddie has to know something” and that is the “there’s nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you”. The first moment where Eddie does his roundabout way to tell Buck exactly how much he means to him, even while Buck is lost in his own feelings.

I don’t like to put Shannon in comparison with Buck, but in this particular instance, I’ll have to. During the whole thing with her, where they can’t stop sleeping together but Eddie won’t let her see Chris, the thing there is trust. Eddie doesn’t trust Shannon not to hurt them again. But Shannon also asks for Eddie to make a statement about what they are based on allowing her Christopher, and later, on possible child #2 is what makes Eddie decide to propose again after Shannon uses that to ask what they are. We also know they only got married because she got pregnant. So Eddie’s only romantic relationship at that point has been defined by Christopher. Kids are the only sign he is shown to believe in. So for Eddie to say something like that, it means something. Sure, the tsunami created a bond between Buck and Chris that Eddie can’t control, but he is Christopher's father, no one would blame him for being cautious, but it doesn’t occur to him, because this is Buck. Buck is constant, he is the thing they need to feel normal again. At that point, Eddie is already aware of the fact that he wants to keep Buck in his life.

But then the lawsuit happens. Eddie’s reaction to it and the grocery store of it all only makes sense if he sees Buck as a partner. Buck has no obligation to Eddie and Chris. No one can demand that their best friend consider them before making life-changing choices. But Eddie expects Buck to consider him. He hides behind Chris, and there’s obviously the lingering trauma of watching Shannon die, watching Buck explode, watching the blood clot, and the tsunami, and the way he almost lost both of Buck and Chris and didn’t even know. There’s also the layer of the way Buck understands what Chris went through in a way Eddie can never fully relate to and how that created an attachment from Chris to Buck that Eddie doesn’t fully understand but was ready to nurture because, well, the more people who love Chris, the better, and Chris has lost a lot already, to have a trusted adult who’s not Eddie is important, especially because Chris was hiding things from him, and it matters to Eddie that Chris has someone else willing to die for him, because that is what Buck proved to him he would do. But it's about more because Eddie hates the way he can't talk to Buck. That's his complaint the whole time. Not being able to reach Buck, that Buck went to that extreme after he said how permanent he feels about him.

Not having Buck around, not having him available, puts Eddie off-balance in a way he notices but doesn’t examine. At this point, Buck already exists in his own category on Eddie’s brain, that’s demonstrated by the way that he mentions Buck as separate from the 118 when he gets arrested. He doesn’t think to hide that from Buck the same way he does the rest of the team, he only hides that from Buck because he can’t talk to Buck. Something else here, since we don’t see Buck telling Eddie, it’s safe to assume that Eddie found out he couldn’t talk to Buck through someone involved in the department, maybe Bobby during morning briefing or someone else in their legal department, and boy, wouldn’t that open more wounds considering how Shannon left him and Chris without a word. With Chris’ nightmares, Eddie isn’t expecting to be able to rely on Buck like a best friend, he's expecting a partner. He's not looking at it, he’s not examining it, but he’s for sure feeling it, and it’s throwing him for a loop, considering his world keeps falling apart around him, and he put Buck as a constant in his life. So that Eddie who’s yelling at Buck in a grocery store like a husband calling out his deadbeat ex, is feeling something he refuses to name.

Something about Eddie is that he does not know what it’s like to have someone make the choice to fight for him. His parents low-key hate him, and Shannon didn’t come back because she wanted to, he reached out first. And that makes the way he’s completely unable to stay mad at Buck more glaring, because it's because Buck is making an effort he's not familiar with. And as long as Buck tries, Eddie is gonna fold. Buck knows he went nuclear and that hurt people he cares about, and he wants to prove to Eddie that he can trust him, and the way Buck is reaching out is the thing. Eddie is physically unable to stay mad at Buck, but it’s very obvious during Buck’s first shift back, because he’s not even ignoring Buck fully, he is replying every time Buck tries. And the second he sees Buck's side of things, he doesn’t hesitate because it all boils down to Eddie missing Buck. He wants Buck to consider him, and as long as Buck says he will, he's fine. Even though Buck is still expecting to be forced to do something to prove himself, see the way he’s shocked Eddie just says he forgives him, but also the way that Buck tries to apologize again in the kitchen scene.

Something to consider before I talk about the 309 kitchen scene, the episode opens with Eddie’s therapy session, and one thing Eddie says is that he’s boxing his feelings so much, he’s not even feeling the good things. Keep that in mind for the remainder of this.

Eddie is a professional compartmentalizer. Buck is in his own little box, and I don’t even think the box is labeled best friend in his mind, it just has a pretty little Buck slapped into it while he desperately tries to stop it from busting open. The conversation in the kitchen is Eddie asking Buck to stop making him think about it. “We’re way past that”, the refusal to admit that he’s not opening up to Frank, the whole “let’s just move on” energy. Which paired with Eddie’s tendency to just move past things that make him feel intense emotions, it begs the question of why he won’t look at the way not being a priority to Buck fucked him up. Because, yeah, the fight club era is a culmination of everything that went wrong in Eddie’s life in those 6 months, but losing Buck is the spark that makes him blow up. As much as he doesn’t want to admit it. I don’t think he wanted to punch Buck, he wanted to control something because he couldn’t control how he's feeling. Shannon wanted to divorce him, and Buck low-key divorced him too for a period, which led them to Buck’s kitchen while Buck forces him to think about the impact he has on his life. Buck is very effective in talking Eddie off the ledge. He is a constant in allowing Eddie to exist in a way. But Eddie doesn’t want to think about it. Thinking about it means defining it. Defining it makes it complicated.

He won't look at it as long as Buck continues to prioritize their connection, and Buck basically promises he will, and he does show himself as back to that constant, we see it in moments like the skateboard incident.

But then we roll right into what I think is one of the major buddie episodes on the show, which is telling on its own, with everything that happens during Eddie Begins. And I’m not talking about Buck clawing at the dirt and the way everyone is treating Buck like a widower already while Eddie is down there, or the way the light is out behind Buck’s eyes, and how he looks at Eddie like he’s a miracle when they find him.

It’s the choice to add that much Buck to Eddie’s I need to keep fighting montage.

