#eddie in part bc of his storyline and because of how he treated buck like a child after the breakup

[seddair]

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[saveahorserideaneddie]

No but you’re so right about not wanting to watch season 8 because after how they handled the doppelgänger storyline I don’t want to watch it, with the rumours Gavin isn’t coming back and how this show has handled estranged parents storylines in the past I just have zero faith they’re going to do Eddie any justice especially after they sent him back to before the show levels of development, practically erasing everything we’ve seen him work on from seasons 2-6, like I can just picture the Diaz parents redemption and Eddie thanking them for taking Chris and ignoring everything a little like they did with the Buckleys

And something something this show hates happy queer parents, I don’t know how to really articulate this but like even if they do a gay Eddie storyline now, it’s not sitting right with me that it’s only happening now Chris is gone, like I know Eddie filters life through Chris/doesn’t really know who he is without the parent role etc etc I know that but with the way they treat Henren on the show and the way they treat Denny and Mara’s storylines, it almost seems like they weren’t going to let Eddie figure himself out while also actively parenting—it’s giving the straight grandparents need to save Chris from his gay dad (like they wanted to all along) i don’t know if I’m getting my point across well but it’s giving a “if you’re queer and a parent you will not be happy on this show your kid/s will get taken away from you”

👏👏👏

this. i understand the argument that eddie needs a chance to examine things without looking throughthe Chris lense, but it feels like he absolutely 100% could have had the realization because of Chris. like it would have taken chris saying he views buck as his dad one time and eddie would have spiralled and everything would have begun to fall into place— i get gavin having conflicts due to his move and possibly having to leave the show but there were so many other ways to essentially write him off (yes ik nothing is confirmed and that he very well could come back in a much slimmed down onscreen role such as may/harry) but it feels like they just went “eh… eddie started to reconcile with his dad…. let’s just send chris away even though eddie realistically would not have built up that much trust in this short amount of time (especially w helena)

and i 1000% agree w it mimicking the henren trauma bc why are we targeting the black lesbians with the same storyline we already saw with Nia…. why are we now lumping eddie into the traumatized poc paranoid losing their kid trope? especially if they plan to make him queer?

like i fully understand this show is a drama, but i miss when it was a DRAMA and not a SOAP OPERA… like earlier seasons had their fair amount of dramatic shit going on but this is just ridiculous and some of it feels farcical to me at this point… especially with the handling of buck’s bisexuality where his coming out scene to maddie included a joke about “always checking out a hot guy’s ass” once again reducing his character down to sex even though Buck has grown past that… idk it just rubs me the wrong way that we’re either sex-hungry, sassy, traumatized, or all three in one and it doesn’t sit right with me.

also them actively chosing to make a known problematic character queer just to serve as a plot device for a sexuality arc that didn’t even live up to any potential bc they kissed once, went on a coffe date and bam they’re suddenly together? even for a straight couple that’s such an anticlimactic relationship buildup let alone a queer one… and not only that but using his queerness as an excuse for his racism and misogynistic behavior as a way to sweep it under the rug is so icky to me… like why is the only decently treated canonically queer character Josh??? (even though even he was part of that whole hate crime plot!)

it’s so hard as a queer person to watch other queer people be told by straight people that they should settle for what we have… and that those queer people listen and also somehow think that settling is all we can do. i know it’s easy to settle for shit, but i’m sorry i did not spend six years watching these two build something beautiful to see it thrown away because what they gave us is (not even) “good enough.”

it really is disheartening.

anyway sorry for turning this into another rant post, anon, i just liked your added point of the traumatized queer parent thing and wanted to expand on that some more!

[gregorygerwitz]

I'm right there with you. Cheating plot-lines are huge squicks for me. I almost stopped watching the show bc of Hen's cheating in s1, and again when Buck cheated. Part of the disappointment now is that it's a THIRD time they've had a cheating plotline- actually FOURTH since Michael had a secret relationship when he and Athena were still married, even if they hadn't been sleeping together for a while.

So I think part of it for me is "I know this is different, but I don't want to go through this AGAIN."

