Hello Handsome Guys🐻❤️

Okay so, some people are freaking out and I’m quite calm which is weird because I have severe anxiety and this is not the usual case. Anyway, let’s talk about it.

1. After the last episode, Tommy taking care of Buck, being there for him, breaking the curse ( Tim said it) I really don’t think they would break them up.

2. It would be so lazy writing to separate them. After the first fight? Or not even a fight just a hurdle? How would it represent Buck getting out of the hamster wheel? Please, the other main couples had serious problems and they solved it.

3. They are getting to know each other which means the ugly things will come out. Tommy literally saw Buck maiming Eddie, saying he’s an ally (✊🏻), saying they are out to find hot chicks, obsessing over a curse, having boils on his face, and said: yeah I want that one. Tommy told Buck about how being under Gerald did not make him a better person, talked about his dad, and Buck said: okay Daddy! (jk)

4. There will be a baiting post every week, there’s nothing you can do about it. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Did the show runners or the writers posted it? No! Then it’s nothing to worry about. Remember when Tim shared that YouTube video about Bucktommy? Now that was big.

5. “When a toddler falls down a pipe and becomes trapped, the 118 must rely on more than their skills to rescue him. Meanwhile, old wounds are opened when members of the 118 race to the aid of a man dealing with a divorce.” —> this screams Eddie begins for me: what happened there? Him fighting to get back to Chris. To Chris! Not for his gay character arc!

Why would it be about buddie when Buck has a boyfriend and Chris is still in Texas, Eddie is a mess, Shannon is still haunting him?

6. Couch theory, magnet theory, colour theory,…

Couch- Oliver shut it down last season, also Tommy just slept on it

Magnet- I don’t even know what that was.

Colour- Did you see in Buck’s coma dream he’s in green and Chimney is in blue? 🤭 iT’s cAnON

7. Something for the nerves:

It’s just a reflection of those two people figuring each other out, learning more about each other, and then working out if the relationship is worth navigating those issues and fighting to stay together for.

It’s nice, I guess, to have Buck being taken care of after he hurts his shoulder. It’s nice to see that regard and that aspect [of their relationship],” he told Us.

I don’t know many partners that would jump all in and be like, ‘You are right. You are cursed. How do we fight this?’ So I can’t really fault him for that,” Stark said with a laugh, referencing Tommy’s hesitancy to support Buck’s theories. “And then, you know, he shows up at the end. … Which I think is nice. It was a good little reminder to the audience, because, obviously, we haven’t seen him for a little while.”

It’s funny to say this, but [Ryan and Lou] in particular really bounce off each other well, I think,” he explained. “They get on really well, so it’s nice. I just like to witness that. But we have a good time and I like the dynamic there, and the dynamic within the scenes where it tends to be Eddie and Tommy vs. Buck.”

Before parting ways, Stark relayed a message he hopes to convey to fans: “Thank you for loving the show,” he said. “Thank you for loving Buck. It makes me feel very accepted.”

Can you look me in the eyes and say that people who bitch about every aspect of the bi Buck storyline love the show or Buck?

They promised they would stop watching after 8x01 if Tommy was still there and after 8x02, 03,04 … you get it. They are still here, trying to freak you out.

I’m positive about Tommy and that he’s here to stay but if something happens in the future I can say that I enjoy this show and I never bullied anybody just because of a fanon ship that will most likely never happen.

Okay, so I've been thinking a lot about some of the choices the writers made in season 7 re: Buck, Tommy, and Eddie, and about the conversations people in fandom are having about them. This is really long and tedious as hell, and I'm sorry for that, but I kind of needed to spill all my thoughts somewhere to organize them in my own brain.

Huge disclaimer: I am not Tim Minear's secret BFF, so I'm talking out my ass with the spec about writers' motivations and thought processes. Season 8 could air and prove me wrong on every single point.

As someone who started watching 911 in season 3, I latched on to the potential of Buck/Eddie as a ship right away. I was never somebody who necessarily expected or believed that it would become canon, but I loved the characters, and I loved the pairing. I was content to enjoy it as a well-fed fanon ship, but I’ll admit I did have moments where I thought they could have gone there: the shooting, Eddie’s breakdown, the lightning strike/couch theory era, etc. The season 6 finale poured cold water on the small hope of it ever going canon for me, and I think season 7 has put the nail in that coffin (which is fucking wild for me to say, considering one half of the pairing is now canonically bisexual).  

Here’s the thing: I had a moment before 7x04 when the press was clearly hinting at a bisexual Buck arc and we suspected a Buck/Tommy kiss was going to happen where I thought, Oh, man, they could do it! They could have Buck come out and discover he has feelings for Eddie. My assumption was that if they did, Eddie would return or at least acknowledge his feelings for Buck an episode or two later, because the idea of two totally separate coming-out arcs has never made sense to me in the context of the business of television.  

Although the fandom itself leans young and queer, 911’s general audience is heterosexual, middle-aged, and unfortunately has limits about how much queerness it believes is ‘realistic’ in a procedural genre television show (see: all the backlash on social media after 7x04 about how 911 is “woke” because they “turned Buck gay” despite the show always featuring queer characters; see also: all the het women whining on Facebook and Instagram about how Buck is now unattractive because he’s “gay” and thus unavailable to them, despite him being bi and not a real person, lol.) Like it or not, the show’s survival depends on this middle-of-the-road audience of casual viewers, not a few thousand passionate fans on the internet, and the network is always going to prioritize keeping its biggest demographic happy. 