This is retroactive, but the well makes Eddie change his will to add Buck as Christopher’s legal guardian. The first thing on the montage is actually Buck finding out about Chris. Because they start the flashback with Buck saying "you have a kid?" not Eddie saying he's trying to reach his son, or dropping him off a the school, or with abuela, or even Chris' birth. If that was the first time we as the audience learned about Chris too, then sure, but they use the first scene we see Chris in after. So it’s a conscious decision to attach Buck to Chris while Eddie is buried and trying to find the strength to get out of there. And since Eddie chooses to legally bind himself to Buck after that, this is yet another “Eddie has to know something” moment. Something funny to me about the will being changed after the well is the way that 316 is all about Buck’s fear of ending up like Red. And Eddie is all “that’s not gonna happen to us” while literally sitting on a piece of paper that says Buck is stuck with him until he dies. But he doesn't say anything.

And again, it begs the question, what did Eddie realize while down there? Something changed beyond being confronted with his own mortality because he has a lot of blood relatives willing to take care of Chris if the worst happens. He’s known Buck for about 2 years at this point, the lawsuit happened less than 6 months before this. And he is more sure of Buck than he was of Shannon or anyone else in his family.

And logically, Buck is not the greatest choice, he’s also a firefighter, he’s Eddie’s partner in the field, so if Eddie is in danger, then chances are that Buck is too. He’s also single and without kids of his own. Any lawyer would look at Eddie is insane for even suggesting it when he has living parents and 2 sisters. But he is the only choice that makes sense to Eddie. No matter what. And the only reason he would hide that is if he doesn’t know how to tell Buck without telling Buck everything. So much so, he only tells Buck when he can shift the conversation back to Buck.

Then we have Eddie’s reactions to Abby during the train derailment. Obviously, if my best friend had been abandoned by someone who never gave him the courtesy of closure, I would also reserve myself the right to hate them, and Eddie only saw the damage Abby did, but Eddie being willing to let Sam die for the crime of being engaged to Abby adds to the situation. Because with the correct lens on, that’s jealousy. Sure, Eddie knows Abby as someone who broke Buck, but he also knows her as this presence that made Buck who he is, which I think gives her too much credit, Buck just needed someone to let him care, so much so that getting Maddie back is what fully allows him to settle into himself. But she’s this mystical presence who still has control over Buck, and Eddie very clearly does not like it. And he doesn’t like it in a way that makes him unsure of the space he has on Buck’s life, which is something. Especially considering the way the show tries to frame Buck as still hung up on Abby. He is hesitant to touch Buck, he is hesitant to talk, all his reactions are of someone feeling threatened, and that is also something that can only be explained by Eddie seeing Buck as more, because why would he feel threatened by his best friend’s ex if he was just the best friend?

This Eddie already changed his will. Buck is set in stone in his life. And as a partner.

Because the thing about the will isn’t the will, is the choice to hide it. Buck wouldn’t say no if Eddie asked, so why didn’t Eddie ask? He doesn’t want to look at why he made that choice because that means looking at who Buck is to him, and at this point, Eddie doesn’t want the answer. Buck is just Buck. If he doesn’t look at it, he doesn’t have to define it.

Season 4 is complicated in different ways. Eddie reaches a point where he wants love, but the thing he knows is Shannon, which leads us to Ana and trying a relationship that’s doomed to be comfortable but never exactly what Eddie needs.

Especially because in the middle of it all, the show is making a point of strengthening Buck and Christopher, Buck is the partner and coparent, so why is there a woman in the middle? But it is what Eddie knows. He finds Ana interesting, maybe he can grow to love her. But parallel to that, Buck is finding his way to Taylor. And Eddie low-key hates it because in his mind, the claim Buck has on his life is set, but he is once again questioning if the feeling is mutual. And they are bestieing like never before, but there’s clearly something under it for the both of them.

Then The Moment happens. You can claw the shooting as Eddie’s oh moment out of my cold, dead hands. Eddie reached for Buck. He got shot, he thought he was dying, and the thing he did was reach for Buck.

Then Buck gets to him, puts him on the truck, is frantically trying to stop the bleeding, and this man, bleeding out, focuses on Buck just long enough to ask if Buck is okay.

Sure, this could be Eddie needing to be sure that one of them would make it home to Chris, but wouldn’t it be beautiful if it were Eddie’s mind telling him he needs Buck to be okay before he loses consciousness? I love you, and I need you to be okay before this kills me. Horrible situation to have that realization, but damn if it’s not there.

But it doesn’t kill him. And now Buck is talking as if his life doesn’t matter, while Eddie doesn’t think he can do it without Buck. So he is finally pushed to come clean about the will. Everything about the will reveal reads as an aborted love confession (I see you Mr Guzman and the this goes beyond friendship and I love you to the core). But the particular moment isn’t the best. Ana is still a factor, he just almost died, and both of them are on edge about it. So he says the closest he can say. He dances around it like he has done for years. Eddie knows Buck, he knows Buck associates love with pain. He wouldn't actually say something after he almost died, but it feels like he's working up to something. "You act like you're expendable but you're wrong" the way he is so close to saying the thing Buck needed to hear the most after his parents. You’re not spare parts, I love you not despite all that, but because of all that. I don’t know how to give you myself yet, but I’ll give you the thing that matters the most to me and dare to stick around to love him with me. Buck doesn’t get it, but Eddie is saying it. Eddie also has shit to work on, but maybe he thinks he can get to a point where he can tell Buck.

But then Buck gets with Taylor and stays with Taylor. So he stays with Ana, it’s comfortable enough. Until it isn’t. Until he once again waits for Buck's permission to do something.

Eddie is falling apart in many ways during season 5, and he's trying to minimize the damage to the people around him, but something he holds on to is Buck. Even when everything blows up, he is still going to lengths to show Buck that their friendship isn’t confined to the firehouse. But at this point, Eddie knows the box he keeps confining his feelings in is about to blow up. And when it does explode, he sits back and lets Buck push his way in. Quite literally, since Buck breaks down the door.

Remember how I said Eddie mentions the way he isn’t feeling anything? This is Eddie letting Buck shove his way into the bad feelings, and we will come back to this later. But after his breakdown, he talks about the way he's feeling in a way we don't really see Eddie do all that often and he leans on Buck through his recovery and the process of finding out how to not feel like there's no hope for himself and how to feel comfortable in his own skin again. And it's a lot about Buck and the way Buck is constant. Eddie feels like Buck is this steady presence in his life that can and does help Eddie move forward. It gives Eddie something stable to lean into. Because he's letting himself feel, but so far, it's about the bad.

So we have Eddie learning to let people in for good, and how to handle his feelings in a better way, we have Eddie who might’ve been thinking things about Buck’s space in his life since the well, having better tools to deal with his feelings. But so far, Eddie has only dealt with the bad. So when Taylor takes herself out of the running, Eddie settles himself into the fantasy bubble. They’re both single, he gets Buck’s time, Chris does too. He doesn’t have to think about the way he loves Buck, he doesn’t have to think about what it means to him if they're both in the bubble.

