#In my brain this is the aftermath of 3x08

[thatbitchmabel]

Early mornings

[stagefoureddiediaz]

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!