I have feelings about how personal 8x09 was for both Eddie and Buck. the hurt was personal. the embarrassment and vulnerability and frustration were all incredibly personal. and their reconciliation was public, Hen telling them to hug it out and Chim teasing Eddie about not clocking Freddie Fakeman and Bobby silently watching before saying they're going for Eddie's goodbye dinner. yes the team is their family and they both love their family, but all their fight and feelings were between them. with context that they understand better than others. words too awkward and pitiful to be elaborated to anyone else. how does Eddie explain to the others that he felt like he had to choose between Chris and Buck. how does Buck explain to the others that he felt small thinking he was just part of the job for Eddie. how do either of them make sense of their mess to others when they've built up to this between them in ways nobody else was truly privy to.
and that's why 8x10 is for them. Eddie's final goodbye is only for Buck. Buck's hug in the rain is only for Eddie's acceptance and relief. that was them trying to make sure their red string was still okay, still strong enough to withstand 800 miles of distance, and it was personal out on the road where nobody and anybody could be watching. but none they would try to explain anything to. the rain was only theirs, and so is that memory.
An incomplete list of some of the actual storylines that have been given to the heterosexual character Eddie Diaz:
Feeling pressured into dating someone of the opposite gender to fulfil traditional family structures only to realise that he felt severe panic at the idea of a future with her and only ever thought the idea of them would work
His first relationship going south because he’d internalised all these ideas about what it meant to be a tough man
Directly linking his Catholic guilt to his inability to let himself feel joy and his unwillingness to have sex with a woman, respectively
Being constantly pressured into dating someone of the opposite gender despite being extremely unwilling to because it “feels like he has to perform”
Being a romantic rival in a relationship between two men
I was thinking about why exactly we have Eddie drawing that man in 9x15. Luke it’s the only picture we see and it’s not really important… But then I was rewatching 9x01 and there was a part of Gina montage where they announced their engagement i think? And they used kinda the same board as the one where Eddie drew that half-naked man
I mean it probably means nothing, but… i can kinda connect ring drawing -> engagement announcement with man drawing -> coming out or feelings realisation or something…
Each new development in this makes me more and more insane.
And like then I don’t if anyone has also mentioned the card and I believe it’s the only card in Chris hand we can see, and it’s an Ace. Which with cards has the whole Ace in the hole saying around it. And the implication that brings because Aces usually mean winning. Chris always “wins” because he always comes first to Edddie and Buck, but we’ve also been seeing this season how yes he comes first but they aren’t hiding behind him anymore. So we see Buck looking at Eddie. Eddie’s name spelled out in bucks hand. Showing Eddie is in the cards for Buck. Which can also show Eddie winning the competition because bucks allowing himself to see Eddie that way. Chris then says your letting me win? To which Buck immediately picks his cards back up showing us that no he’s not just folding but in fact still in the game (not hiding behind Chris and opening himself up to seeing Eddie that way) all while Chris sits there in a sweater colored in bucks blue and Eddie’s yellow.
I have no idea if that makes any sense 😅but tldr it just all makes me think even more it was fully intentional what they did with those cards.
wait ur cooking with this. every thing i learn about this scene/these cards make me feel even more insane.
ALSO there are only two red ace cards. the ace of hearts, and the ace of diamonds. i cant quite see which suit chris has in his hand, but it is red so its one of the two.
the meanings for both are insane (massive shoutout to tommy @charcuteriebuddie for getting me on the cartomancy train here)
ace of hearts: one red heart situated in the center of the playing card defines the ace of hearts – a card depicting a new love, a new beginning, and the birth of newfound feelings. the ace of hearts reminds readers that the heart should be the center through which all other areas of our life expand. consider this a good omen if you pull the ace of hearts in a reading. a new beginning or a breakthrough in your emotional state is characterized by this card. you may be entering a more emotionally fulfilling chapter of your life. this card indicates a change of residence, a return home after a period, or even a new home purchase. the ace of hearts embodies the energy of "home is where the heart is."
ace of diamonds: a seed has been planted, and with care, it will grow into something fruitful for harvest. a sign of good fortune, the ace of diamonds is a very exciting card to pull. it represents your wants and wishes coming true on the earthly plane. while the ace of diamonds typically represents financial increase and work-related opportunities, it also embodies exciting news when pulled in a love reading. this playing card can indicate that a message from a past or new lover may be coming your way soon. it might be that someone you know has been hiding their feelings for you and they may be ready to step forward and confess.
Finally, here's the mother's boy analysis no one asked for. That's a lie, y'all did ask for it, but here's most of what I picked up on, or at least most of what I can explain without expecting you to know the show by heart like I do.