But then his bubble gets popped in the most violent way possible, with Buck dying. And he was forced to rescue him, was forced to restart his heart. There’s something about the way Eddie follows the gurney. There’s something about the “do more”. Such a desperate thing for a former combat medic and current first responder to scream to a team of doctors. Do more than your best because I can’t do life without him.

Eddie is good at repression, not denial, and the thing with repression is that you usually know what you're burying. So the moments like this, where we can see the cracks in the box, it makes you wonder how much Eddie really knows about how he feels about Buck.

The will of it all, the way Eddie can’t look at Buck or anything about his death, Eddie never seriously contemplated Buck actually dying, even though he saw Buck almost die multiple times. He never thought about it until he actually lived it. He counted how long Buck was dead. He couldn’t take his eyes off him until he couldn’t look at him again. And this is a man who watched Shannon die because she needed him to be strong. He can’t do that for Buck. Buck is under Eddie’s skin in ways no one else has been. Buck has seen the worst and stayed anyway, so he can’t hide it, because Buck is already in that space in his mind.

But Buck wakes up. And goes to him for safety. For comfort. Personally, I believe Eddie was lying about not remembering the shooting because Buck wanted the confirmation he would feel normal again, and Eddie didn’t want to add whatever he realized lying on that pavement to the mix of complicated feelings Buck already had. But 613 feels like Eddie is testing the water. The bubble is popped. He loves Buck, he almost lost him, maybe he’s getting ready to say something once Buck starts to feel human again.

But, once again, Buck goes through something traumatic and runs to someone else. “I feel like she sees me” paired with the way Buck is talking as if he feels like the people around him are forcing him to act a certain way, makes Eddie shut down. Because Eddie only decides to date again once Buck closes the door with his infatuation. So he will stay not analysing the space Buck has in his life. Because Buck keeps throwing him off-balance with reminders it’s not like that. So, space needs to exist.

Until Natalia is out of the way, and he pulls Buck back in. To the co-parent space, to the best friend space.

But then Buck throws him in for yet another loop. The one that was bound to break the box. He freaks out, acts up, gets a boyfriend, and Eddie is left with a lot more to shove into the box and pray it holds.

In my head, Eddie is convinced Buck can’t want him. Not doesn’t, can’t. So he’s not thinking about it, about wanting more, especially because Eddie never thinks about what he needs. These are all the parts of Buck he’s gonna get, and he refuses to look inside the box to realize he wants more and what that means for him. He doesn't look at Buck and what that means about his sexuality because up to then, Buck was straight, so he couldn't go there even if he had stopped to contemplate the ways loving Buck makes him want him.

And that’s definitely easier to do when they are both “straight”. But Buck is not straight. But he still isn’t giving any indication that he wants Eddie. So Eddie implodes his life.

Buck saw him at his worst and stayed, but Eddie doesn’t know what it looks like for someone to step into his happiness and improve it. And he ends up losing control of it all in the middle of Buck's sexuality realization, so he won't have to think about it meaning something to him because he doesn't think Buck wants him as an option. So he refuses to think of himself as one.

But anyway, it doesn’t matter if it’s Taylor or Natalia or Tommy, Buck is choosing someone else, and Eddie is sitting on top of the box to stop it from bursting open. He’s creating other problems, he’s being framed as cheating on Buck, Chris is leaving him, he’s growing a mustache so he won’t have to recognize the person in the mirror. He loves Buck, Buck is dating a man who’s not him, but it doesn’t matter if he is soooooo straight with his cut-out tank tops and mustache.

Not having Buck can’t hurt him if he doesn’t think about what loving Buck makes of him.

But then we come back to that therapy session from 309. Eddie controls his feelings so much, he doesn’t feel them. Good or bad. And he decides to let loose. And he lets Buck walk into his joy. So now Buck has stepped in while Eddie allows himself to feel something. Twice. The good and the bad.

Funny how Eddie says he’s straight, but then he says his mustache is a disguise, and then shaves the mustache and welcomes Buck in.

But Buck is spiralling, and Chris is in Texas, and he has to default back to the way he never prioritizes what he wants. But it doesn’t matter anyway because Buck doesn’t want him, so why would he look at it?

But then Buck freaks out and acts out once more. 809 is about 704. Eddie’s reaction is about Buck not communicating and hurting him. Like, 704, 809, 817, hell, even 305, is all about Eddie wanting Buck to talk to him so he can fix the issue and they can move on before the box explodes.

But at this point, that box is being held together by chewing gum and half a prayer. And Buck is really good at catching Eddie off guard and rattling the box even more.

And the way Buck loves Eddie in contrast with the way Buck loves everyone else solidifies the concept that Buck doesn’t want him. Because Buck doesn’t cling to Eddie. Buck helps Eddie move. He gets lost in his own feelings and hurts both of them in the process, but he lets Eddie go. Buck begs and lingers in a loud and messy way, but never with Eddie. He never voices that need. Eddie is always the one saying things, pushing Buck to talk, and they are at a point where Eddie would need those words to actually risk it.

And you can see the moments the box cracks while Eddie takes Buck’s words at face value, and Buck holds on to Eddie’s perceived straightness with all his might so he won’t be a cliche.

And Eddie has been compartmentalizing the way he feels about Buck since they met, and Buck doesn’t give him a full reason to sit and analyze those feelings since Buck keeps running the other direction, so Eddie settles himself into loving Buck the way Buck allows him, with moments where the box starts to crack, because the same way you can't love someone into loving you, you can't put limits into how you love someone. You can lie to yourself and convince yourself you don't need more, you don't want more, that this is enough, but no matter how hard you try, you can't control love.

817 is Eddie desperately asking Buck to need him like he needed Buck. But Buck is so caught up in not being a burden that Eddie once again perceives it all as rejection. It almost seems like Eddie has been daring Buck to ask him to stay. To voice his needs. To let Eddie know he’s one of them. So much so, he tries to force that reaction out of Buck with that note. That note says so much about how Eddie desperately wants Buck to stop assuming things, so that Eddie can stop assuming things, so that they can have a conversation and figure it out, but Buck is not meeting him there.

Buck didn’t meet him there after the shooting, or after the lightning. So he keeps being forced to love Buck in the way Buck lets him. And since Buck doesn’t want to be perceived as hopelessly pining for his straight best friend, so he keeps burying himself in denial, Eddie ends up forced to let him because he doesn't want to push Buck into something he doesn't think Buck wants.