I think it’s clear that the writers had a hell of a time fighting for queer Buck, and we now know that they were flat-out unable to manage it on Fox. ABC was willing to take the risk, although I do find it very interesting that they greenlit two more queer male characters, Buck and Tommy (one main, one guest/recurring) after the show had already lost two queer male characters, Michael and David (one main, one guest/recurring.) It was a lateral move. Just food for thought. 

In any case, getting two queer mains -- both Buck and Eddie -- would be much harder to pitch to a money-focused executive suit. Given Oliver Stark’s comments on a queer Buck storyline being considered in season 4, the (dubious) Twitter leaker’s supposed knowledge of queer Eddie being pitched in season 5, and Lou Ferrigno Jr.’s comment about Tommy being floated as a love interest for both Eddie and Buck at various points in the planning process, I think that paints a pretty solid picture of what might have happened: Fox shut down the possibility of making either Buck or Eddie queer, and ABC okayed it for one of them, not both. And the writers sat down, thought about both characters’ storylines and queer-coding, and decided that Buck made the most sense for the story they wanted to tell with Tommy. 

Let’s consider the other option, though -- that ABC was convinced in season 7 to greenlight Buck and Eddie coming out, with the understanding that it would lead to a relationship. The fandom would be thrilled, of course. But how would you, as writers and producers, sell this to the very important general audience? 

If the show was really going to go there with their two most popular “hot guy” male leads and they wanted to get the general audience’s buy-in that they would badly need, they would probably want to frame the arc from the beginning as a story about two friends who discover that they love each other. (As a queer person, I don’t love the tired old trope of “I thought I was straight but maybe this person is my exception and/or I don’t know what my sexuality is but I love you,” but I could definitely see them thinking that would be more palatable to an audience that had never considered Buck and Eddie to be anything more than platonic friends. In fact, they actually did kind of use this method with Buck/Tommy, in that Buck’s arc is focused on one person and he hasn’t yet explicitly called himself ‘bisexual’, but I’m somewhat optimistic that they’ll remedy this in season 8.)  All that’s to say, if they wanted to make Buddie work for an audience that wasn’t already primed to scour the material for subtext, they would need to make Buck and Eddie’s realizations explicitly about each other. They would need the audience to accept the idea of them being romantically linked to each other early on even if they didn’t immediately have the two of them get together. 

The show didn’t do that. They linked Buck’s bisexual arc to another character. And not just a new, throwaway character that could be easily discarded  – a character who already fit into the 911 universe, a fellow firefighter who would be easy to integrate into future storylines, and a character with a distinct and established personality (love him or hate him, you can’t deny people feel strongly about his character).  

So now Buck has come out, and he’s in a relationship with Tommy. This arc was thankfully received well – or at least wasn’t controversial enough to have an effect on the ratings, which is what ABC cares about – and for the general audience and new viewers, this facet of Buck’s journey is associated with Tommy. In real life, of course, it’s reductive (if not offensive) to say that somebody’s sexuality is about one person; if he were a real person, Buck would be bi whether or not he met Tommy and whether or not he ever dated a man. But because Buck is fictional, and this storyline was written specifically in the context of Buck discovering his feelings for a particular person, that person is now linked to Buck’s bisexuality in the minds of the general audience.  

That choice alone gave me pause. If you wanted to convince a skeptical audience that Buck and Eddie were meant for each other, why would you introduce such a solid rival? Still, a love triangle could work. After 7x05, there was speculation in the fandom about setting up a jealousy arc, in which Eddie would realize his feelings after seeing Buck and Tommy together. Theoretically, this could be a way to ease the audience into the idea of Buddie, if you did it early enough in the story. But there are two big things the writers did in the ensuing episodes that pivoted the characters in the opposite direction:  

The writers doubled down on Eddie being in-your-face heterosexual in a way that he wasn’t in his oddly chaste relationship with Ana. They used valuable screentime on postcoital scenes demonstrating that he’s happily down to pound town onscreen with Marisol; it's the nun thing that throws him off, not her being a woman. He very much seemed to enjoy having sex with her before that and is sexually frustrated when his religious guilt prevents him from continuing to have sex with her. More significantly, the arc with Kim at least implied, if not outright confirmed, that Eddie is still in love with Shannon – his feelings are strong enough to blow up his entire life for the chance to recapture even a pale imitation of what he believed they had together. The writers made an effort in season 6 to reframe Shannon as the great love of Eddie’s life, where it was sort of messier and less rose-tinted in previous seasons. The fact that they doubled-down on this in season 7 makes it extremely unlikely that the general audience would believe that Eddie could go from pining for his wife years after her death to secretly in love with Buck the whole time. Not only did seeing Buck with Tommy not trigger any latent feelings for his friend in Eddie, but he spent the entire second half of the season stewing in his unresolved feelings for Shannon instead.  

