#911 5x10 meta

[sickofthistoxicshit]

I can’t stop thinking about how Mitchell told Eddie in 5x06 that his son is the best part of him, and that he’s willing to give him his heart even if it means he dies.

And after he shoots himself in the head Eddie fights to keep the heart beating so that he can save Mitchell’s son.

Even though I don’t want to, I can’t stop thinking about how Eddie is sacrificing his own wills and wants just so that his son will no longer be afraid - when he tells the team, he’s looking specifically at Buck.

And it occurred to me that when making the analogy, the process here is pretty clear:

1. It’s no secret that Eddie loves his son more than anything and wants the best for him, so after the well, he had to ensure that after his death Christopher will have the best possible care - and he chose Buck. (Mitchell wanting the best for his son, and by that gives him his heart.)

2. After he was shot, Buck did some very dangerous things, the conversation about the will in the hospital indicates that someone made Eddie aware of that. Eddie makes the conscious choice to tell Buck about the will in order to make clear how important it is that Buck lives, take care of himself and not rush into danger, because he has to live in the tragic case that Eddie dies. (Eddie fought to keep Mitchell’s heart beating to save his son) - Buck is Eddie’s heart.

3. Fast forward months later, the pain and trauma finally resurface to an unbearable levels for Christopher who can’t keep it quiet anymore, especially since right after his last Christmas with Shannon - she died. He’s afraid that this Christmas can be the last he has with Eddie after the shooting - Eddie believes that the only way to solve this is to leave the 118 - thus leaving Buck (his heart) in favor of taking care of Christopher, making sure that he’s okay - because no matter how much Eddie loves Buck, it’s no secret that Christopher is his first priority. 

- The problem is that a heart needs a body to keep beating, and according to the new interview - Buck (Eddie’s heart) is going to struggle to keep going (keep beating) without Eddie.

- And just like Nolan (Mitchell’s son), I have a feeling Christopher is going to need Eddie’s heart (Buck) too in order to get over the hurdle they’re facing. 

[romanticizedlightfixture]

“He felt like he had to hide that from me, pretend he was okay. I don’t want that for him.”- Eddie 

“I don’t want that for him, people knowing I’m his father.” - Mitchell 

“having a kid is like walking around with your heart outside your body.” - Bobby 

“He tell you this is what he wants? To get your heart and live the rest of his life knowing how much blood you shed so he could have it.” - Eddie 

“He’s worried about me, the risks I take on the job…that’s why I need to make a change. I’m leaving the 118.” - Eddie

[wanderingwomanwondering]

Something about eddie mentioning that the holidays were always chris & sh*nnon’s thing with cookies, gingerbread houses, and stockings. Those are fairly standard holiday things so it may have zero to do with buddie. But we’ve totally seen buck associated with 2 of the 3 of these at christmas on screen in the show:

Cookies in 510 with kids while wearing the santa hat (not directly with chris unfortunately)

And gingerbread houses in 310 directly with chris.

We haven’t seen buck with stockings at all yet but I think that’s because stockings are about the household and buck isn’t a full part of the household yet, though he is family. It made me think of this 414 scene:

Buck is still on the outside looking in at the moment. But I wonder if the 4 stockings on the fireplace in 510 are foreshadowing him eventually becoming a part of the household, officially making the buckley-diaz family?

I got the impression that there was a stocking here for eddie, chris, buck, and carla. But that’s just a guess because there aren’t any names on them and the spacing is a little weird so they could genuinely be just decorative. Still this scene is framed to make sure that we can see them in the background.

I know all of this might not mean anything, but I have 3 months to clown so I’m gonna.

[kookykey]

*I’ve been having way too many angsty Buddie thoughts lately and this is the result 🤦🏽‍♀️*

* Excerpt of a work in progress from Bucks perspective*

Does anybody else feel that if they saw themselves as they truly are, they’d flinch back in horror? Or is that just him? Just another wholly fucked up ‘Buck’ism

Because he can’t deny that Some days he can’t stand the sight of his own face in the mirror.

And how some days he doesn’t even recognise it as his own.

(And Some days I still see your blood)

But they don’t talk about that. And he tries not to break every mirror he looks into.

Is this self- hatred?

Is this self-disgust?

God knows he more than flirts with self-destruction

Once upon a time he thought Eddie might be it.

He thought he’d be the one to ultimately save him. Not from the dangers of his job , not even from the world itself . But from himself

And he saved Eddie, but Eddie doesn’t seem to be saving him back.

And everything is supposed to be ok now because Ana is gone and he left Taylor and it’s supposed to be them. It just is.

Everything is supposed to be ok.

Yet it isn’t. And all he can think is

“You lived . But I still lost you. “

* I haven’t written anything for this fandom before so ANY feedback is appreciated *

@capseycartwright @hattalove @nogamediaz @tinselbuck @swiftiediaz @princessfbi

( I hope you don’t mind me mentioning you- I know we’ve never interacted but your all my top favourite fic writers in this fandom and I’d love to know what you think! )

(Gonna go hide in embarrassment now)

[committedquartz]

eddie feels like he’s failing at providing christopher with a mother figure and doesn’t want to fail more by having him lose a father too my heart is hurting

[ardentperfidy]

i'll maybe shut up about 9-1-1 soon but

i've seen a lot of posts either explicitly praising eddie's decision to leave the 118 for christopher's sake or implicitly acknowledging it as a good thing or at least a thing that will be good for christopher. and boy howdy do i have Strong Feelings about how wrong that is!!!