Something about Eddie is that he doesn't ask for pieces of Buck, he puts himself out there and lets Buck come to him. Even the will reveal, Eddie only tells Buck once Buck steps up himself. He doesn't ask for Carla, he doesn't force Buck once he says he has a problem with him, even "you can have my back any day" is phrased in a way that allows Buck to make the choice.

If he never pushed before, why would he do it now? Because this is Buck, and Eddie knows him, who's to say that if Eddie says something, Buck won't roll with it not because he wants it but because he thinks that indulging Eddie is the only way to keep him? How can Eddie trust that he wouldn't be forcing Buck to settle for him if Buck isn't letting him know he's in it with him?

And they end up in this really weird situation where, honestly, all they need is a conversation, but they are so used to not needing words that they don’t know how to say it. So Eddie settles into how Buck doesn’t want him to offer more and Buck keeps trying to convince himself he already has enough of Eddie.

Eddie wants to love Buck but thinks he can't do more than be the best friend, so he settled into it, so he won't have to question what that makes of him, what that makes of them, how it would change them, how it wouldn't change them at all. Best friend is the title Buck gave him, and Buck gives him a lot already, he won't ask for more because it's Buck and what he has is enough. He just repeats it over and over so he won't question if it's true.

Why risk the relationship they have when he thinks he's seen how Buck looks when he's in love with someone and he doesn't think Buck looks at him like that? It's safer if he doesn't change things. If he convinces himself he doesn't need them to change. So he settles into the feeling, he'll love Buck however Buck lets him and never question how he wants to love Buck because he never gets what he wants, why would it be different now?

Anyway, this is over 6,7k words,and as you can see I'm very normal about this topic. If you read this, I love you so very much.

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phonenumber01 · 6 days ago

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Okay, so earlier today @damnit-buck reblogged a post I made about how the fandom often overlooks Eddie's brand of abandonment issues back after s6 and basically asked if I have further thoughts, and if you know me, dissecting how Eddie Diaz works is my favorite pastime, so let's discuss. Because I think that if you look at it that way, you can add more context to the ending of the Texas arc so that it's not as frustrating.

The thing with Eddie's father always being gone, and forcing him into a parentified position by being the eldest, is that it pushed him into a compulsive accommodator position so that he wouldn't be a problem. He has his own brand of "I need to fix everything" that pushes him to bend his own boundaries to extremely unhealthy degrees to keep the people around him happy or to just be useful. Like the story we hear about him trying to drive his mom when she was in labor, about his father telling him to be the man of the house, comes back to the abandonment issues that come from the fact that his father was never around. I think it plays a part in how Eddie is more hostile towards his father than his mother when Helena is objectively making his life harder, because at least she was there, you know?

And everything about it is aggravated by Shannon. Because, yes, she left him in the middle of the night and that obviously will trigger someone with abandonment issues, but Eddie never allowed himself to feel it because the thing about Eddie is loyalty and to this day he has not allowed himself to blame Shannon for leaving him, to this day he excuses something that's arguably unforgivable, abandoning Chris and him without a word and leaving him to fend for himself, because she had a "good excuse" in the form of her mother cancer, that forces him to downplay his own feelings. Also, partially because of the way he's known Shannon since he was a teen, and he did get attached to her, but if we count the deleted scene as canon, even though Shannon approached him, she thought he was someone else, so there's a question lingering there. And just as he had tried to be the "man of the house" at age 10, waiting for his father to come home, he was totally channeling that energy, waiting for Shannon to return if he made it through that, if he held it together while she dealt with her stuff. And it's interesting because Eddie chased Shannon to LA, but he never contacted her because he wanted to. He clearly did want to; she's definitely part of the reason he chose LA over Chicago, but she asked for time, she put space between them, so the accommodator in him doesn't ask her to come back until he doesn't have a choice, because obviously Chris is gonna take priority. But Eddie also can't fully let Shannon in, because if he defines things, since she didn't ask to come back, then he opens the door for her to leave again. And that fear is fully justified by the way that when he does try to define the relationship, she asks for a divorce, and even though Shannon is saying she's not ready to be a wife, what he's hearing is tht he's a not good enough to be a husband, to be worth staying for, fighting for. And it all gets worse because she never fought for him, and she died before he could figure out how to fix it or how to see it wasn't his fault. And even during the thing with Kim in 709, he still deeply feels the fact that he never got an explanation, that he doesn't know what he did wrong.

And then right after this, Buck files the lawsuit. So he's dealing terribly with the Shannon of it all and then Buck leaves him and Chris without a word, because since we don't see Buck telling Eddie, it is safe to assume he did not find out via Buck, so that has to trigger feelings around the way Shannon left with a note that gave him no explanations. This has to hit harder because Chris is also very attached to Buck, and he just went through something traumatic that Eddie couldn't relate to and he very clearly expected the way Buck had been attuned to his need up to this point, for Buck to just help him, because considering the whole thing, Buck is one of the few people in Eddie's life who help him without making Eddie feel like a failure for needing help. He offers help before Eddie is ready to ask and he does it in a way that just gives Eddie a place to lean into. And Buck doesn't really have an obligation to them, you can't really expect your best friend to consider you and your child in every decision. But Buck is an easy target; he's not his father or the mother of his child, and it's easier to be mad than admit that he's hurt and just misses Buck. So it's easier to shut Buck out before he gets the chance to really hurt him. Also, I don't think he wanted to be the one to reach out again after what happened to Shannon.

But Buck also does the thing that solidifies their connection, solidifies the way Eddie cannot be rational when it comes to Buck, because Buck is willing to put in the effort in a way Shannon or Ramon never did. Buck reaches out, he apologizes, he promises not to do it again and he means it. Once Eddie sees that, it's over for him, because Buck is the only person to fight for space in Eddie's life like that, when you spend your whole life watching people walk out, that type of effort is lethal. There's also the lingering layer of the way Buck almost died 3 times in less than 6 months and Eddie shut Shannon out for months and then she died and even if their relationship wasn't meant to be, it is months he "lost" with someone he loved, extra months with Shannon he denied Chris of, and he probably didn't want to make that mistake again because that is Eddie "tomorrow isn't promised to anyone" Diaz. He's not gonna let himself lose the only person in his life who ever apologized for leaving.