The writers portrayed Buck as being fully “in” with his budding relationship with Tommy. He is explicitly attracted both sexually and romantically to Tommy. He doesn’t express any doubts or reservations about his choice after 7x05 and in fact is the one to pursue it as something serious. They didn’t have Buck choose time with Eddie over Tommy, even when the blow-up with Chris would have provided them with a perfect narrative reason to do so. They didn’t have Tommy express any jealousy about Eddie or even seem slightly concerned about his friendship with Buck, even though there were opportunities to do so. The writing went out of its way to frame Buck’s friendship and his relationship as two separate parts of his life that aren’t in conflict with each other. Eddie has been openly and enthusiastically supportive of Buck's new relationship. Eddie likes Tommy. Christopher likes Tommy. Tommy likes both Eddie and Christopher. Buck loves them all. There’s no drama there, and if this was supposed to lead into a love triangle ending in Buddie, I really believe they would have made that clear to the audience with blatant foreshadowing.  

All that’s to say, this show isn’t subtle. If they were intending to convince the general audience to buy into the idea of Buddie, they would be working hard to muddy the waters surrounding the Buck/Tommy/Eddie of it all from the beginning; they would want the audience to have doubts about Tommy as soon as the relationship began and establish Eddie's jealousy right away. Why on earth would they take the trouble of getting their viewers (many of them new to the show after the network switch) attached to Tommy as a character and get them invested in Buck and Tommy as a couple in a happy little romcom if they were going to turn around and jettison it all and say Surprise! It was Buck/Eddie the whole time!? From a writing perspective, that’s a bad twist. If you want that reversal to work, you need to build it up beforehand and plant seeds of conflict from the start. And for that casual, general audience, there are no seeds; they aren’t scrutinizing every word and glance for proof that Buck and Eddie have feelings for each other. They’re not pulling from past episodes to draw parallels in the narrative. The vast majority of them probably don’t even have an inkling that Buck/Eddie is a thing that people ship. They’re not reading Tommy’s every action in bad faith and looking for hints that he’s actually terrible for Buck. They sit down to watch an episode, take it at face value, and then don't think about the show again until the next episode. For them, a Buddie twist would be unsatisfying if not outright unbelievable, because it would come out of absolutely nowhere. 

911’s writers have been known to make baffling and offensive choices, but they are capable of creating a careful story, and I don’t think they would fumble this so badly when so much is at stake for the future of their creative choices. ABC took a risk with bi Buck, and if the writers and Tim have any sense at all, they wouldn’t want to invite backlash from the audience or from their bosses.

If they were going to go forward with queer Eddie and a love triangle in season 8, they could and should have set it up in season 7, given that they actually had their renewal in the bag early enough to plan ahead for once. To me, season 7 read as Eddie being finally and definitively cast into the role of platonic best friend, while Tommy was cast into the role of romantic partner. If Tim and Co. truly wanted to make Buddie canon this whole time and finally got permission to go ahead, I don’t believe they would have made any of the choices they made in season 7. 

You keep using that word. I don’t think you know what it means. Plot Device Edition

What is a plot device?

A plot device is any technique used to move the plot of a story forward. Examples include:

Deux Ex Machina — An improbable event is used to resolve all problematic situations and bring the story to a (generally happy) conclusion.

Love Triangle — A conflict where two characters fight for a third’s love and affections.

Red Herring — Something that misleads or distracts the audience’s attention from something important.

Cliffhanger — An event wherein the plot is not resolved aimed to keep the audience guessing as to whether the conflict will be resolved in a manner they want.

Who was the plot device in 911’s “Buck, Bothered, and Bewildered”?

“Buck, Bothered, and Bewildered” is the 100th episode of the procedural, 9-1-1, on ABC. The summary for the episode was the following:

Upon her return to shore, Athena's son finds himself in trouble with the law. Meanwhile, Buck grows envious as Eddie forms a close bond with someone else, and the 118 rescue a woman who's stuck on receiving a rose at an iconic mansion.

The cold open (another narrative technique) for this episode is a rescue at the Bachelor mansion (crossover with The Bachelor) where a superfan has glued herself to the ground outside the mansion. The Bachelor is a reality dating show that sees women compete to win the “bachelor” for the season.

The cold open at the Bachelor mansion includes multiple attempts to foreshadow what lies ahead for this episode. Examples include:

A contestant vying for the attention of a bachelor does an incredibly ridiculous stunt to grab his attention.

A contestant named Ashley A says “Joey’s going to have to earn his wings with me” and then later asks Joey if he “believes in love at first flight” to which he says “you’re gonna have to take me airborne first.”

Contestants of the show approach Buck and Eddie saying that if they don’t get lucky in the mansion they may have a better chance at the fire station. Eddie immediately counters by saying he’s taken at the moment but Buck is single. Buck counters by saying he has a rule that he doesn’t date people he meets on calls. (Note the gender neutral usage of the sentence.)

Immediately following the opening title card, the show opens with Buck receiving a tour of Harbor Station by Tommy Kinard.

The scene establishes multiple things crucial for the storyline going forward. They include:

Tommy asks Buck, “Is that why you wanted the tour? Looking for a badass coffee mug?” Buck replies, “No. I’m happy where I’m at. I guess I just wanted to see the place during the day during the day. You know, when we weren’t stealing one.” Tommy pushes saying he knows Buck didn’t just want to see the toys, which he then asks, “You must be thinking of changing things up [emphasis mine], aren’t you?”