it's definitely true that being a firefighter carries more risks than another job, but that's not the point. i'm hoping it was really deliberate framing and writing, but in this episode, christopher never mentions eddie getting shot. that's not what christopher is worried about (or at least, we don't have confirmation of that). that's what eddie is worried about, that's what his brain translates christopher's remarks to be about, because we know that eddie is the one who has never dealt with his trauma around being shot. and i think we maybe have a nod to that with ravi's line, when eddie is telling them that christopher is worried about the risks he takes on his job: "that's a lot for a ten year old to be thinking about". because that's not what christopher is thinking about.

christopher? yes, his dad getting shot was definitely traumatic. but i think buck was right on the money. this is manifesting around christmas because this is about shannon. shannon, who was there until she disappeared, and then came back one christmas only to be dead by the next. and shannon didn't die because she did anything risky, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. just like how christopher's other biggest trauma, the tsunami, happened when buck was not working, when they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. like, i know it's a lot for a kid to deal with and christopher definitely needs therapy to help with it, but, as an adult who had to re-learn and heal from a really deficient understanding of mortality, what christopher needs to help heal from shannon's death is not eddie doing a less risky job, it's to come to terms with the idea that death sometimes happens for no reason at all. i'm aware, is that terrifying stuff that most adults can't handle? totally! but he can't really process shannon's death any other way. because what's eddie supposed to say? "you don't have to worry, i won't die because i'm not a firefighter anymore"? shannon wasn't a firefighter and she still died. and the show has already had a storyline kind of about this, when they all thought bobby was going to get sick from his chemical exposure and then he was fine but michael was the one who was sick, for no "reason" at all.

and i think hope that 5B is going to show us eddie taking this step, and realizing it doesn't solve either his issues or christopher's. he needs to deal with his own trauma around the shooting, and christopher needs to deal with the trauma of shannon's death. and then they both get some damn therapy.

[deluludiaz]

just a note, but i also find it interesting that the 5x10 foils Melia and Marco were -

co-workers in their Mutual Pining™️ era

both Holiday Happy; we see Marco giving gifts to everyone in the office and Melia seeing the holiday season as the perfect environment to try and advance her relationship with Marco

Melia puts herself out their, still in their work environment, after observing a repetitive behavior of Marco's and *correctly* assuming that he's a fan of the orchestra? (symphony? idk i forgot 💀)

he *seemingly* rejects her

only it turns out, Marco did and maybe still does love the orchestra, but he now has a negative image of how he will feel there. he doesn't want to go to the orchestra

but he still wants to go out with Melia

are y'all seeing what i'm getting at here? i hope so because i've been thinking about this storyline all day and like, honestly it could work to show what is happening with buddie or what isn't happening with b*ckt*ylor.

person A and person B like each other, person A reaches out and feels rejected but it turns out Person B has personal issues for saying no. work they have to do on their own before they can *metaphorically* go to the opera with person A

[wanderingwomanwondering]

*clears throat & screams clown noises* I love YOUR MIND @stagefoureddiediaz!!

Your thoughts about the lack of pooling blood on those calls does seem to speak to the wounds that are still there but that we don’t see. Both Buck and Eddie are still bleeding out I think but it’s emotional/psychological now and that still matters.

What you said about the gingerbread man being chris makes a ton of sense too! I don’t think our theories are mutually exclusive though. Symbols often pull double or triple duty.

Eddie has been obsessed with the Absent Mother figure in various ways for as long as we’ve known him: first when Sh*nnon abandoned them and then again when she died unexpectedly. A*a was the early s5 bonus round of that missing element in their little family and we’re seeing the title fight with that Absent Mother theme begin to unfold in 510 moving into 5b. I agree that in the final 510 Melia/Marco scene the gingerbread man was directly related to Chris given the events earlier in the ep. I think it also pulls double duty related to Buck’s unclear but super important role in the family too. I’ll try to explain my thinking & my clinging to this point lol bear with me…

Many of the roles a mother figure would fill have been taken over by Buck. The gingerbread man seems to speak to all of these things to me on one level or another because the counterpart gingerbread house was a shared Christmas craft between Chris and Sh*nnon that had to pass hands because of her absence/death. We do not see this Christmas project pass into another adult’s hands on screen besides Buck, and we know it’s a two-person/child-parent job because it started with Chris and his mom (not shown on screen but textually implied), moved to Chris and Buck in Merry Ex-Mas (where Buck was in charge of the activity while Eddie and Hen sipped coffee in the dining room), and the one time we establish on screen that Chris is old enough to do it solo, it isn’t the same/gets ruined. He’s actually the one who smashes it. It feels like with both Buck and Eddie in mortal danger at their jobs and mom already dead, the gingerbread house doesn’t work with missing/absent/dead/might be dead parents.

The gingerbread man feels like a missing parental piece to me AND a rep of Chris. I think both theories work! The GB man is Chris first and foremost for the reasons you gave. He’s the wonderful shared child that connects the romantic couple. The GB man is also the sweet man missing from the house. I think it kinda dovetails too with the fact that we see no real interaction between Buck and the Diaz boys…on friggin’ Christmas. He’s the new/current missing parent. I think Eddie being a firefighter who could die AND Eddie trying to do Christmas solo/in the midst of all that unprocessed/unexplained absence (Sh*nnon and Buck) were all a part of what set off his anxiety and caused him to demand perfection to help mitigate the crushing existential reality of uncontrollable loss.