There's also the layer of the relationship with Ana, because Eddie doesn't want to be alone, and yes, he ends up staying longer than he should because it gets too hard to leave once Chris is also a variable, but Ana is safe, and Eddie never had that. But she's safe for all the wrong reasons, because he does care for her, but he doesn't love her, so she can't hurt him. Until the relationship does hurt him and he leaves. And that also plays further in s5 with the way Eddie lashes out at Bobby for not letting him back in. He feels left behind after the bar, but again, it's easier to be mad than it is to be hurt. And that is an instance that drives me particularly wild because it is a result of the pathological need to accommodate the people he loves at the expense of himself, which is a consequence of his abandonment issues, but that tendency is actively triggering his abandonment issues. He left because he thought it would be what was best for Chris without fully considering the help he needed, and by doing that, he felt left behind by the support system he made the choice to leave. And that plays such a big part in his breakdown and also the way he confronts his father because he still has the support system, Buck and Bobby prove that to him, so he can't figure out why his own father couldn't be there for him. It plays so much into the way he overcompensates when it comes to accommodating the people he loves.

That obviously bleeds into s6 and the start of his relationship with Marisol because Buck left him in a permanent way, he died, but then when he comes back, he starts dating someone else, which sends Eddie into the state that makes him latch onto the "we all die alone". He's used to people leaving him, and working around it instead of trying to hold on too tight is the way he does things. It forces him to take what people tell him at face value and take what he thinks they need from him—or don't need in the case of the cemetery scene and how he interpreted what Buck said— and overcompensate in his need to accommodate them at the expense of how he feels. That's also part of why Buck put Eddie in the hospital, and he blamed himself for not realizing what Buck needed, even though Buck was being unreasonable.

Which brings us to Kim, Kim is Shannon without the expectation. Eddie will forever miss Shannon, but Kim, at first, is his chance to stop missing her for a bit without being forced to confront the bad feelings attached to her. But that was always bound to explode because he ignores his own feelings for the sake of other people, and he can't really ignore his feelings for Shannon while staring at her ghost. And that leads to Eddie's biggest trigger and the event that makes Eddie overcompensate the most. Eddie will always ignore his own feelings for Christopher and that means he had to accept the fact that Chris wanted to get away from him. It is reflected on the way he says he doesn't want to break the door down, the way that even when he's in Texas, he still lets Chris lead, because his instinct will always be to accommodate the people he loves over his own feelings. But Chris leaving triggers the same things that Shannon asking for the divorce does, the question of whether he is a good enough father, a good enough person, and his abandonment issues lead him to the belief that he is not worthy of good things. It doesn't matter that he was in a situation that would've triggered anyone, it doesn't matter that Kim forced him to confront stuff she had no business touching. Eddie trained himself to not want things, to make what he needs as small as possible, to always think about what someone else needs at the cost of his own happiness. And Chris is at the top of that list. And he lets this idea that Chris needs to take initiative, since Chris was the one to initiate the separation, until Chris needs him more. Then the being useful overwrite takes over in the same way that allowed him to finally reach out to Shannon.

But that's also what creates the issues with Buck during s8. Because in Eddie's priority list, Buck is right below Chris. Eddie will do anything for Buck as long as it's not at the expense of what Eddie believes is best for Chris. Which is why he reacts the way he does to Buck sabotaging the house showing and assumes that's what Buck is asking, because Buck is acting up, willing the hurt him, like with 704, and his instinct is to let Buck feel his feelings and take the brunt of it, so that Buck's feelings won't get big enough for Buck to leave him like he did during the lawsuit, and honestly, Buck takes advantage of that when he's insecure, he knows he can't push Eddie away for good, but he pushes so that Eddie will reassure him, but during 809, in Eddie's head, the reasurance Buck needs leads to him not getting Christopher back, so he can't let Buck act out.

And it's also the thing with the 817 fight, because Texas isn't what's best for Chris anymore, but he trained himself to never do what he wants, so he can't just decide to come back to LA after making the whole thing about how he needed to do this right, buying the house, trying to build a life in a place he is unhappy in. But he thinks that if he pushes enough, then Buck will do something that allows him to stay, that gives him the excuse to do what he wants in the name of accommodating someone he loves. But also because his own issues are making him need Buck in a way Buck can't show up for at the time, and it clashes with Buck's brand of abandonment issues, because he doesn't think he has the right to ask Eddie to stay while Eddie needs Buck to tell he needs him so that he can pack his bags and come back for real. So, obviously, they go out of sync trying to let the other do what's best for them. And it's also why at that point, anyone telling Eddie point-blank to stay would work. He can't be the person to make the choice, because making that choice would be putting himself first. And he can't put himself first because his whole life has been about ignoring his needs in favor of not being a problem to the people around him, and Eddie has no idea how to turn that off, because he thinks if he has nothing to offer, then people won't stay with him. Also because when Eddie voices his wants, bad things happen, Shannon dies, Chris leaves, so he can't make the choice himself, because he doesn't think he deserves to feel happy.

And it all comes back to the way his childhood taught him to overcompensate so he wouldn't get left behind. And, well, we don't talk about how Ramon and Shannon not being around fucked him up nearly enough. Anyways, this is long and rambly already, if you read this I love you. If you wanna read another deep dive on Eddie, you can read my Eddie fell first essay.

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phonenumber01 · 7 days ago

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phonenumber01 · 8 days ago

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JUMPSCARE AAAAAAAAH

I understand him feeling threatened by what me and Eddie have, but… he seemed so relieved he was gone. It pissed me off. It felt like he was accusing me of something. Is-is this what he's been thinking the whole time we were together?

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phonenumber01 · 9 days ago

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“I feel like we moved on too fast from-“ yeah we did bc they keep shooting absolutely insane things at us. List of things we moved on too fast from bc the damn things to move on from just keep coming:

- the will

- you two have an adorable son

- buck taking care of Chris during the shooting when Eddie literally had a girlfriend

- Eddie quite literally panicking at the idea of said girlfriend being his wife

- Buck’s bf canonically saying buck might love Eddie

- Bucks SISTER canonically saying buck might love Eddie

- buck and Eddie not being able to look away from each other in 818

- I’m not your last

- The will

- that breakup being heavily implied to have been about Eddie

- just the well and lightning strike. In general

- the poker date??

