Consent has been an issue surrounding Buck since his very first ep in s1, and most of the time, itâs been about women crossing a certain line with him, while he doesnât seem to quite register the meaning of what they do.
Letâs talk about his first partner, Abby. I very much like her as a character, but in relation to Buck⊠Iâve brought this up before, but it has never stopped bothering me that she gets his phone number from the incident report in 102. More than that, Abby mentioned that as a dispatcher, sheâs trained to listen to people on the phone and âreadâ them. In this ep, she sees him on TV and talks to Carla about the pain on his face. Now imagine a man whoâs in his 40âČs, who professes to be skilled at reading people, as well as still down because his ex gf broke up with him, he sees a young woman in her mid 20âs, visibly distraught and emotionally vulnerable, and this man proceeds to get her phone number through their connected jobs (not only without her knowledge or consent, but also while violating the privacy of the information she shared with her work place) and calls her to ask her out on a date. How is this not creepy and wrong? I think it very much is, and when itâs Buck and Abby, the consent issue gets overlooked because their genders are the opposite from the summary here, which never sat right with me.
In that very same ep, Buck goes to see the LAFD shrink because Bobby forced him to. They start talking, Buck ends up crying, emotionally distressed over the vic he lost. We know that he turns to sex when he struggles to cope (the first time we see him on screen, itâs while Bobbyâs voiceover brings up how some firefighters deal with the stress of their job by having sex. That means from the get go, the first thing we know about Buck is he uses sex as an unhealthy coping mechanism), especially in connection to his lack of self-worth (remember how he told Bobby in 101 that all he has is the job? Well, now that he lost his first vic, he was feeling like he was failing even at the one thing he had). So thatâs exactly what he does next, he comes on to the therapist. Heâs emotionally vulnerable during a therapy session, and that means there are no shades of gray, the therapist has the ethical duty and responsibility not to sleep with her patient. But if thatâs not enough, it turns out she had already friended him on FB. I believe that, since she was a shrink for the department, she shouldnât have friended him on FB, or if she did, she should have disqualified herself from being his therapist. So her infringements started before she even slept with him!
Interestingly, the show connects the two things. In 102, as Abby already had Buckâs number saved into her phone, she makes the call to ask him out on a date. He says they shouldnât and explains that he has a problem (i.e that heâs a sex addict) and as proof, he shares that heâs slept with his therapist. Buck doesnât get that while yes, he had a sex addiction, the incident with the therapist was different and wasnât his responsibility. That yes, he had an unhealthy coping mechanism, but not giving into it in the therapy room is on the therapist, not on the patient. Abby on her part, despite being an older, more experienced person who presumably understands this, does not point that out.
Then in s2, we have Ali, who he meets on a call. Now, I have to say, Ali is the only one of Buckâs LIâs so far who has never crossed any inappropriate lines or done anything questionable. However, that doesnât mean that there isnât something kinda dubious about their meeting. Buck even brings it up. He says in his former, sex-addicted days he wouldnât have cared why Ali contacted him, but now he had to ask whether it was somehow because he saved her. Ali says it was Eddie who saved her, and itâs true that it was him who caught her when she was hanging for dear life. However, that doesnât change the fact that Buck was still a part of her rescue, both men were there to save her. And both were there for the long way down and out. But it actually works in both directions. When I was getting my B.A in Psychology, we learned that during life-threatening situations, it happens that people misattribute some of their physical reactions to being attracted to other people present in the situation rather than to the danger theyâre in. Buck and Eddieâs life was in danger too, their hearts were racing, they were perspiring, we also know Buckâs a daredevil who enjoys that, it makes him feel alive since being in danger was the only time he got any attention as a kid, so Buck misses that itâs not just Ali who might be misattributing what she was feeling when they met. He could have been affected as well. Itâs not that Ali does something wrong, but thereâs still a question mark there: did Buck really want to be with her, or was he influenced by a combination of the circumstances of how they meet, plus his self-worth issues, having been rejected for anything serious by Taylor shortly before Ali calls to ask him on a date?
Then we have Taylor, who shows up at the hospital after Buck was not just in a dangerous situation, he saw his best friend getting shot in front of his very eyes, carrying Eddie out of the fireline and into the ambulance. Taylor knew he must be upset, and just in case she wasnât sure, Buckâs demeanor, his facial expressions and his trembling hands would have been more than enough to tell her just how emotionally distressed he was. Itâs the wrong moment to kiss Buck when heâs dealing with all that, not necessarily the biggest red line, but itâs def something that feels inappropriate when someone has to handle so much, and their head is just not that clear when it comes to romantic matters. And itâs the wrong moment for such a come on especially in the context of Buckâs history, defaulting to sex whenever he has trouble coping with things (and presumably she would know about that by the time we get to 414, since they became friends during s4).
Now we get to 511 and Lucy. Hereâs the thing. Buck cheated on Taylor, he kissed someone else. If he had done that sober, that would have been awful. If he had done that being drunk, that would still be a bad thing and the responsibility would still be on him. But the show made it clear Lucy got Buck drunk. âShe kept ordering drinksâ specifically reflects a sentence that weâve heard so many times said in storylines on TV and in movies where sleazeball men try to sleep with women by getting them drunk. When the promo was shared where the kiss was shown, I didnât think I would end up seeing the cheating through the prism of a consent issue, yet here I am, because of that specific line. They didnât have to it, the story would have played out pretty similarly without it, but they chose to put that line in there.
I have to admit, I would love a story arc for Buck where he deals with this repeated theme. It would actually be amazing, because usually consent issues on TV are shown with women as the victims. When society doesnât show men as victims of consent issues, it makes it harder for them to see it, to recognize the pattern theyâre in and break it. So that story arc would be really important. The consent issue also closely interlinks with the theme of Buckâs self-esteem issues and his maladaptive coping mechanisms. The last two are things theyâll clearly touch upon following the kiss with Lucy and the cheating on and lying to Taylor, so looking at the consent issue as well would simply make this exploration complete.
Will they? I fear they wonât, âcoz I donât think they ever fully owned this theme theyâve created. In part, because I think they havenât really recognized the elements they introduced to create it. Abbyâs a woman, sheâs a good person, so I donât think they ever even registered that it was wrong, how she got Buckâs number. The shrink? There was a bit of recognition during the showâs callback to that in ep 309, but they still put some of the responsibility on Buck (âI was going through a phaseâ) and Bobby said she wasnât working for the department anymore, when really, she should have lost her license and never work as a therapist again. Ali? They probably thought they had Buck raise the consent issue as a way of showing how much better Buck 2.0 was doing in comparison to Buck 1.0, while not thinking about the implication of consent being something that continuously comes up around his relationships. Taylor and Lucyâs stories in relation to Buck are still unfolding, but weâve seen no indication regarding the former that the show recognizes how awful the timing of her kiss was. The interviews regarding Lucy are also not giving me much hope theyâll address why they had her getting him drunk and what does that mean. But I do wish 911 would address this theme. Buck and the viewers deserve a serious look at the murky waters of consent issues and why we sometimes donât even notice them.
~~~ I wasnât sure I was going to write this meta, but my wonderful @ellelansâ said to do it, and I never argue with her! Then @robinplumeâ, @gayofthefaeâ and @thetaleeâ seconded her, so here we go! Shoutouts to all of you lovelies! Also, big hugs to @judsonryderâ for making these breathtaking gifs!
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