That last phrase got heavy fast, lol. My bad. Imma shut up now.

EDIT: Oops, I misspoke. Buck builds GB houses with chris in 310 after sh*nnon died, not 210.

5x10 thoughts and meta

So @wanderingwomanwondering wrote a great 4 part post about 5x10 and then asked me about my thoughts on the pooling blood references and the gingerbread house and gingerbread man and I had a lot so its ended up as its own post!! hopefully it sparks some more thoughts!

So pooling blood first! The two references to pooling blood are interesting because of the accidents they’re mentioned in - Arthurs and Melias - but the thing is there no sign of blood pooling in either incident. I feel like that’s an important point - the lack of blood pooling - the absence of both a physical representation and symptoms - notably Eddie doesn’t have any panic attacks during these incidents.

One of the things that occurred to me while i was mulling it over was that actually the Arthur story ties in pretty well with the Shannon of it all - both of them are hit by motor vehicles (the one that hit Shannon was red interestingly enough!!) and actually they’re lying on the ground in similar positions as well. While Shannon doesn’t have two families - when she dies she’s made a choice between two lives - the one with a family and the one without - she chose the one without because ultimately she loved that more and ended up loosing her life. Arthur doesn’t get to chose between his two families because they both leave him and create a new defect family of their own because they choose to put the children first and place the blame where it should be - with Arthur instead of with each other. while I’ve been typing this its occurred to me that this mirrors Eddie as well - he thinks he has to make a choice between his two families but ultimately (an he’s not there yet - but I have a feeling he’ll realise it in 5b) he’s going to find that a new family which is a blend of the original two minus the baggage (read his PTSD etc) which is weighing him down is actually what’s best for both him and for Christopher. (I know I could’ve written this far more eloquently, but it is 1am so that’s my excuse!

The Melia one s a little less clear for me, but the absence of Eddie is intriguing - its like the intention was to point out the Buck side of pooling blood - he experienced it too - in his own way and ended up with Eddies blood on him. its making me thing that because they were both present at the Arthur incident, but only But was present at the Melia one, what we should be thinking about is that the Arthur incident (with its theme of two) represents the shooting itself - both Buck and Eddie were present and an active part of it. Eddie in being the one who got shot and Buck as the one rescuing him - while the Melia incident is the representation of the immediate aftermath. Eddie played no role in this because he was in surgery and his survival wasn’t guaranteed - but Buck was an active participant - he was the one who still had eddies blood on him and he was the one who had to tell Christopher. I could go into more depth on this but like I said above - its 1am and my brain can’t manage more at this moment!

Gingerbread houses - first an aside to say Christopher my man you are an epic decorator of a gingerbread house - because it looked amazing! For some reason, gingerbread houses always make me think of Hansel and Gretal and this amused me because the ice skaters from 3x08 were playing Hansel and Gretal and they were fighting because the’d split up and one of them was leaving - remind you of anyone? Yes me to - Eddie and Shannon! Anyway back to the gingerbread house itself - wanderingwomanwondering I agree with everything you put about the house and the flood of hot coco they’re fragile and brittle and easy to break down - the perfect description for the house that Eddie and Shannon built - looked pretty (read; conforming to societal expectations of the nuclear family!) but ultimately made of little substance.

when Eddie build his new house, it will be on his terms and therefore stronger, because he won’t be conforming to the ideals of others!

Melia and Marco and the gingerbread man air freshener - I see so many parallels with Buck and Eddie in this story - beyond the super obvious ones that have already been pointed out. wanderingwomanwondering is of the opinion that the air freshener, could be representative of Buck and her take makes total sense - I can see exactly where she’s coming from and I would probably draw the same conclusions, if, I hadn’t already come up with a slightly different theory! The reason my theory is different - costuming (and a little bit of camera work, the script and the music!!).

Ok so let’s do the camera stuff first - think back to 2x03 and Buck driving Eddie to pick Christopher up after the earthquake - which side of the car was the camera? yes the same one as the 5x10 scene of Marco getting into the car - on Bucks side - its like an uno reverso if you will - so in 2x03 Eddie gets out of the car on the camera side and runs into the school to get Chris, while Buck looks on. in 5x10 we have the opposite - Marco (Buck) is the one getting into the car on the opposite side to where the camera is positioned while Melia (Eddie) is sat there waiting. When the camera angle changes so the little winking gingerbread man - why is he winking unless its meant to be a cheeky aside to the audience (and I’m thinking specifically us in the Buddie fandom but that could just be me doing some A+ level clowning!!) - is front and centre with the camera pulling him into focus at the end of the scene.

Music wise the fact that the line ‘I made my baby cry’ is being sung as the camera pulls focus onto the gingerbread man is interesting to me and another reason why I think the gingerbread man is not buck! and then there is the script - takeout and a movie - something the Buckley-Diaz family unit likes to do!

Onto the costumes now. I’ve spoken at length about the use of blue tops in relation to Eddie and Buck and fulfilling a parental/fatherly role and here we have two characters both dressed in blue - one in dark blue and one in light blue. Some of the other meaning associated with the colour blue - especially light blue is trust responsibility and loyalty - all things I would say are representative of Eddies personality. Light blue is also a colour used to reduce stress and that’s what Eddies leaving the 118 is supposed to achieve for both him and Christopher.