- “I feel like she sees me” “😒😠”

- can’t you both be good cops?? Noooo

- Buck hooking up with his ex in Eddie’s house bc he missed Eddie and saying out loud he was doing it as a distraction from missing Eddie

- the whole break from the internet and the “you better back me up here babe” look

- no offense I’m straight, and he’s straight, hopelessly pining for my straight best friend

- catholic guilt and “we married for the church”

- Chris running to bucks place when he’s upset

- the WILL

- married kitchen fight

- “it’s me. I’m your renter”

Anyway these are just off the top of my head. Please add more as they come to you because they are so insane for each other. We have to move on fast bc there’s no other option

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phonenumber01 · 21 days ago

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phonenumber01 · 22 days ago

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Yufu City, Oita Prefecture, Japan // みずなし

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phonenumber01 · 22 days ago

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2x11 / 8x11

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phonenumber01 · 22 days ago

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Back when I was living for the hope of it all...

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phonenumber01 · 22 days ago

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eddie diaz in every 911 episode because i miss him too much:

2.02 | 7.1

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phonenumber01 · 24 days ago

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If you liked my recap of 8b, stay tuned for a recap of the switch to abc.

It all started on May 1st 2023 when deadline released an article that made every 911 fan's heart stop for a second with the headline "9-1-1 canceled by Fox, will move to ABC for season 7" (the article was later retitled "9-1-1’ Moving From Fox To ABC For Season 7"). No one knew what to expect, the season 6 finale aired with packaged happy endings that were not all that satisfying but made sense when considering the cancelation threat breathing down their necks.

Not a lot happened after that because the writers and actors strike was happening, obviously halting any possible development or real information to be delivered to us. Until the strike end was announced on November 8th (11/8 if you use month/day) to be officially done on November 9 (9/11 if you use day/month). Not a lot was specified until the day season 7 would be airing on ABC was announced with 118 days' notice.

Filming only formally began in January 2024 but the opening disaster involving Bobby and Athena's cruise was being speculated since season 6 ended with them boarding said cruise, and was confirmed shortly after Christmas.

Once promotion started, it was all overwhelming since Fox only did the basics when it came to promoting the show. Premiere parties, multiple interviews, the 100th episode party mid filming episode 102 for some reason. Angela Bassett is teasing a spinoff. Ryan Guzman is doing interviews about the show for the first time since Eddie Begins. Script about an accident at a basketball accident is posted by Jennifer. Fandom is in a crazy state.

Premiere week comes. Everyone is convinced Buck is about to come out as bisexual but everyone is hesitant to believe it. Ryan ranks buddie moments and says the will reveal was Eddie's way of saying "this goes beyond friendship and I love you to the core". He also giggly says the show is gonna give the fans what they want when it comes to Buck and Eddie and teases they will be closer than ever.

Season airs. Cruise disaster somehow involves pirates, an explosion, and a hurricane. We're being reintroduced to everything. The episode that reintroduces the couples has Buck and Eddie co-parenting. The show is renewed for season 8. Leaks start to fly around that Buck will in fact be coming out on episode 100. Which happens. For the euphoria of everyone in the fandom. Harry is recast but no one remembers his part of the 100th episode. Oliver and Ryan post the same picture of buddie even though Buck just kissed another guy. Oliver promptly disappears from the internet, doesn't really interact with anything about the new ship.

Eddie crashes Buck's first date with a guy. 911 proves they need sensitivity readers by making a very unfortunate comparison of a black kid with a dog dying on a call. Eddie has erectile dysfunction because his girlfriend used to be a nun. After asking said girlfriend to move in with him. Buck says he wishes he could help with that, not relevant I just like mentioning it. Buck comes out to Eddie. Beautiful things are happening in the buddie world.

A small hiatus happens. Promo of the episode includes only Buck and Eddie doing karaoke together even thought it's the madney wedding episode. There's an alarming number of phallic things on and around Buck and Eddie. Most of it doesn't make it to the episode. Cast members go on Family Feud. Funny enough it's all actors who play queer characters plus Ryan. That doesn't air until right before season 8 is about to air. Oliver says he wishes Tommy and Buck can stay friends after they break up. Lou says it was supposed to be Eddie and that Tommy is only there so that Buck can work out the kinks about dating a man. In the meantime, he also opens his cameo and starts selling headcanons a fraction of the fandom starts taking as canon even though Tommy is barely in the season after helping Buck come out to everyone. Oliver blushes to previously unknown shades of red talking about buddie getting married in a possible season 10. He also says he was approached about Buck being bi during season 4 but Fox executives blocked the idea. Buddie fans all around feel vindicated thinking the shooting really was supposed to trigger something. A ship war starts with the help of Lou's cameoverse.

Everything about the episode mentions buddie doing karaoke together. The scene was recorded with actual tequila on set because of how nervous Oliver Stark was. The day before the episode airs Tim Minear goes on record about how they had to cut the scene. The episode is actually about Chimney getting viral encephalitis and forgetting he was supposed to get married. They do get married in the end. He was perfectly fine. Buddie fans are mad at the karaoke being cut, Tim Minear says he wrote something he thought was fun and releases the script saying he didn't cut much, he just didn't want to license the song for a really short clip. Someone jumps into the opportunity to shit on buddie since the ship war is at full steam now, Tim Minear says he ultimately writes buddie for himself. Hen and Karen are trying to adopt.

Devin is seen on set and people are hoping for a fun arc with Eddie facing Shannon's ghost. Tim actually had watched Vertigo in his downtime and decided to make Eddie meet his dead wife's doppelganger. The show frames Eddie as cheating on Buck even though he has a whole girlfriend. Bobby gets another begins episode that makes him a child alcoholic while saving the life of Amir, the husband of someone who died in the fire in Minnesota, fully forgetting he was an addict because of a back injury.

Oliver Stark, who up to this point had stopped posting, posts a full scene of Buck, Eddie, and Christopher to his Instagram story. He later also posted behind the scenes of the karaoke scene, a video that showed that Buck was one of the people who ripped Eddie's shirt and that Eddie was the one pouring alcohol down Buck's throat. The song they were singing is also confirmed as What I Like About You by The Romantics.

Big event is being shot at the firehouse, everyone is half convinced that it's a funeral until Lou sends another cameo with a medal of valor around his neck letting everyone know it's a celebration. Bobby wants to retire and is fully suicidal. Chris walks in on Eddie and Shannon's ghost. Eddie's girlfriend doesn't get a proper breakup. Or lines in her last episode. Bobby and Athena's house is set on fire. Bobby saves her, but his heart stops. The show posts enough still from the episode that we know the full plot before it starts. Bobby's heart stops for 14 minutes with no consequences. Athena decides Amir set her house on fire but it was actually a drug cartel. Chris is allowed to run to Texas on a tantrum, Eddie's parents look a little too happy to do it. Gerrard is back and the last shot of the season kinda feels like a reminder that Gerrard hates minorities but it's never brought up again. Bobby forgets he quit. Henren loses their license to foster because the mother of a drunk driver is on a power trip.