Just a reminder, this is Buck's blue, and this is the expectation surrounding Eddie's yellow, basically think Oliver's eyes and the sun. I actually got this in particular using the shades of teal surrounding Buck since 705 and the yellow Buck is wearing during the will reveal and the yellow behind Eddie for the coming out scene. Also, you might want to read the blue and yellow masterpost for this.
But the thesis statement here is that this episode is the first trigger for their feeling realizations.
We actually open the episode with the gradient of Eddie's yellow, which further solidifies the idea that this is Eddie's yellow, it will be a case of what intensity looks better on Ryan. (Sorry, I'm just extremely baffled by how on point my gradient is 😭😭)
The backboard they get used to get Eddie is teal, usually it's deep blue or orange, this season has been mostly orange. Either way, this is a new color. So, Buck is playing a part in saving Eddie here. The neck braces are always blue and yellow, I don't think they mean anything specific.
Color-wise, the car scenes are interesting in many ways. I'm just going to add one screenshot here since it's the same outfit for this portion of the episode.
Everyone made the connection of the shirt Buck is wearing to the shooting shirt, which is a big thing, but the pin stripes with Buck have a specific meaning, credit to @stagefoureddiediaz for this particular insight.
But Buck is usually in the white/cream with pinstripes when he's on the verge of figuring something out. The desire to step up with Chris, the concept that he's making a mistake with Taylor, the idea that he needs to do something for himself, bisexuality. And the light pinstripes have a dark counterpart, where Buck goes the wrong direction. Dating Taylor, dating Tommy, agreeing to be a sperm donor, deciding to ask Tommy to move in.
Usually they come in pairs, the white coming first, but during the Taylor of it all, the dark one shows up during 509 for the most awkard I love you scene ever, and the white one comes up when Buck is talking to Maddie in 513. During season 5, we have the concept that Buck doesn't really love Taylor, and talking to Maddie about it is the only time he admits to the idea that maybe he's not thinking clearly there, the whole idea that Buck is always clinging to whatever he's given being explicitly addressed in canon.
The dark version of that shirt already came up this season during 907 when Buck meets Zane and Jade, which creates the concept here that the white counterpart was gonna come up about Buck realizing who he actually wants from love, since that was the lesson from accidentally becoming a unicorn. So I had been waiting for this type of shirt to come up, because that would mean Buck is on the road to accepting his feelings.
When it comes to Eddie, red tones as a rule mean trouble. I will admit for a while there, I got caught up in the possibility of Eddie being seriously injured due to the shooting parallels, I kinda lost the concept that the jacket meant that his fight would be a lot more emotional.
It's attached to the fight club era, and grieving Shannon, and Chris leaving, and his own choice to move to Texas. So it's about an emotional trigger.
I was going to try to keep this in the same order as stuff happens in the episode, but turns out I can't, so I'm gonna jump to the diner before going back to the first car. Just keep in mind there's always Buck's blue in the car because of the tint on the windows, but there's no yellow. Yet.
The diner is green, we see it be green later on the episode, but they use the lights to make it yellow. Inside it's also very very yellow, with some blue and some occasional red. So where the car is Buck's feelings, the diner is Eddie's.
Things to note here are that their fight is yellow until the homophobe starts talking. That confrontation is teal, and then Buck having Eddie's back here is back to yellow. So this is putting a neon sign into Eddie's feelings, to push Eddie into looking at all the space Buck already has in this.
Because, unlike the car, we have multiple teal pieces inside the yellow already. The same way Eddie moves between colors in a way Buck doesn't.
I also find it interesting that the homophobe is blue with the yellow window, until Eddie goes up to him, and then we have Buck in red, Eddie in blue, and the dude being purple, and know that saying that Eddie is fighting being calling out in his bisexualy specifically before he's fully ready to face it, is a sure way for me to get yelled at, but the guy is purple, okay? The color is there. They could've kept him blue, but they didn't. That, paired with the other times this season where Eddie had some sort of bisexual lighting or bisexual colored props, puts me in this position. It is what it is.
But no matter what label they end up giving Eddie, my point is that this forces Eddie to basically stare down at the concept that he's not as straight as he thinks he is.
And then we are back in the teal car. But now we have that little bit of yellow getting brighter.
Eddie is driving, but Buck rented the car, and Buck is the one choosing the route. I made a longer post about this in particular, but to try and make it something more concise.
The conversation before the crash is a callback to the construction on sunset. We establish that both of them are making this harder than it needs to be, and both of them have a hand in getting them off track. Buck doesn't want to look at it because he thinks the road there is all he gets, so he acts as if Eddie has more control than he actually does. Because Eddie isn't picking a different route and focing the issue if Buck isn't there with him. Both of them need to pick the road that leads to each other. Because either they both agree to it, or Eddie is gonna spend his whole life wondering if he forced Buck into this due to the way Buck just goes with the flow.