Marco is in dark blue and also has a spotted blue shirt on under his jumper - who have we seen recently sporting a blue shirt with a pattern similar to dots? Well both Eddie and Buck actually - Buck in the ily scene from 5x09 and then Eddie when Chris has his nightmare earlier in this episode. Melia is in light blue, but the most important thing - her right arm is in a sling - mirroring Eddies right arm being in a sling post the shooting. What all this means to me is that the strong connections to Buck as Marco and Melia as Eddie means the gingerbread man cannot be either of them. The gingerbread man is also located between them - he is front and centre and what is the one thing front and centre for both Buck and Eddie - Christopher - He is the most important thing to both of them - he both connects them, and at this moment, is the catalyst that is going to divide them.

let me know if you think I’ve lost the plot and if the wheels have come off my clown car - my inbox is always open and I love hearing from you!

[sunflowerdigs]

Seize Your Queer AF Day: Mavid and Buddie by Way of Henren

It was nice to see Karen get some closure, though it would have been nicer if we'd been made aware that Eva was something she needed closure on earlier in the season.

Since I'm a Bobby relapse truther, I hope Hen plays a role in Bobby's arc and we see Hen realize, through watching Bobby relapse and work to come back from it, that she can forgive Eva. Or that she at least has a better understanding of how to go about forgiving Eva and finding her own closure post-Bobby relapse than she does now.

One aspect of the story that I did enjoy was the way that Karen, Eva, and Hen kind of switched places. Asking for forgiveness, I think, is an NA step that is supposed to help those asking deal with past ghosts and find some resolution before they move forward. I think that, before Eva showed up at the fire house, Hen had made her peace with their relationship - or, she thought she had. And that had been enough to dismiss the ghost temporarily. Meanwhile, Eva and Karen were still struggling silently. After 5x07, it seems like Karen and Eva have found, at the very least, some kind of catharsis while Hen is now realizing that she never actually made peace with Eva's actions. The difference between thinking that you've made peace with something and actually making peace with it can be so vast. I was hoping to see that theme explored more with Athena and her therapy (but maybe that will happen during Bobby's relapse).

It would be neat if episode 5x08 functions as a kind of answer to 5x07 - how do you avoid the creation of a ghost? By seizing each day and GETTING GAY MARRIED living in honest communication with the people you love, even when it's scary. Michael is a wonderful representation of just that, so I'm excited to see an episode centered on him and David and a near-death experience. After all, Michael nearly died in an unsatisfying marriage, and then he nearly died of cancer. I'm wondering whether we could get the wedding episode as soon as 5x10 - I can't see him wanting to wait.

Finally, to add some Buddie sprinkles to this meta - I'm hoping that watching Michael almost lose the love of his life and seeing and hearing him react to that brings Buck back to the day of the shooting. And I hope that Michael's display of honesty and emotion in proposing forces some honesty out of Buck. Is he seizing the day right now with Taylor? Or is there someone else who makes him feel things far beyond what she does? Feelings that he perhaps realized during a near-death situation but has been hiding from since then because the power of them scared him. I wrote a meta on this some time ago. Who knows if it's even still relevant. But I'm very excited for Monday.

Last thing - I like that these themes are being explored through 911's queer relationships because, while ghosts are not unique to queer people, I think the feeling of thinking you've dealt with something when you really haven't is a familiar one for queer people especially. And there's maybe (hopefully) a nice progression happening where Buck and Eddie have yet to start honestly communicating and seizing each day, Hen and Karen have made good progress but still get tripped up at times, and David and Michael have fought the fight as queer elders and are at master levels of communication and simply not giving any fucks about anything except what's important. *manifests*

[castielss]

That’s fair, I got some ships that I will never be okay with. I am curious, what episodes you would recommend, any favorites post S05 or even within?

Hey, sorry to take so long to reply but I wanted to make a good list so here it goes:

Season 5: (this is going to be most of s5 because it was all that)

5x02 - Good God, Y’All!

5x03 -   Free to Be You and Me

5x04 -  The End

5x06 -  I Believe the Children Are Our Future

5x07 -  The Curious Case of Dean Winchester

5x08 -  Changing Channels

5x09 - The Real Ghostbusters

5x10 -  Abandon All Hope...

5x13 -  The Song Remains the Same

5x14 -  My Bloody Valentine

5x15 - Dead Man Don’t Wear Plaid

5x16 - Dark Side of the Moon

5x19 - Point of No Return

5x21 - Two Minutes to Midnight

5x22 - Swan Song

Season 6:

6x01 - Exile on Main Street

6x02 - Two and a Half Men (the baby scene in the supermarket was the one to make me go back and watch spn)

6x04 - Weekend at Bobby’s

6x05 - Live Free or Twi-hard

6x06 - You Can’t Handle the Truth

6x09 - Clap Your Hands If You Believe

6x11 - Appointment in Samarra

6x15 - The French Mistake

6x17 - My Heart Will Go On

6x18 - Frontierland

6x20 - The Man Who Would Be King

6x22 - The Man Who Knew Too Much

Season 7: (for me it’s the most skippable season but there is still some good episodes)

7x01 - Meet the New Boss

7x05 -  Shut Up, Dr. Phil (If you love Buffy you will love this episode)

7x06 -  Slash Fiction

7x08 -  Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!

