#sorry for derailing your post to talk about Eddie more broadly

[aceofwands]

Yeppppp to all of this!! 👏

"I understand that Eddie is a complex character and that there are reasons for the way he acts." honestly, as someone who came into this show fresh and binged all of it over the last couple months, is he and are there?? because his character consistently makes no damn sense to me!

I was genuinely looking forward to his backstory ep cause I thought finally we'll understand why he's been acting the way he has, we'll see why he fucked off to join the military instead of staying with his wife and child, we'll gain new insight into why his relationship with Shannon was such a mess, we'll understand his motivation and his family background and why he chose to join the military as his way of escaping - and then we got literally none of that!

and thank you for bringing up how damaging it was to move Chris, who he barely knew at that point, away from his family and support network in Texas in order to chase after Shannon (and then not actually let her back into Chris's life for months) - cause I've seen some people say things to the effect of "now his (Eddie's) parents got what they always wanted!!" as if it's a bad thing that they wanted to continue to support their grandchild who they had been raising???? especially when Eddie is a single parent working a dangerous job that requires 24 hour shifts, like there was nothing we saw that suggested they were bad people that Chris needed to be taken away from ffs

and it's been genuinely baffling having the show constantly tell us what a "good dad" he is while consistently showing us otherwise - usually by calling in Buck to do basic stuff like *checks notes* having a conversation with his own son

it's honestly been wild having the show actually acknowledge what a mess Eddie is and have Chris put his foot down, because it's like yeah, finally a genuine reaction to all this batshit behaviour!!

People acting like Eddie has been the best dad you can ask for like...

Eddie has been unstable for a while. Chris has been in an unstable household for seasons.

There is no question that Eddie love Christopher or that Chris loves his dad.

But Eddie is not a good parent.

Eddie left after Shanon felt pregnant when they were both teens to join to army, a job that famously takes you away from your family for years.

Eddie left a young pregnant woman alone and then demanded that she give him space after he returned from the Army and asked him to literally just parent their son.

Eddie made Chris leave his entire environment that he grew up after he was barely building a relationship with him.

Eddie had multiple meltdowns infront of Christopher that he never really to our knowledge even communicated to his son.

Eddie joined an illegal fight club because he saw no other way to deal with his emotions.

Eddie let multiple women get attached to Chris, let Chris start to build a relationship with them, including rebuilding a relationship with his mother, only to dump them when things got to serious for him.

Eddie had a series of panic attacks that as far as I can remember was never openly communicated to his son.

Eddie was injured multiple times on his job and nearly died. He then used Chris as an excuse to leave said job, seemingly never communicating with his child about if that was actually what said child wanted or how he could make his child feel better about the risks that came with the job.

Eddie has made multiple seemingly rash decisions that he never communicated with the people that were involved (putting Buck in his will, moving Marisol in and out.)

I understand that Eddie is a complex character and that there are reasons for the way he acts.

However they are not justifications for what he puts his child through and if you have to argue that Eddie still loves his kid above all you are exactly using the kind of gaslighting that abusive parents use to justify the horrible actions they do to their kids.

Eddie is not a good parent. Eddie has shown he can be. However throughout the show Eddie has never been a good example of parenthood and he has been unstable for years.

His son is allowed to demand more. Chris is allowed to be angry at everything that his father has put him through and continues to put him through because Eddie refuses to seek help or work on himself long enough for change to set in.

Christopher is a child that deserves to voice how he feels. Chris deserves to live with who he feels most comfortable with. Chris deserves to be in a household of his choosing where he thinks he will be the most safe to grow up in.