Either way, I save my own sanity by fast-forwarding through scenes that I don't want to see, and I'll infer/learn things from other people who have watched the show later.

I hate it here so much and, honestly, with how this show usually treats cheating storylines, I don't actually have that much faith that this will get the fallout it should.

With Michael, I understand the handwave - they were separated, for all intents and purposes, and that was discussed afterwards and Athena sees where he's coming from now. And them writing canonically queer characters into cheating arcs that end poorly would be messy, even if they don't necessarily learn anything from it.

Hen... did face consequences for her actions. We got to see the fallout of it with her and Karen, and how they handled it. But I feel like most of that was off screen, and then they forgot about it beyond season one.

Buck's "cheating" storyline was wild, in a way that... was barely cheating? He was on the receiving end of the kiss that only happened once, he kissed back in the moment because he was drunk. Lucy is not the bad guy in this situation either, because she had no idea he was in a relationship and was also drunk. Should Buck have told Taylor sooner? Yes. Was the entire storyline a mess for other reasons too? Also yes.

This... it feels different but the same. No, Eddie hasn't done anything physical with Kim that we know of, but this is the first time, other than Michael whose cheating didn't get much of a storyline beyond cementing the end of his relationship with Athena, that it has been a consistent choice made over and over again. Hen slept with Eva the night of the full moon and then that was over. Buck and Lucy was one drunken night that didn't go beyond a kiss or two. This? Eddie is going after Kim and her attention again and again.

He's showing up at her job. He's taking her out to dinner. He's telling her he's single. And it's really shitty. I just have to cross my fingers and pray this doesn't get brushed off like every other time.

(and I totally understand fast forwarding when you have that ability, definitely do whatever you have to do 💛)

[kodzuken]

Chelsea...can i have context for this AGN bullshit. I've seen so many things and I'm CONFUSED

ok basically the gist of it is: agn/athenagrantnash is a bucktaylor (not hate against bucktaylors btw, some of y'all are actually nice) and eddie hater who says the most delusional things on her blog. some highlights

news reporters are first responders bc one time "one of [her] reporters got shot" on a job (we're pretty sure she works for fox news, btw)

on a related note, she's right about everything because she Works For Fox

eddie is a misogynist for ... breaking up with ana? (also says that he treats all his love interests like garbage/walks all over them)

taylor has fertility issues (based on nothing)

eddie being gay would be, and I quote, "awful" because it would lean into the trope of gay men being awful to women

she has a black friend in med school who didnt experience oppression so hen’s storyline in unrealistic

her mom is an "honorary black person" so she can speak on issues surrounding POC (in the same post, she also clarified she wasn't talking about indigenous people when she said indian like....okay)

taylor and bobby should be besties and taylor should run into bobby at a bar and “help him” out of a relapse

maddie in s5 wasnt paralleling eddie she was paralleling shannon

agreed with a post that talked about buck being just like "crooked cops" looking out for each other bc he was hesitant to believe the worst in jonah

taylor should teach jee how to braid hair bc shes the only one with hair long enough to braid

buck "controls every aspect of taylor's life"

eddieana breakup is a retcon

related, everything she said that didn't come to fruition is a retcon, aka the “just because something is part of a plot doesnt make it not a retcon” argument

and finally, Eddie is moving to texas for sure (it'll be a retcon if he doesn't)

it's ... a lot. but also, don't send her hate!! she genuinely feeds off being contrary, I think; she loves getting into arguments with people and using her little "angry gremlin" tag, but if you oh so dare call her out off anon, she blocks you. anyway, don't send her hate, don't engage, just enjoy the show and see how she self destructs after 5x18 :)

[cinematicnomad]

I really like your answer to your last anon, because i *feel* that. I guess i’m a bit more hopeful, but i try really hard not to get too invested.

“(...)if they stay as platonic best friends who continue to maintain the same commitment to each other” -> now that’s the deciding factor , right? Because yes, if that is how it plays out, i’m all for it. Bit disappointed maybe, but all for it. I just fear that, with mainstream media’s tendency to focus more heavily on romantic relationships, they will neglect that friendship in favour of a potential love story. 911 tends to do a lot better than comparable shows in that aspect, but who knows.