7x10 -  Death's Door

7x11 -  Adventures in Babysitting

7x13 -  Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie

7x 17 - The Born-Again Identity

7x18 -  Party on, Garth

7x20 -  The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo

7x23 -  Survival of the Fittest

Season 8 (don’t mind me if I again put almost every episode of this season here)

8x02 - What's Up, Tiger Mommy? (Purgatory goodness)

8x04 -  Bitten

8x05 - Blood Brother

8x06 - Southern Comfort

8x07 - A Little Slice of Kevin

8x08 - Hunteri Heroici

8x09 - Citizen Fang

8x11 - LARP and the Real Girl

8x12 - As Time Goes By

8x13 - Everybody Hates Hitler

8x17 - Goodbye Stranger

8x18 - Freaks and Geeks

8x19 - Taxi Driver

8x20 - Pac-Man Fever

8x23 - Sacrifice

Season 9: (For me it was also a very superior season expecially for Dean)

9x02 -  Devil May Care

9x03 - I'm No Angel

9x04 - Slumber Party

9x05 - Dog Dean Afternoon

9x06 - Heaven Can't Wait

9x07 - Bad Boys

9x09 - Holy Terror

9x11 - First Born

9x13 - The Purge

9x14 - Captives

9x16 - Blade Runners

9x18 - Meta Fiction

9x19 - Alex Annie Alexis Ann

9x21 - King of the Damned

9x23 - Do You Believe in Miracles?

Season 10:

10x01 - Black

10x03 - Soul Survivor 

10x05 - Fan Fiction

10x08 - Hibbing 911

10x09 - The Things We Left Behind

10x10 - The Hunter Games

10x11 - There's No Place Like Home

10x12 - About a Boy

10x14 - The Executioner's Song

10x17 - Inside Man

10x18 - Book of the Damned

10x20 - Angel Heart

10x22 - The Prisoner

10x23 - Brother’s Keeper

Season 11:

11x01 - Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire

11x02 - Form and Void

11x04 - Baby

11x08 - Just My Imagination

11x09 - O Brother Where Art Thou?

11x10 - The Devil in the Details

11x11 - Into the Mystic

11x12 - Don't You Forget About Me

11x14 - The Vessel

11x15 - Beyond the Mat

11x16 - Safe House

11x17 - Red Meat

11x20 -  Don't Call Me Shurley

11x23 - Alpha and Omega

Season 12:(Season 12 again is one of those seasons I really like, there is some top tier Castiel and Dean moments in here)

12x01 - Keep Calm and Carry On

12x02 - Mamma Mia

12x03 - The Foundry

12x04 - American Nightmare

12x05 - The One You've Been Waiting For

12x06 - Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox

12x07 - Rock Never Dies

12x09 - First Blood

12x10 - Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets

12x11 - Regarding Dean

12x12 - Stuck in the Middle (With You)

12x16 - Ladies Drink Free

12x17 - The British Invasion

12x20 - Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes

12x22 - Who We Are

Season 13:

13x01 - Lost and Found

13x04 - The Big Empty

13x06 - Tombstone

13x10 - Wayward Sisters

13x12 - Various & Sundry Villains

13x13 - Devil's Bargain

13x16 - Scoobynatural

13x19 - Funeralia

13x21 -  Beat the Devi

13x22 - Exodus

13x23 - Let the Good Times Roll

Season 14:

14x01 - Stranger in a Strange Land

14x02 - Gods and Monsters

14x03 - The Scar

14x04 - Mint Condition

14x06 - Optimism

14x08 - Byzantium

14x09 - The Spear

14x10 - Nihilism

14x13 - Lebanon

14x15 - Piece of Mind

14x20 - Moriah

Season 15

15x03 - The Rupture

15x04 - Atomic Monsters

15x06 - Golden Time

15x07 - Last Call

15x08 - Our Father, Who Aren’t in Heaven

15x09 - The Trap

15x10 - The Heroes’ Journey

15x11 - The Gamblers

15x13 - Destiny’s Child

15x14 - Last Holiday

15x15 - Gimme Shelter

15x18 - Despair

Okay ther you have it my favourite episodes from every season starting on s5.

[wanderingwomanwondering]

Eddie’s 510 costume when he’s talking to Carla about Chris’s fears of losing him looks like the same outfit he wore in 504 on the balcony with Buck. Same shirt and same watch! We can’t see his pants during that 510 scene but I’m willing to bet they’re the exact same too.

I think the costume choice for him in that 510 scene is meant to deepen the parallel between Eddie and Maddie established in the 504 balcony scene.

Both quit their job in s5 because they felt they were failing their kid and needed to double down on parenting. At this point, Eddie has only left the job, but Maddie left her family entirely because she felt like a failure as a parent. Eddie technically already did that part when he re-enlisted during Chris’s early years. Back then, Eddie had the same fear of messing Chris up that Maddie has now about messing Jee-Yun up.

On top of all that, Eddie was clear in 504 about what he (subtextually) and Maddie (textually) both need: someone to take care of them! In the conversation, Buck came to terms with the fact that he (a loving sibling) can’t help Maddie in the same way that Chim (a loving romantic partner) can. The show is maybe taking the scenic route to completing that thought in a Buddie context.

Eddie needs someone to take care of him. Someone who’s close enough to him and intimately connected to him enough that he will let them take care of him. There is currently no one filling that role at this time. Eddie is pulling away. Confiding in friends about Chris but not about himself. He gives Carla a peek behind the curtain in 510, but that’s it. He notes the shooting and the hostage situation but only to explain his thinking about how to do what’s best for Chris, not himself. Carla tries to challenge that narrow way of thinking but fails. Eddie can’t hear her; she’s not quite close enough to reach him.