Buck asks what got Tommy into flying. Tommy says he was a pilot in the army. Buck says, “no way! Eddie was in the army.” Tommy replies, “Yeah, he mentioned that,” implying he’s had conversations with Eddie off-screen.

Buck then mentions he met an ex (note the gender neutral language used in this dialogue) responding to a helicopter crash “… which should’ve been my first clue.” Tommy replies that saving someone’s life and then dating them never turns out the way you expect it to (paralleling Buck in the cold open telling the contestants he doesn’t date people he meets on calls)

Buck says Tommy should let him buy him a beer, which Tommy says he’d love that but has to take a raincheck… enter Eddie who’s hanging with Tommy at a fight in Vegas. The scene ends with Buck looking pensively at the helicopter Tommy and Eddie fly off in.

So what does all of that do?

It establishes that the audience will move through this episode through Buck’s POV for his storyline.

It confirms Buck sought out the tour at the station of his own will without others with him.

It confirms Tommy is unsure why exactly Buck asked for the tour. (What’s driving Buck’s motivations in this episode?)

It introduces the main conflict of Buck’s storyline this episode: Eddie Diaz (the world champion cockblocker) and Buck’s insecurity/jealousy.

The next scene for Buck’s storyline involves a rescue with Buck, Eddie, and Ravi, and the scene furthers the conflict for the episode. Let’s work through this:

Buck asks Eddie how the fight in Vegas was. He asks how long it takes to chopper there. Eddie says Tommy’s friends with the promoter and got excellent seats. Ravi asks, “Who’s Tommy?” This confirms the fight has done and passed and that Eddie had not talked about the event with Buck until this rescue. It also reaffirms Buck’s jealousy (but at what? at whom?) and amps up the conflict as Buck feels left out versus Ravi who doesn’t even know who Tommy is.

Buck brings the conversation around the fight back up by saying he’s not surprised Eddie and Tommy had fun at the fight. He says Tommy and Eddie have a lot in common. (“Both in the army, both like watching half-naked men pummel each other.”) Eddie replies, “Tommy’s pretty cool. Been a while since I met someone who can go toe-to-toe with me in Muay Thai.” Buck’s confused and asks if they went to Muay Thai together; Eddie says Tommy has a setup in his garage and that they sparred a bit when he took the Chevelle over. Buck’s even more confused (“You-you took the Chevelle?”); Eddie confirms Tommy has a car-lift and made the engine purr. This relays to the audience information about Tommy (he likes MMA, practiced Muay Thai, works on cars) as well as how friendly Eddie and Tommy have gotten. This, to the audience, must mean that Buck’s jealous of all the time Eddie and Tommy are spending together. (But which one is he actually jealous of?)

Buck, very nervously, says, “Well listen. I think it’s great. You know you can’t have enough friends, right?” Eddie replies, “Right. You know it’s like that thing when you meet somebody and you just click. You know what I mean?” Buck replies, “I do… I really do.” You cannot say he’s talking about Eddie here because as an audience we know that Buck did not immediately click with Eddie when they first met. Therefore, Buck must be thinking about Tommy when he replies. (But will the audience catch this? Or will the audience forget exactly how Buck and Eddie’s friendship came to be?)

Buck follows up by asking when Eddie will see Tommy again. Eddie replies that there’s a karaoke bar trivia thing on Wednesday. He asks Buck if he’s free, to which Buck eagerly says “me? Yeah no I’m-I’m free! Totally free. Wednesday is a clean slate.” and it’s the first hint at the audience that the conflict will resolve by having Buck be included in trivia night. Only for it to be shot down when Eddie asks Buck to watch Christopher. The tension is therefore rising as the audience sees Buck be excluded once again, an insecurity the audience knows is a point of contempt with Buck’s character.

So what does all that accomplish? What’s the goal of that scene regarding the larger plot? Where exactly are we at with this plot?

Buck’s storyline begins in medias res (in the middle of things); we as an audience have to jump in and use the context clues the narrative gives to fill in the blanks. Buck’s already made the choice to reach out to Tommy for the hangar tour prior to where this episode begins. In that way, we as an audience are as in the dark about why exactly Buck has asked Tommy for a tour.

If we use the cold open, we can fill in blanks to catch up to where Buck’s story begins. The opening image of this episode entails a character vying for another’s attention and acting in the the most insane way possible. It also includes foreshadowing (“Joey’s going to have to earn his wings with me… Do you believe in love at first flight?” to which he says “You’re gonna have to take me airborne first.”) and establishes Buck’s status quo (“I don’t date people I meet on calls.”)

The hangar scene therefore operates as the catalyst beat. Buck’s status quo is being challenged by the presence of Tommy, a problem he aims to resolve by seeking out the tour of the station and attempts to get to know Tommy more by asking how he got into flying and by asking him out for beers. This attempt to resolve the problem however introduces the wrench to the plan for beers: Eddie Diaz.

The second scene then acts as the debate and break into two beats: Buck interrogates Eddie trying to get him to talk more about Tommy to learn more about him, and the dialogue where Buck says, “Well listen. I think it’s great. You know you can’t have enough friends, right?” Eddie says, “Right. You know it’s like that thing when you meet somebody and you just click. You know what I mean?” and Buck replies, “I do… I really do” serves as the debate story beat. Buck is debating whether it’s worth getting this jealous over Eddie and Tommy spending time together, and Eddie unbeknownst reaffirms that it’s worth it to Buck by reminding Buck that Buck met Tommy and immediately clicked on his side at least.