I just have absolutely no interest in watching any other, possibly undeveloped character taking Buck’s place (screentime) with Chris and Eddie or being portrayed as more important to them just because their relation to Eddie is romantic. In this context i’m actually quite interest in how you think the Ana/Eddie storyline will play out (bc that, imho, is the definition of how you *don’t* write a romance storyline)

glad to hear that my answer resonated with you (and maybe some others)! i definitely agree with you that if the show keeps them on the same platonic path, i want them to stay as dedicated to each other as they currently are. i’ll be happy with them as is so long as we continue to get scenes of them hanging out with chris, of the show confirming their reliance on each other, etc etc. like you, i’m not really interested in the show introducing a new recurring character who replaces buck or eddie in their scenes together. 

personally, i’m not too bothered by ana. i feel like the show has made it pretty clear that they’re mostly interested in telling a story of eddie dating generally, and not eddie dating ana specifically, if that makes sense? like i think it’s worth noting how they’ve done nothing to try and integrate ana into the show at large, she hasn’t met any of the other characters except for carla and chris, so she’s just kind of isolated in this plot of eddie dating her. if they were interested in making her a permanent part of the show it would have made more sense to re-introduce her in 4x06 by having hen or chimney be the one to treat her and then have eddie walk by and have it be a group conversation where everyone ends up involved. but they kepti it limited to just her and eddie and she still hasn’t met anyone from the 118 so it’s like, how invested are they in really keeping her around? by comparison, taylor already knows all of the 118 and in her return episode we saw her interacting with albert and veronica along with buck. 

i think it seems pretty clear that the writers have a certain story they want to tell and they’re trying to hit specific beats. they’re rushing the execution bc they’re more preoccupied with hitting these predetermined beats instead of making sure they have a solid foundation of chemistry. like, the specific story points i feel like they’ve wanted/needed to hit so far includes: bobby + eddie talking about shannon/moving on, eddie + first date with someone, chris + eddie conflict (followed by chris running away to buck), etc. and all of those are so much more central to eddie, with his romantic partner acting tangentially at best so the writers haven’t developed her as much bc she’s not the focus. going forward i wouldn’t be surprised if they have an idea for a break up that’s central to eddie + chris (mabye buck) and that’s why they re-introduced chris and ana so soon. 

i just think ana hasn’t been given any depth to be a serious contender for Actual Love Interest. all we know about her so far is that she’s a former teacher turned vice principal with a shiny new PhD and a grandfather with the same name as eddie. she hasn’t been allowed to hold or expression opinions that eddie can engage with (other than when she voiced her thoughts on chris + skateboarding, and the show pretty firmly landed on buck’s side in that case). 

the reason why i’m pretty solidly convinced that it’s not a serious relationship to be worried about is bc we have literally no idea why eddie is being introcued into ana’s story. right? like, if you were looking at the arc from her POV, what are her motivations for reconnecting with eddie? what’s driving her attraction? we don’t know anything about ana or how eddie fits into her life, only how she fits into this story of eddie dating. she could be any woman bc the story beats care about how eddie is handling these changes alone, not how they’re doing so together. 

like, for comparisons sake, taylor was re-introduced in 4x08 and the episode made it clear that taylor is struggling bc of COVID and she desperately needs a friend. so for taylor, buck shows up right when she needs someone to lean on and then he lets her down by trying to use her for the awkward double date. then he has to make it up to her bc she’s afforded these emotions and this storyline. in 4x08, ana is more on par with veronica—we don’t know much about her background and she’s not given any depth, she’s just present to drive the plot along. 

(i also think it’s really telling that in the episode about eddie dating ana and telling chris about it, the episode shows eddie leaving chris in buck’s care and shows chris running to buck for emotional support so like .... WHATEVER, sometimes i clown) 

this got away from me but BASICALLY i think the ana/eddie storyline will play out with them breaking up at some point in s4b.