Others have noted and I agree that Eddie didn’t take his plan to quit to Buck first because it would open the can of trauma worms they’ve both been holding shut with a delicate combination of avoidance and minimization. Eddie adds straight up repression to his mix when the lid’s about to really pop off the pressure cooker.

I think it totally matters that Eddie is wearing the Buck watch in 510 too (after the watch appeared in 503 and 504 already). Buck was definitely on Eddie’s mind while he was talking to Carla. Eddie’s callback to the hostage situation and his statement to Carla that he didn’t tell her because neither of them got hurt feels pointed because they were both absolutely hurt physically and/or mentally during the shooting. His comment to Carla was a low-key confession that old wounds are reopening (hostage situation and now too with Chris’s nightmare) and he’s choosing to make leaving explicitly about Chris rather than himself. I understand why Eddie chose to leave but it’s about way more than just Chris imho. Eddie wants to talk to Buck about everything that’s between them but that’s a monumental task for him emotionally. We already know that Eddie is not Mr. Emotional Expression. He needs guiding and prompting in the process.

Talking about the panic attacks when he could lay it mostly on A*a was one thing. Buck had to prod a little but Eddie opened up. The trauma between them is deeper. The 510 conversation with Carla implied that imo so I’m expecting the pressure cooker to blow when Eddie and Buck are no longer working together. The emotions will be all that’s left without the cover of work and other things that help them avoid/minimize!

S5b will hopefully put their feet in the fire and force them to start dealing with everything out loud and fully present emotionally. I want Eddie to be taken care of in 5b and to allow that deep caring to actually happen. I want Buck to feel his own feelings and also choose to dig deep with Eddie’s feelings.

[babyboy-buck]

no wait listen.... it is going to be chris and buck that convince eddie to feel his feelings and be honest with himself, that will help crack him open like an egg and then build him back together. because while chris is so afraid right now of losing eddie like he lost his mom (and almost lost buck time and time again), he doesn't want eddie to fundamentally change himself, especially for his sake. he doesn't want his dad to force himself into a life where he is unhappy just to appease chris. think about it, chris is getting older, how long until he would put the pieces together that eddie sacrificed so much happiness and so much of his sense of self and who he is, just to give his son what he thinks he wants? it would crush chris, it would crush any child. it would fundamentally change and damage their relationship far beyond the scope of time the show will feature.

chris doesn't want his dad to change, he just wants to feel secure in his dad own place in his life. what he needs, so much more than eddie imploding his life and giving up any sense of wants and needs for himself, is for eddie to just freaking talk to him. not the panicked "we can talk about it?! i heard that helps?!" eddie frantically throws at chris moments after waking from a nightmare, as chris has his own panic attack. eddie needs to sit down with his son and have an honest, actual conversation where they can both let all the things they are holding back from one another out, where they can actually talk about everything they have been feeling and everything they have been struggling to face. chris doesn't need to sacrifice himself in an attempt to escape death to an impossible degree. because if the family at the end of the episode exemplified anything, it's that even in the most mundane situations, tragedy can strike. eddie can be driving to the supermarket and die in a car wreck. eddie could walk down the stairs and break his neck. eddie could suddenly have a heart attack in his sleep. or maybe he could be a firefighter and leave to the rip old age of 90. that's just life. it's time for eddie to have a real conversation about death with his son before this recent anxiety becomes deep-seated. death is painful and heartbreaking, but it isn't something that we should fear. it's a natural part of the life cycle we will all experience it in a thousand different ways. they need to face it all together.

because when chris finds out/realizes that eddie is giving up on the life they have built, the family they created around them, on the life and person eddie has become since joining the 118 and becoming a firefighter, he's gonna nip that shit in the bud. Christopher would totally call eddie out on it. Christopher loves that his father (and his Buck) are firefighters, are heroes. he's even said he wants to be a firefighter (as a childish, mostly passing fantasy but still), buck's cute little for chris atm is "the new fire chief". chris is not against the idea of eddie being a firefighter. he never once said it, never even brought it up. what he has brought up is the not knowing. because eddie, in his own effort to hide from his feelings, his trauma, his desires, he's left his son in the dark.

think about how buck handled having a hard conversation with chris vs. eddie. when buck had to tell chris that eddie had been shot, he was openly emotional, honest about his feelings. but moreso, he was honest about the situation with chris without being inappropriately so. he tells chris what has happened, he tells him exactly what is going on. he doesn't sugarcoat it or try to pretend it's fine. we also have to remember that when buck walked into chris' bedroom that night, he didn't know that eddie was going to be okay. he had no idea he would be getting an update anytime soon. he walked in there prepared to tell chris that eddie was hurt and he didn't know what was going to happen, except that he would be there with chris every step of the way.

eddie, so far, has struggled to communicate that honestly, that raw to the core with your emotions, the entire time we've known him. he couldn't with his parents. he couldn't with shannon. he can't with chris. he can't with buck. he can't with anyone in his life. he doesn't know how, he won't allow himself. anytime we get close to seeing him finally cross that threshold, he doubles back in panic. we see it so clearly with how he is he can't handle this situation. he's falling into and leaning into that fear and panic, letting it cloud his decisions, and it's going to tear him apart. it's going to tear his life apart. but it doesn't have to be that way.

eddie and chris' fate is not sealed. there's still time for the damage, the hurt, to heal. for the diaz boys to grow and heal and be able to move on from it before the damage and move on better, together.