No one likes the way the season ends. There are discussions about daddy kinks. Oliver logs in again to like an Instagram post with a picture of buddie captioned "thumb thumb thumb" referencing the way Buck is rubbing his thumb on Eddie's shoulder. He then leaves for a road trip and it's not seen again in weeks. Lou shuts down the cameoverse. People accuse buddie fans of hacking him after some old posts resurface. There's a Disney-wide data leak and people accuse buddie fans of trying to hack ABC to see the karaoke scene after a scene with Tommy is posted to Instagram. Then a deleted scene with Eddie and Chris is posted.

Filming for season 8 starts. The emergency is a beenado. Ryan has a mustache. Oliver makes fun of it with an Instagram filter and someone does a 4 hour long Twitter space called "Oliver lashing" saying Oliver needs to defend his canon love interest and calling him all sorts of stuff. The emergency stuff start to include planes. Every single article written includes the same buddie still from 710. Where's Waldo game is happening but it's just people trying to figure out if Tommy would be back or not. The first official video of the season is just Oliver and Ryan. Everyone wants to know if the mustache is gay and Tim says it is a "manifestation of something inside of Eddie".

The emergency is actually a mid-air collision. The bees are never mentioned again beyond flying higher. Bobby is working on a tv show. The arc actually fucking slaps, with 3 episodes that make everyone hopeful the season will be good. A child and Athena land the plane on a freeway. Tommy is not there. The thing with Gerrard becomes general "he sucks" not the racism from the begins episodes. Hen proves she's being target, gains Mara's custody back, Gerrard was somehow the key. Eddie looked hot as fuck helping a kid with a bad relationship with his father. Bobby comes back.

Halloween episode happens. Buck gets an actual corpse as decoration. There's a dislocated shoulder and boils and he thinks he's cursed. Denny dies because why let Henren be happy. They start his heart back up though. Throughout the whole season Oliver was posting pictures related to the episode. None of them included Lou even though Lou was the person he worked with the most in that episode. There's a picture of him with Ryan tomdaya style though. A still of Buck in green puts the fandom in a frenzy because it's the color Buck was wearing during his breakups. Tommy turns out to be Abby's ex. Maddie wants more kids. Eddie talks to a gay priest. Maddie is pregnant. Buck and Tommy break up. Eddie does the risky business dance after he shaves. He sits drinking beer with Buck with no pants on.

Mandatory copaganda episode happens and brings up the possibility of Athena getting a rookie that goes nowhere. Bobby ends up having to babysit the star of the show he was working on. Brad gets a whole arc at the station. Eddie decides to go to Texas. They frame the scene where Buck finds out as if he is watching porn. The first half of the season ends. The promo for the rest says Maddie will be kidnapped.

Frenzy starts wondering if Ryan is leaving the show. They post a picture of Oliver and Ryan at midnight on New Year's Day. Filming gets fucked due to fires in LA. A buddie goodbye hug leaks. Oliver plays in the NBA celebrity all-star game. He gets an assist, not relevant, I just like that he's good at basketball.

Second half of the season opens with buddie being a romcom intertwined with a criminal minds episode where Maddie and Athena try to catch a serial killer and Maddie tells them to kill themselves then gets kidnapped by them. She gets her throat slashed trying to escape, because Chimney shows up where she's being held, he doesn't know and almost gets killed himself, don't worry though, she survives and saves Chimney's life with a hammer, did I mention she's pregnant? She's pregnant, doesn't miscarry. It's a boy. In the meantime, Buck tries to sabotage Eddie trying to sublet his house. He tries to make Eddie jealous with a dog. It actually works. They solve their differences, Eddie moves to Texas. Buddie goodbye in the rain sponsored by U-Haul. Buck doesn't have a Jeep anymore.

Bobby's mother shows up, she runs a cult being a faith healer. She's dying of cancer though, Bobby then forgives her for leaving him alone with his alcoholic father and leaving him to become a child alcoholic himself. She's never brought up again. While we are figuring that out, Eddie isn't on the episode but Buck says his name 15 times, he hooks up with Tommy, then Tommy tries to get back together but he calls Eddie the competition, Buck snaps and says he doesn't want to fuck everyone he has feelings for and doesn't have feelings for everyone he fucks, then he escalates to somehow saying Tommy was accusing him of being hopelessly pining for Eddie. All this happens while Buck moves to Eddie's house. Yes, Tommy hooks up with Buck at Eddie's house, fully aware it's Eddie's house then wakes up in the morning, buys champagne and about 100 dollars worth of groceries, because the competition is gone. It didn't go the way he was hoping.

Then we finally see Eddie in Texas, no one cares about what sent Chris to Texas anymore even though that's the first chance to discuss the situation they had in 13 episodes, there isn't an opening at the firehouse, Eddie doesn't have a job, so he sells the truck, becomes an Uber in an 8 minutes long montage of random people in his car, patches things up with Chris after Chris and one of his friends get him as their driver. The episode has product placement for Uber, Prius, Amazon, Playstation, M&MS and GMC. In the meantime Maddie loses her voice in some fear reaction to getting back to the job, she's fine though.

Four buddie facetime calls later, Eddie's parents are being demons, Chris throws up at his chess tournament, Eddie "dad's up" and takes Chris back. We find out he did ballroom dancing. Not relevant, just putting it out there. He didn't yell at his mother but he did leave his father in a city 6 hours away, you win some, you lose some. While this was happening in LA everyone but Athena forgets Hen's birthday and they keep running into the same guy. The guy hijacks a bus, accidentally stabs someone, Hen ends up hostage, the guy is actually quite nice, he gets Hen a gift. This episode is actually added at the last minute, allegedly finished about 7 days before it was set to air. Stills from the episode are deleted because there are lines of white powder next to Kenny, the actual scene might've been edited to cut that out too. Screeners for the episodes start getting delayed. Promotion for the next episode is all over the place even though it even has a cool event name, the actual promo video has a cameraman as a focal shot, Oliver says those episodes have some of his favorite scenes then later says he was lying.