When Eddie asks Buck to watch Christopher, Buck must make the choice whether to agree and ultimately continue down the path that lies ahead. If he doesn’t agree, the narrative ends. If he agrees, we’re moving into Act II. Buck agrees, and we’re therefore shoved into Act II.

We’re now firmly in Act II, and the next scene is Buck at Maddie’s complaining. Let’s break this one down:

Buck is immediately complaining about his problems to Maddie. He confirms that according to Christopher, Tommy has been over at Eddie’s over three times after meeting him two weeks ago, and Christopher thinks Tommy is “so cool.” Maddie counters by pointing out Buck previously also called Tommy cool to her. The dialogue evolves to Buck saying that Tommy’s made an impression (on Christopher, but the audience should also see this for Buck himself) in a very short time.

Buck continues by complaining about Star Wars opinions, and Maddie clocks him by saying it seems he got a lot of intel just from one night of babysitting. Buck attempts to explain it away by saying Chris wouldn’t stop talking about him. Maddie replies, “Christopher wouldn’t, or you were pressing him for information?” Given the way Buck talks in the scene as well as the knowledge of what happened in the scene prior, the audience should assume Maddie is correct in that Buck pressed Chris for information on Tommy.

Buck then confirms that he dug for Eddie’s fridge calendar with a quick line pointing out that the calendar on Eddie’s fridge was under a take-out menu. The calendar points out that Eddie has a game of pick-up basketball with Tommy coming up. He points out Eddie keeps asking him to go, and Maddie replies, “Well you don’t like basketball.” Buck replies, “Which is why I say ‘no’, but now he’s going with Tommy… and he’s got it circled.” Maddie pokes at the reply by asking if it’s circled with a heart around it.

Chim then enters the room having been eavesdropping. He then gushes about how cool Tommy is while Buck is even more green with envy.

This scene is a part of the “fun and games” beat if we stick with Save the Cat! beats. Buck is clearly disgruntled and bewildered, but he’s committed to this path. He now knows Tommy will be at a basketball court with Eddie Thursday. But the audience now wonders how he’s going to handle that information. Will he just show up? Will he ask Eddie for an invite? They just established he hates basketball, so how will he pull this off?

Thus we move to the next scene:

Buck’s on a shift and clocks Eddie very animated on the phone. The audience doesn’t know who’s on the phone, but we can imply given the setup that it’s likely Tommy on the phone. The audience does hear Eddie say, “We’ll get him next time, alright?”

Buck, meanwhile, is lifting weights trying to get Eddie’s attention so that he will feel obligated to spot Buck and Buck can therefore ask about the basketball game he wants to go to… but Eddie won’t get off the phone.

Buck then gets a delivery from Amazon Prime (ad placement) that is a basketball. He tries to get Eddie’s attention with it, clearly telling the audience the goal of this charade is to get an invite to the basketball game. When Eddie doesn’t take the bait, Chim (who spots Buck with the basketball and asks what he has there) becomes the next best option, and Buck chooses to capitalize on it. “Hey what are you doing on Thursday?” clearly tells the audience what Buck’s goal with the lifting weights was: he wants a reason to go to the basketball game.

This scene acts as the midpoint: Buck thinks he’s finally cracked the solution and gotten what will clearly be a false victory. This is the false high before it all comes crashing down.

And now we’re on to the infamous basketball scene:

The scene enters with Chim asking why Buck’s suddenly into basketball, reminding the audience that Buck doesn’t like basketball, so why’s he here now?

And then we immediately see the real reason Buck’s there. You can immediately see Tommy in the frame. As the audience, your eyes lock on him before Eddie comes in frame. We also hear Tommy, further driving home the focus here.

Eddie asks Chim how he got Buck to agree (“He always says no to me.”) again reminding the audience that Buck didn’t get invited because he doesn’t play basketball. And after, Chim says, “So I’m your basketball beard. I feel so bonded.”

Insert Topgun-like montage where Buck is getting increasingly frustrated because here he is playing a sport he hates and likely losing to the team Tommy and Eddie are on. They include a scene where Buck bumps into Tommy (again highlighting how bad he is at this game and clueing the audience in to the source of why Buck’s acting like this). We then see Eddie and Tommy high-fiving in front of Buck, driving home even more that Buck’s failing epically. He hasn’t gotten the attention he wants. In all of this, the tension keeps amping up and we’re about to tip over…

Ladies and gents, we’ve reached the all is lost beat: Buck hip checks Eddie after Eddie taunts him (“You ain’t getting past me!” and then he steals the ball from Buck) and Eddie gets injured. Buck clearly feels awful and tries to resolve it by saying he’ll take him to get the foot x-rayed only for Tommy to say he drove Eddie and can take him. Chim’s “Well you really bucked that up didn’t ya?” reaffirms this is the lowest point for Buck. He’s been acting just like the person from the cold open and has hurt his best friend in the process.