EDDIE??? LEAVING?? YOU THINK EVAN BUCK BUCKLEY WILL JUST LET YOU LEAVE??? EDDIE “WHO REPLACES ME” DIAZ WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?? I AM SICK TO MY STOMACH!!!

SEASON 5B BETTER BE EDDIE FINALLY GETTING HIS BREAKDOWN AND BUCK AND THE FIREFAM HELPING HIM GET HIS SHIT TOGETHER BECAUSE IF THIS IS EDDIE/RYAN GUZMAN’S EXIT FROM THE SHOW I THINK I MIGHT HAVE TO DROP THE SHOW FOR MY MENTAL HEALTH!!!

so yeah i watched the mid-season finale…

[wanderingwomanwondering]

Buddie 510 - Part 1

This post is the first in a series of 4 in an attempt to break things down and save your dash. Links to the other 3 posts are at the bottom of this post.

Feuding Families (Call)

The core of the Arthur has two families call is that both feel betrayed and also Arthur loves them both. With that basic read, the case speaks directly to Eddie's struggle in the ep. Also Eddie runs point on the call so it feels appropriate to link that call to him in this way. He loves the 118 and he loves Chris but as Buck says to Arthur/Eddie, "it feels like a lot to keep track of". And it is.

It's interesting too that one wife feels second best and never suspected the situation (118/Buck) and one wife feels lied to but actually suspected the situation (Chris, because he knows what his dad does for a living and that Eddie could die on a call and leave Chris without him).

The Perfect Christmas

@stagefoureddiediaz mentioned trees & green being symbolically connected to regeneration and rebirth in a fabulous costume meta here. The Christmas tree issues with Chris are interesting in that light. Eddie is doing all the decorating but taking all of his cues from Chris. That's appropriate given the emotional struggles this ep, and continues Eddie's known pattern. He puts Chris's growth and needs first. This is solidified in the scene where Eddie tells Carla about Chris's anxiety about making the tree perfect.

Clueless BuckTaylor: Christmas Edition

People have already talked about the Taylor gift conversation. I don't have much to add to those excellent conversations. I just want to say that Bobby's face was sending me when he realized that Taylor doesn't know Buck either. He sighed, y'all! Like. Audibly. It was hilarious and screamed "Ok, my bad. Maybe you two should actually break up and I should mind my business". LOL!

Feel free to read the other three parts of this meta:

Buddie 510 - Part 2

Buddie 510 - Part 3

Buddie 510 - Part 4

[wanderingwomanwondering]

Buckley-Diaz Family Meta - Christmas Edition

911 has had three Christmas episodes so far during its 5-season run. Each one has had interesting implication for Buck, Eddie, and Christopher. Those episodes are a staple in my Buckley-Diaz Family headcanon. 510 got me thinking about why that is, because I noticed that it didn’t have many Buck and Chris moments (none in the foreground) which made me feel some type of way. Like. How dare they deny me my proper seasonal dose of Buck and Chris Cuteness? That’s his child. The audacity!

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about why my mind reads Buck as not just a parental figure to Christopher but a tried and true, actual factual “that’s my kid!” parent. 

210 Merry Ex-Mas

Of course we have all of Buck’s life partner energy with Eddie (i.e., emo support during the earthquake arc, driving him to pick up Chris from school, driving him to the hospital to see Abuela, connecting him with Carla) long before 210 Merry Ex-Mas, but that episode still did a lot in only a few scenes to connect Buck to actually being a parent to Chris. 

Specifically, Buck takes Chris to see Santa with Eddie. That is a role usually filled by parents with their children. Even though they don’t wait in line with Chris to see Santa, the fact that Buck is there at all is interesting because again it’s typically parents who take their kids on such holiday outings. Then we get the First Elf Queen of Buddiedom telling Buck that he and Eddie have an adorable son together. 

Mind you, this insanity happens in the very episode where Sh*nnon is allowed to return to Chris’s life. She gets to come back for a time, but given the Buck-Is-Eddie’s-New-Partner energy of the season’s first several episodes plus the You-Two-Have-An-Adorable-Son visit to see Santa, the singles ad had actually already been removed from the proverbial newspaper. Sh*nnon need not answer.

310 Christmas Spirit

Then we have the wild choices made in 310 Christmas Spirit. Eddie has Hen and Denny as well as Buck over to his house. He calls it a playdate, set up to “cram in holiday cheer” because Eddie (and Buck) have to work on Christmas Day (so can’t spend the holiday with Chris). Eddie further notes that Christmas was always a “special” time for Chris and his mom. It was the first Diaz holiday season since she passed away. 

What I think is majorly interesting about the whole scenario is that playdates typically include the children and their parents. Hen is not the only member of the 118 with kids. Harry and Chris are about the same age as Denny. Why not call the Wilson Family and the Grant-Nash Family to the appointed special Christmas season “play date” and let Buck be a childless adult doing his own thing all daay? Oh, right! Because Buck is Chris’s friggin’ father too!! 

This holiday playdate is post-TNITWITWMSMTY. Buck almost drowned, almost bled out, and almost passed tf out for that wonderful child. Of course he is his dad too! It makes Buck Eddie’s co-parent/partner at the playdate. That fact is further evidenced by this sweet craziness right here.

510 Wrapped In Red

Then we have the midseason finale. Buck and Chris spend no time together in the foreground of any scenes, though they are in the background together a couple of times. With everything I’ve stated already about Buck’s connection to Chris especially at Christmas, I really felt the lacking mainline interaction between them in this episode. Sure I clowned about Buck and Chris and cookies, gingerbread houses, and stockings. Eddie stated in the ep that those were all Chris and Sh*nnon’s thing during the holidays. But me clownin’ on this hellsite doesn’t make up for the lack of actual interaction between Buck and Chris on screen in 510.