Maddie gets a failed gender reveal party. They answer to a pileup, Ravi doesn't check the backseat, there's a kid trapped, Bobby goes to get the kid, the car explodes, Bobby's survives, Ravi wants to quit, Buck doesn't let him. They answer to a fire at a lab that researches infectious diseases. Crazy scientist creates a super virus to sell the cure for the pandemic she will start because she really really really wants a Nobel Prize. There's a second explosion, Buck is locked out of the lab. Chim is infected, Hen has a collapsed lung, Bobby does surgery. Ravi runs out of oxygen, but Bobby figures out a way to connect them to the room's supply. Their PPE is their normal gear and duct tape. They're diy'ing treatments as Chimney is dying on the phone with Maddie. They find out the cure is in the lab after the military decides they all can die, Ravi, they call him Rav now for some reason, goes to get it, they all get threatened with terrorism charges. The cure isn't there. Everything is lit in the bluest light ever created by men. Athena and Buck go after the cure themselves, they find it, the cure was in a bedazzled Stanley cup she stole from another researcher, this is not relevant, I just like saying it. But then the army and the FBI find them, because every law enforcement agency is in the case now. They distract them with a helicopter chase, which sounds cool but it was really boring, Tim wanted it to be 4 minutes long and had to be stopped, Athena gets the cure to the lab. Chimney is cured. We find out Bobby is infected. He got infected saving Ravi. There's no more cure. Bobby is dead. All charges get dropped because they won't risk people finding out that there was almost an outbreak in LA. We don't see a body though. Hosier is playing. Eddie is not there.

A bunch of stuff about this episode leaks beforehand, including Bobby's funeral procession, a script that shows his burial and resurrection in the form of a 911 call where he says he's being buried alive, and a video of Peter on set in uniform with everyone at the station post filming everything for his death. Everything about this decision is confusing. The episode is rated 3.7 on IMDb. Kenny is crying in interviews, Peter says he doesn't want to leave, Angela says there's no Athena without Bobby. Oliver is being cryptic on Instagram posting and deleting pictures of Brad who would've died in his show but didn't, and referencing the Wrath of Khan in his goodbye post, Ryan is sharing edits of Bobby with a pink bow, Aisha shares a goodbye post with an emotional caption, deletes it and reuploads with a more vague one. A Disney executive goes on record about how they didn't want or approve of this death, but somehow they had to approve Ryan's mustache. Tim said Bobby died for realism with a super virus. While they were filming the procession there was an alleged fight about tomatoes between Ryan and Lou. There were also goofy pictures taken with Bobby's casket that were never posted.

Anyway, there's a 2-week hiatus, nothing makes sense. Everyone is wondering if Bobby is dead for real. No promotion for the episode, journalists get screeners the day of, no interviews. 816 airs. It's actually about Athena helping a mother who thinks her dead son was kidnapped and his death was a coverup. Athena goes full Athena, exhumes the body, there is no body, all signs point to the mother was right. Plot twist, the mother was wrong. Lesson to accept loss or something. Lowkey feels like the show is mocking us. Especially because the case was based on a real-life event where the mother was right and her kid had been kidnapped. And because earlier in the season they use the promise of the captain not dying on a show to talk someone off a ledge. Athena didn't want to choose where to bury Bobby, the military was holding up his body, Gerrard is back, Chim is firmly in the anger stage. Eddie is serving after having 50 seconds of screentime total in the past 3 episodes. Buck is somehow the stable one. No eulogies. The funeral is actually the last 5 minutes of the episode. Athena sends Bobby to Minnesota to be buried with his first wife and kids. No one but her and the kids are there. The scene is somehow the same as the leaked script. We brace ourselves for Bobby to rise from the dead. He doesn't. The episode ends. The water is on fire in the promo for 817. The episode starts rated 2.2 on IMDb, currently sitting at 3.3. No one is happy. Even the Facebook wine moms are pissed and saying they'll never watch the show again.

The cast cancel their appearance at a convention in Paris because production will take longer than expected to wrap. Ryan is finally back on set consistently. There's a small earthquake. More callbacks to previous episodes that a showrunner should be allowed to add. Athena wants to go back to work. Buck and Eddie are fighting like a married couple. Karen is trying to help Athena. Hen doesn't want to be captain. Chim is stress building furniture for the baby. Eddie brings Chris to LA to cheer Buck up. Evancito and cariño are now canon ways a member of the Diaz family has referred to Buck. A bunch of stills of a plotline with Buck are posted but the scenes never make it to the show. A building explodes with Athena right outside.

Production wraps. They have a 20s-themed party at a bowling alley, the drinks make fun of how they get the scripts super late, Oliver doesn't dress up. Oliver and Ryan are sent out to do promo in a way they have never before. Everyone is wondering if buddie is going canon. They don't, but ryliver is definitely up in the air. Oliver calls the you wanna go for the title "super gay" and Ryan calls Oliver his love interest. Oliver seems a bit too happy talking about Ryan's body and Ryan can't make himself read a tweet about being topped by Oliver. Angela talks about 911 at the Met Gala red carpet.

The finale has the weirdest pace ever. Eddie gets a going away party even though he's been living in Texas for months and Buck put in for a transfer out of the 118 with no lead-up. Buck drags a guy out of a closet. Athena and Chimney are teaming up to save a couple of people trapped. The building starts to collapse again. Eddie is getting ready to leave but sees the news and rushes to the scene. He saves Buck and Ravi. There are 4 Eddie dramatic reveals in 3 minutes and 47 seconds of runtime. Complete with superhero music. They save the guy they were trying to save. The kid who was helping them had actually been even more seriously injured. He's dying. But teamwork makes the dream work or something like that and they manage to save the kid in a very blatant parallel to Bobby's death, making it seem that Bobby wouldn't have died if the team was all together. Eddie is still leaving until Chim tells him not to. Captain Han is set up. Eddie's arc is solved without a single conversation on screen after 21 episodes across 2 seasons. Maddie has the baby off-screen. Eddie gets another dramatic reveal, there are 8 Eddie reveals in the last 3 episodes of the season. Athena sells the dream house Bobby and her were building. The kid is named Robert Nash Han. Buck might've moved out of Eddie's house but it's unclear. Hen and Karen finally adopt Mara. It feels like a rushed series finale.

The show is being accused of queerbaiting after successfully dodging that for years, people are wondering if Bobby could still be alive. Angela is giggling at questions, saying she doesn't know the future of the characters, mentioning the funeral had a closed casket. No one is happy. The finale is rated 4. The season somehow has 2 of the 10 top-rated episodes of the show and the bottom 3 episodes and 4 of the bottom 5-tied. Season 9 is confirmed and ABC representatives say there is no end in sight. Somehow Deuxmoi posts about wanting the tea on why Peter got written off. No one knows what to expect from season 9.

And that's not even everything you missed in the last 2 years in 911.

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