Cue the dark night of the soul beat with Maddie:

We get confirmation that it’s just a bad sprain and Eddie will be out of commission for a few days. We also get confirmation that Buck hasn’t really talked to him. Buck assumes Eddie doesn’t want to hear from him since he’s the one that did this to him. Buck when confronted with the idea that surely he didn’t purposely mean to hurt his best friend replies, “I dunno… I was pissed you know? Seeing him and Tommy being such good friends after only two weeks. I felt left out, and I guess I was trying to get his [emphasis mine] attention.” Maddie immediately calls him out for it, and Buck reaffirms that he feels awful.

Maddie then reaches out saying she knows how he feels. Maddie, as the voice of reason, says that when she acted out in what she thinks is a similar situation, all it did was make her look desperate and pushed people farther away because she didn’t tell them how excluded she felt and it blew up in her face. Buck replies, “Well I’m not a 14 year-old girl,” and they both say “So stop acting like one.” This is thus the break into three needed.

And thus we have the final scene for the episode:

A knock at the door. The audience will assume it’s likely Eddie because he’s the one Buck just maimed… Instead we’re treated to none other than Tommy standing there. We can call this a bait-and-switch.

The blocking for this scene is crucial because Buck and Tommy start essentially on other ends of the room, physically demonstrating the distance that’s between them.

Tommy affirms he wants to clear the air and that he feels he’s the cause of bad blood between Buck and Eddie and that that was never his intention.

Buck replies saying there’s no bad blood only bad behavior on his part. Buck says, “You and Eddie as buddies makes perfect sense.” Tommy says, “Yeah, we do. And you know he can have more than one friend, right?” This parallels with what Buck was trying to tell himself at the beginning of the episode. Tommy follows up by saying it’s not like he could ever replace Buck because Chris for one would absolutely have something to say about it. In doing this, Tommy eases what the audience knows to be a major problem for character: being left behind/excluded.

As they’re talking, Tommy is slowly moving closer to Buck. Buck moves from behind the island, symbolizing that they’re physically getting closer as they’re finding common ground. The tension is finally being eased.

Tommy indicates he and Eddie talked about this situation and they both feel bad because nobody meant to exclude him. That them hanging out wasn’t about Buck. Buck replies that’s usually his problem because he can get pretty jealous… Tommy says he’s not the only one (and moves closer), that he was jealous of the 118 and how it’s like a family. He admits he wanted to be a part of that, which Buck immediately says he was and that he even made fake mouth static at the fire chief. By this point they’re closer than ever. They’re admitting their insecurities and bonding over it, and as the audience, you should catch on at this point that something is in the air. Buck here admits he thought, “Wow, that guy’s cool. I like that guy” and that this is why he called for the tour; he didn’t want to transfer, he just wanted to get to know Tommy. We now as the audience get an answer we had from the start because we, like Tommy, couldn’t figure out what Buck’s motivation in the tour was about.

They start flirting a wee bit more and as the audience you should be cued in and putting the pieces together that Buck’s done all of this for Tommy. Buck even affirms if when he says “‘Cause trying to get your attention has been kind of exhausting.” Tommy, then, is cued in like the audience that oh my god all of this has been about Tommy hence why Tommy’s shocked. He thought it was all about Buck feeling excluded (likely guided by whatever Eddie told him), not at all about him. And once Tommy gets confirmation, you can see him work it out and take the plunge to do what needed to be done (kiss the daylights out of that man).

Buck’s reaction (“yes, I—I am free”) and the breath of relief at the end of the scene shows the audience that the tension has been resolved and that the weight that plagued him has been virtually lifted.

So, now having looked at the entire episode, let’s go back to the question: Who was the plot device?

The episode employs multiple techniques to keep the audience on our toes. We’re not supposed to know that it’s Tommy he’s after (and neither does Buck fully understand, hence why he’s confused as to why he’s acting the way he does in this episode). This includes things like foreshadowing, in medias res, plot twist, and red herring.

We spend this episode assuming that Buck’s feeling neglected, left out, just like Tommy assumes in that scene. We assume that the problem is Eddie spending all his time with Tommy. In this way, Eddie’s presence operates as the red herring for the episode. We’re meant to put the pieces together as Tommy does when Buck admits he was trying to get Tommy’s attention.

We’re also supposed to then realize alongside Buck that Buck has been pursuing Tommy all along unknowingly wanting something beyond the platonic with him. Before the kiss, Buck couldn’t put that piece together.

And even more, we as the audience can go back and see it clearly mapped out for us:

Buck calls up Tommy himself to ask for a tour. He also brings up exes mid-conversation completely unprompted (sir, don’t talk about exes before you’ve even had a date!). He’s sad to have to raincheck beers, and all this happens before Eddie’s even arrives.

He prompts Eddie to talk about the fight in Vegas specifically so Eddie will talk about Tommy. And Eddie does: he tells Buck everything almost unprompted.

He clearly presses Chris to give him more intel on Tommy and then proceeds to dig around Eddie’s house looking for clues as to what he’s up to with Tommy. The intel gathered here gives him the idea to try and show up at the basketball game because Tommy will be there.

The episode makes it abundantly clear Buck hates basketball with a burning passion. Multiple characters point out that Buck doesn’t go to the basketball games with Eddie because he doesn’t like the sport. But Buck goes out of his way to find a reason to show up because Tommy’s there.