So that’s the Buddipher of what I’ve been mulling over here at the dawning of the 3-month hiatus. Imma need these dudes to make it official already because I need my family together and happy...now more than ever!

[wanderingwomanwondering]

Buddie 510 - Part 3

This post is the third in a series of 4 in an attempt to break things down and save your dash. Links to the other 3 posts are at the bottom of this post.

Pooling Blood

We gotta talk about this. Lines about this appeared twice on rescues in the ep. It was a very specific line and has not been used before on a rescue call that I can remember. Eddie uses the line to refer to Arthur, his counterpart in the first rescue. Hen uses the line to again referring to Melia. It would be a throwaway line if not for the loud callback to Eddie in 414 who had a lot of pooling blood on a random street in LA after he got shot. The ep itself refers to the shooting during Eddie's big conversation with Carla. I can't ignore that and I don't think you should either. I also think it matters that pooling blood was referenced in both big rescues before the third and final one that really solidified Eddie's decision to leave the 118.

The Gingerbread House

Christmas was Chris and Sh*nnon's special time, a way to bring joy even in Eddie's absence. Eddie destroys the one for this year in the same ep where another dad destroys a house on Christmas. I talk about that in another post here.

Also, Gavin was amazing in this ep. It's been said. It bears repeating. Forever.

The Gingerbread Man

Um, are we gonna talk about the gingerbread man car-freshener in the final scene with Melia and Marco? Like. That has to matter in the wake of Chris's emotional reaction to the gingerbread house being destroyed this year. The camera actually stops focusing on Melia and Marco in the car scene to focus in on the gingerbread man! In a hilarious bit of my own grade A clownery, I think the gingerbread man is Buck. Laugh but also hear me out.

Eddie said that Christmas was Chris and Sh*nnon's thing and so was gingerbread house making. This year, when the house (family dynamic) was unexpectedly ruined by a flood of hot cocoa (Sh*nnon dying/tsunami with buck/nightmares about a drowning woman) Eddie suggested building a bigger house (trying to overcompensate and be even more perfect to distract from what's missing/gone) and Chris screamed that Eddie could be dead next year (leaving Chris without him/home). Ok so Buck made gingerbread houses with Chris in Merry X-mas way back in season 2 before Sh*nnon reappeared to take over again. Chris felt connected enough to Buck during that Merry Ex-Mas scene to ask if he could spend the holiday with Buck. Not Hen. Not Denny. Not Carla. But Buck. Buck honored the old Sh*nnon Christmas traditions but he himself was a brand new fixture in the Diaz family dynamic. Kid tested, father approved. With the budding workplace romance represented by Melia and Marco in the background of the gingerbread man in this ep, it suggests that Buck is the missing piece in terms of catalyzing the buddie connection. The trusted one. The loved one. The partner. The builder. The fixer. The one who has their back. By extension, Buck is the last piece of the potential new family unit too. The flooded gingerbread house doesn't need to be bigger, it just needs the new family member to join those already inside. Buck is the gingerbread man. Let him come home. Let him help navigate some of those hot cocoa flood waters. Like he literally did in the tree-side chat with Eddie at the 118 earlier in the same ep.

Feel free to read the other three parts of this meta:

Buddie 510 - Part 1

Buddie 510 - Part 2

Buddie 510 - Part 4

EDIT: Oops, I misspoke. Buck builds GB houses with chris in 310 after sh*nnon died, not 210.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

This is so good and I have something to add to it - the use of chocolate as a metaphor for trauma. I think the fact that it’s hot chocolate Eddie spills on it is deliberate - it could’ve been milk or any other drink, but no it was chocolate. The reason I feel like this is important is that in 3x10 the first call they deal with on Christmas Day is blue lady and Buck asks why she’s bleeding chocolate syrup - a result of not enough oxygen in the blood. If we think about this - she’s been trying to numb her pain - treating the symptom and not deal with it’s cause - not dealing with trauma is a bit like allowing a build up of a harmful toxin that prevents the brain from functioning properly. That call is like a more literal version of this - she’s not getting enough oxygen in her blood (something we need to survive) thus turning her blue and putting her life at risk.

Then we have 2x17 - the episode where Shannon dies. In this episode - a teacher nearly dies from drowning in a vat of liquid chocolate. And they specify that it’s dark chocolate - we didn’t need to know that it’s dark - just that it’s chocolate! We also find out that it’s a social studies teacher - social studies is about teaching people to make informed and reasoned decisions - psychology and sociology are two of the most popular components of social studies - literally about learning and getting a better understanding of the human mind and how society functions.

I’m both these instances it’s Buck and Eddie at the centre of things - they find the benzocaine (something used to numb pain!) and Buck makes the comment about chocolate syrup blood - he wants to know more - it is him Chris wants to spend time with at Christmas (and we see in 4x08 that he opens up to Buck - when he runs away to him). And then at the chocolate factory it’s Buck and Eddie pulling the man out - they’re the ones up to their armpits in chocolate.

Just over here thinking about:

The holidays were always their thing. You know, cookies and stockings and gingerbread houses.

And the way, in season three, the first year without his mom, Christopher sat there happily beside Buck, building a gingerbread house, and then asked to spend Christmas with him.