#and why Tim is doing a bit of a redux to reset things - so that the place the narrative wants to go is where it gets to go

[stagefoureddiediaz]

I don’t quite know how my brain got here right now - but I’m thinking thoughts about the way the show has been paralleling Buck and Eddie with each other - as well as with the canon couples on the show - but in a very specific and interesting way - because when you take Abby and Tommy as a collective - they are a parallel of Shannon.

All three are firsts and not lasts for Eddie and Buck.

Abby and Tommy have been intentionally connected on the show (yes making use of a fluke name commonality but that’s what makes it especially clever and interesting) on several levels as being basically two sides of the same coin - Abby was his first serious relationship and Tommy his first queer relationship - they are both Bucks firsts and not his lasts. In the same way that Shannon was Eddie’s first and not his last - the show chose to have buck point out that Shannon was the first girl Eddie slept with - implying she wasn’t his first girlfriend (something that was confirmed in the cut Eddie/Chris conversation about the lake.

If you think of Shannon as two entities instead of one person - Texas Shannon and LA Shannon - it becomes easier to spot the parallels.

Texas Shannon is paralleled with Abby - both leave their respective homes and don’t come back - both Buck and Eddie expected them to return when they had done taking some time for themselves - finding themselves.

While LA Shannon is paralleled with Tommy - LA Shannon asks for a divorce after Eddie wants to have the second child he thinks is coming and to get remarried etc - to go all in with her and their relationship. He is making a decision based on flawed thinking and external expectations after a conversation with a ‘elder’ (supposedly wiser figure - Bobby).

Which is very much a parallel to Tommy dumping Buck after Buck decides to go all in and ask Tommy to move in and starts talking about marriage - after the hurdle of discovering Tommys past with Abby and having talked to an elder (in this case Josh who is a queer elder).

Both narratives are connected to commiting to something due to societal expectations - for Shannon it was becoming pregnant outside of marriage in a Catholic dominant society and therefore ending up married to Eddie.

While for Tommy it was having to mask himself as a straight man because he was in the army and firefighting - both environments that were toxicly masculine and heteronormative at the time Tommy was in them and so he ended up in a relationship with Abby - which then sets up the circumstances for Abby to feel the need to run to find herself.

Both Texas Shannon and Abby then feel the need to run - to find themselves because of the environment they find themselves in and this sets up LA Shannon and Tommy as second firsts for Eddie and Buck. And both LA Shannon and Tommy have grown and evolved since Texas Shannon and Abby and both can see that their respective relationships are not meant to last - that they’re not the right fit - that they are forced and they have the personal development to choose end them before they cause more hurt and damage.

It’s a great play on being firsts and second chances but not lasts and it ultimately shows the suitability of buddie - they make the same mistakes in a different way - both having their first independent of each other but having their second chance/ second first whilst within each others orbits - and because they are ultimately looking for the same thing it is all serving to spin them closer to each other to a point where they can understand what their lasts look like - and that it’s each other