Buck’s frustration mounts during that game because the goal (get Tommy’s attention) is failing majorly because Eddie and Tommy are demolishing them, and he takes his frustration out on the person getting in the way: Eddie.

If any character acts as a plot device, it is Eddie himself because he operates as a red herring that keeps the audience confused about Buck’s actual intentions this episode. The contestants in the cold open can be claimed as plot devices as they serve to give the audience foreshadowing (love at first flight and then the episode ends with Buck kissing the character that’s a pilot).

Tommy Kinard is not operating as a plot device. The narrative arc of Buck discovering his sexuality has been completed and Buck and Tommy are still together as other narratives take the forefront for the back-half of this season. Buck wanted Tommy from the get-go and still wants him. Stop acting like Buck doesn’t understand his feelings when we literally watch his realization to all of this play out live in the episode.

Thanks for coming to this TED Talk.

And for the love of all that’s holy please learn 3-act structure and storytelling elements.

Oh and Tommy likely isn’t going anywhere in the next handful of episodes. The scene with Gerrard in 709 is a blatant attempt at foreshadowing where we go for season 8, what conflicts likely await at least Buck and Tommy since they’re both in that scene alongside Chim, and some of y’all are laughing at a man that literally called an openly gay man a slur.

LOU!!!! 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞 bucktommy 💞

His eyes aren't the right shade of blue, but he opens up for Buck like a dream, lips wide and wet and -

"Fuck," Buck says, and when he digs his hand in the man's - Henry? Harry? - hair it's too fine, too straight.

Henry-Harry hums around him and Buck sort of just wants to fuck his face but that's rude, that's so fucking rude, he doesn't even remember the guys name -

Henry-Harry swallows and Buck's hips jut forward, but the lines around his eyes aren't groove-deep and heavy with warmth.

"Hank," Buck says, and the man's eyes dart up, his brow raises, his lips tip up and his tongue swirls and he never knows that Buck had only just remembered his name seconds before he came.

---

The date goes... fine. Kelsey is sweet and delicate and when her hand scratches at his stubble the tips of her fingers don't catch - soft, smooth, the hands of someone who spends eight hours a day behind a keyboard. She kisses like a dream, but the angle is all wrong.

She fucks like a dream too, but afterwards, when Buck shifts to curl around her she rolls her shoulder and gives him a confused look and Buck remembers that she's more than a foot shorter than him and her shoulders aren't really wide enough for -

Buck rolls and tucks her head under his chin and he thinks Tommy Kinard didn't really know shit about firsts and lasts.

---

The music is loud and the beat is heavy and the man with a thigh between Buck's legs is dark - twisting dreads that catch silver in the strobe light, deep brown skin, cheekbones Buck would break an ankle for.

Buck considers asking him if he wants to take this somewhere more private. Buck considers asking him if he wants to come home with him. Buck considers the heft of the thigh between his legs and remembers the first time Tommy had gotten him off, dick barely even out of his jeans because they'd been grinding like horny teenagers and -

His voice is deep and low when he tips his head to whisper in Buck's ear, the tenor all wrong.

Buck lets him tangle their fingers together as he heads towards the single stall bathrooms down the hall

---

"Ex... boyfriend?" Heather asks, and there's a wrinkle around the shape of her mouth that sets Buck's teeth on edge, because hadn't the whole point of this been that Buck needed to play the field? He likes men. He likes women. He can't pick a number on the Kinsey scale because all he can think about is -

"I'm bi," Buck says, and her expression withers. That seems to be the default - men think he's waiting for the woman who will give him a picture perfect family, women think he's - "It was right there at the top of my profile. With a flag and everything."

Her nose scrunches. She's trying to play it off. She's clearly not one of the women who think it's hot. "Sometimes men do that just to like, seem less intimidating."

Buck's already reaching for his wallet. "And sometimes men just like dick as much as -."

Her hand draws over her heart and it reminds Buck of his mom and not in the teasing way he'd always told Tommy the same thing.

He apologizes to his server and hands her a twenty in his way out the door.

---

Jack is two weeks younger than Buck to the day.

He's beautiful. Auburn hair trimmed neatly, cow-brown eyes, a sharp jawline and scruff that never seems to go past six-pm shadow. He's sweet - not a mean bone in his body, and the first time he hangs out with Buck and Eddie he shoots Eddie a shocked look when he pokes fun at Buck.

He lasts two and a half months.

But Buck knows the game now. Buck isn't looking for forever. Buck is -

Buck is Buck. That's what he'd said in the end, anyway.

"I'm really sorry, Jack," Buck says, fingers drifting from their hold between Jack's.

Jack's smile is just a little sad, but far too understanding. "Hey, I've been an in-betweener before. It was fun while it lasted."

---

Either Tommy's blocked his number or he's really fucking good at swiping out of his notification previews.

Buck thinks about leaving a really shitty, incredibly mean hearted voicemail instead.

You're a coward sits Delivered for three months

---

Ashley's a nurse, and when she admits she's only ever dated women before Buck feels the sting of it, but he smiles all the same. He's chasing a feeling he hasn't been able to find since -

She stares at the sparse decoration of his loft and doesn't say a word.

"So, like -." Buck starts, but she tangles her fingers in his shirt and presses her lips to his and Buck realizes the stupidly large box of condoms he'd bought for his sex-a-thon the first four off after he'd finally convinced Tommy to fuck him is almost out.

