We started Season 10 of 9-1-1 with Buck trying to adjust to his new role as Theo’s dad and ended Episode 3 ‘Streets of Fire’ with Eddie and Buck in divorce era, once again, after Eddie offered Buck some parenting advice that didn’t go over very well. And though there are storytelling and character reasons for why both have acted the way they acted and said the things they said, it’s the decision behind all of those that’s really worth analyzing.
I don’t think it even needs to be said that the fight between Buck and Eddie is pretty straightforward. Eddie is kinda right; Theo needs a dad, not a friend. Buck trying to make the volcano educational isn’t a bad thing, though. On top of that, Eddie’s advice might be “unsolicited,” but he’s one of the few people who has a right to give Buck unsolicited advice.
There’s deep history here. Buck has given Eddie unsolicited advice about Christopher before! Eddie has not reacted well, either! Buck has also been there for a lot of Eddie’s good and bad parenting moments. In fact, he’s had to step in with Chris at complicated times, like when Eddie was shot and later when Eddie was struggling with PTSD. It’s understandable that, considering all those things, Buck feels like Eddie should have his back no matter what. It’s also understandable that Eddie feels like this is what having Buck’s back looks like.
What’s behind the fight isn’t as interesting to me, though, as what the decision to have Buck’s parenting arc with Theo involve Eddie means—and what it says about the Buck and Eddie relationship that 9-1-1 always defaults to making them so important in each other’s storylines.
Because we have been here before. Over and over. And there’s still a lot to unpack about why we end up in the same place. In fact, there’s even a conversation to be had about Eddie feeling like he cannot overstep with Buck, and Buck acting like Eddie is the only person he can push back with, because Eddie won’t leave him.
All of those things, though, lead to one particular place: storytelling choices. If we had two friends that looked and acted like Buck and Eddie, most of us would have probably urged them to consider what that means, and I’m not sure we would have been as subtle as Maddie. But Eddie and Buck are not real people, and that means everything we’re seeing isn’t just the result of two men who are incapable of understanding their feelings; it’s a result of deliberate choices made by writers.
Let me repeat that: if Buck and Eddie are the way they are, it’s because the show continues to portray them as what they are: which is two men who have a weird level of attachment to two people who are allegedly platonic.
This is something that could have been easily fixed a long time ago. If the intention wasn’t for us to perceive them as something other than friends, there were plenty of chances to dial it back. In fact, for a time there in Season 6, it almost seemed like that’s what 9-1-1 was trying to do. These days? These days they’re just playing into it, and having fun doing it.
What does that mean? I cannot pretend to have the answer. I’m not in the writers’ room, and if it were up to me, I would have let these two men kiss a while ago, and we would now be on the second or third storyline proving that procedural couples can be as interesting after getting together as they are while they’re in the middle of a will they/won’t they.
But I do know that as someone who gets paid to analyze TV, most ships that are treated like Buddie usually end up walking off into the sunset together, no matter how long the showrunners insist on keeping them apart to get there.
Maybe 9-1-1 doesn’t believe they have stories to tell with Buddie together, and they’re choosing to hold off on a real romantic relationship until the end of the show. Perhaps they are saving it as a Hail Mary when and if the show really needs a big push. It might just be that they have no idea how to do it. But you cannot convince me at this point that Buddie is a collective hallucination and the show isn’t doing anything to make fans believe Eddie and Buck not just could end up together, but belong with each other.
The Buddie divorce era continues when 9-1-1 airs new episodes on Thursday at 8/7c on ABC.