Buck spends half an hour with his head between her legs before the tug in his curls gets insistent, and Buck tries not to think, for a while

---

"You're a firefighter?" Travis asks, head tilted excitedly, eyes on the LAFD tee hanging half out of his laundry basket. "Have you ever worked with the guys at Harbor?"

Five and a half months - nearly as long as they'd been together - and Buck considers asking Travis to leave instead of answering. He's got a heart shaped face and Buck can't detect a wrinkle on him. No smile lines around his eyes.

"Flew into a hurricane with them once."

Buck's not sure they ever left the eye.

---

Maddie gives birth on a Thursday. Miraculously they're all off shift except Eddie.

They name his nephew John Evan Buckley-Han and Buck spends an hour watching him sleep before he remembers exactly how long it's been since he'd last heard his name.

---

you haven't though, Buck sends, while Eddie presses him into the Uber and makes Buck promise to text him when he's home.

All the messages in the thread above have a Read receipt.

The dots appear. Disappear. Reappear.

Haven't what?

seen me around, Buck sends back, and it shows as Delivered long after his Uber drops him off and he shoots off a message to Eddie once he's collapsed in bed. He's gonna regret that last shot in the morning.

He should have gone home with the redhead instead of letting Eddie convince him to stay and play another round of darts.

---

Greg presses a kiss to Buck's birthmark and Buck politely peels himself off Greg's very nice mattress and tugs on his briefs. "Here for a good time, not a long time, huh?" Greg asks, and Buck remembers that this had always been unsatisfying.

He thought he'd found something he could build on. Turns out he wasn't making shit.

"Sorry kid," he says, sparing a glance at Greg's slim shoulders and the washboard abs that he'd make it his mission to look a little less dehydrated, if this were something serious. Maybe some lasagna in the freezer, the gnocchi he'd learned to make once Tommy got tired of flicking flour in Buck's hair.

"I'm like, five years younger than you."

Buck's already searching for the shirt Greg has tossed off the side of the bed half an hour ago.

---

Did you want me to?

Buck stares at the message for a full five minutes. Glares at it, really.

No, he lies, and leaves it at that.

---

He's not even at work when it happens. He's on a fucking date, and the television over the bar switches to a breaking news story about a helicopter crashing just off the 405.

Whatever Yarrow is saying to him gets lost when he sees the numbers dashed across the side of the hunk of smoldering metal that had once been an LAFD chopper.

---

Bobby meets him at the bay doors.

Eddie's already there too.

It's not good news. It's not bad news, either.

Buck only met Tommy's captain once, and he can see now that there were cracks, walls Buck hadn't realized he hadn't yet climbed, but she recognizes him and pulls him off to the side.

"Do you not answer your phone, Buckley?"

He's got six missed calls. The moment he'd texted the group chat and left Yarrow with the tab for the terrible IPA he'd gotten a taste for in those six months when the future had been clearer, he'd forgotten phones actually existed.

"I - sorry, were you trying to reach me?"

"You're listed as his ICE, Buckley."

Buck can't remember them ever even having that conversation.

"He'll survive," she says, voice firm, eyes unyielding. "You can't wring his neck about it until he's out of the woods, and he's a glutton for punishment."

---

"I have some things to say," Buck says, and Tommy eyes him warily from the bed where he's propped. They'd only pulled tubes ten minutes ago, and technically Tommy isn't allowed to speak for a bit. "We're gonna circle back around to the fact that you made me your in case of after you broke up with me once you can talk, so don't forget that."

He looks - guilty. Annoyed. Clears his throat and winces, scowls when Buck hands him the cup of ice chips but still uses two meaty fingers to grab a handful that he tosses into his mouth and chews. Loudly.

Buck leans back in his chair and stares at the cast on Tommy's leg, the bruising around his eyes, the flat mess of his curls.

"And if you call me Buck again I'm telling Angie you asked to have the morphine drip removed." It's a joke, and a lame one at that, but Tommy's eyes twinkle.

---

It's almost a year to the day when Tommy snags his wrist and reels him in for a kiss, hand palming Buck's ass as he noses at Buck's cheek and nearly trips over the last of the boxes Buck had gotten distracted from moving out of the hallway.

"You have too much shit," Tommy tells him, and Buck mostly thinks he's pissed that he still hasn't fully regained the muscle mass in his leg yet. He's lopsided and a little clumsy but every time Buck brings it up he inevitably ends up with a video of himself slipping all over an ice rink in the group chat, so he keeps it to himself.

"You love it."

Tommy's eyes soften when Buck runs a hand through his curls, the grooves of his smile just right. "I tolerate it. You, though..."

Buck isn't ashamed to admit he still feels butterflies every time Tommy says it.

"You I don't mind."

Buck scowls just to watch Tommy's face brighten mischievously. The hands around his waist are wide and strong and the finger pads catch in the worn cotton.

LOU/ROCKER SAYING BLUEBERRIES!!! a win for the blouberries 😗😗😗

i love you tommy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE ONE AND ONLY LOU FERRIGNO JR!!!🎂✨️🫶🎉

sharing my vision of chimney dragging tommy into a comedy b plot and rambling to him at 6 in the morning until tommy says flatly, "i left a very shirtless man in my bed for this. get to the point."