But what happens here is that Eddie is forced to face the concept that he's not straight and people perceive him as in a relationship with Buck, and suddenly, there's a yellow light in the car. Buck's main defense against his feelings is Eddie's perceived straightness. And this trip literally crashes him into the way he can't keep hiding behind that anymore.
The crash is quite literally slamming the yellow into them. In a similar way that the fight with the homophobes gives Eddie Buck's blue, the crash gives Buck Eddie's yellow.
We established up there that the crash itself at least partially gives us Eddie's yellow because of the first shot of the episode. We still have a full range of shades, but it's enough to slam Eddie into the path where he can begin to accept it. And it's also enough to break Buck's defense against his own feelings.
The hospital room is fascinating in many ways. Is it blue? Is it green? Is it yellow?
When dealing with Eddie's initial confusion and the sheriff accusing him, it's a little bit of all 3. And it reflects Eddie's own confusion. But when Athena tells Eddie he needs to get out of there, we have a lot more focus on the yellow coming from the window.
He locks into the yellow while confronted with the fact that no one else is going to get Buck back.
But once he does make it out, he's dressed in someone else's clothes, and those clothes happen to be a lighter shade of Buck's blue.
He ain't looking at his own feelings until Buck is safe and checked by a doctor.
Parallel to that, we have Buck waking up in Derek's room.
The room is also confusing when it comes to what color is dominating the situation in a similar way to the hospital. But instead of Eddie's green, Eddie's color palette has a lot of it, we have Buck's red, a color that is very predominant in Buck's character construction.
Something to note here is how Bonnie has teal bracelets on one arm and the key attached to a yellow thingie on the other.
Something else that had me screaming was the planes in the room. Been a minute since we got a 3 minutes and 17 seconds reference, and this is interesting when looking at how this episode is supposed to trigger Buck in a similar way the lightning could've.
But the blue phone can't save him, I'm guessing the phone is supposed to be symbolic of Maddie. The firetruck can't save him, being a firefighter isn't what's going to get him through this. The helicopter doesn't get him out because the pilot was also just a distraction from what Buck really needs.
Buck then decides he's going to be Derek after getting electrocuted a couple of times. This reminded me so much of Buck's coma dream and the way Daniel turns into Buck. In the end, Buck will always only ever be Buck.
Once Eddie is at the diner again, it's lit completely differently. This Eddie is hiding in all the ways. Just a side note, the guy who drops him off has his yellow on him.
But the thing here, the cap, how loose Eddie's hair is throughout the episode, creates the concept that Eddie's hair is part of his repression. He is assumed to be queer until he's hiding, and it calls back to how the mustache was a disguise to allow him to keep up the idea that he is straight. But this is a lot more subdued than the first scene at the diner. He's not confronting anything new, he's just trying to keep the single-minded focus on Buck.
And that leads us to car #2.
So far what's been happening is that Buck's feelings are taking priority. Like I keep saying, they are in a deadlock, Eddie doesn't look at his sexuality because Buck can't look at his own feelings, but Buck can't look at his own feelings because Eddie hasn't looked at his own sexuality.
But Eddie stared at his queerness, and then Buck was slammed into the Eddie of it all.
Okay, so the car. You know how the theory is that the Buckley-Diaz family is going to become their own color wheel? Well, in this, we have the yellow for Eddie, the blue for Buck, but we also have a red passenger door, for Christopher.
Unlike most of buddie, this episode is not about Chris at all. But Chris will always be a factor. The important thing here, if we take both cars as representations of the deadlock, is that the red is just a passenger door. Like Carla said before the shooting, Eddie needs to find someone he wants to be with. Follow his heart. Obviously, his heart has to consider Chris, but Chris can't be driving the car. And that makes that red back passenger door, on the passenger side, mean a lot. Chris is metaphorically in the car with them, but he is not making decisions here. He's a factor, but he's not the road.
That has been shown in 912 and 914 with the way Chris is not in the middle of both of them. They're not hiding behind Chris.
Meanwhile, Buck is deciding to roleplay Derek for a chance to escape.
There's surprisingly little blue in this part of the situation. The pieces he already has can't get him out of where he is. It can't really free him.
What does allow him out of the room? The yellow key.
But this is Buck, when has he ever gotten the answer and just done things the easy way?
So this goes wrong due to unexpected circumstances, a little delay. And a very yellow delay that freezes him long enough for him to get taken down again.
Right into the blue shed where Buck is sitting in a patch of sunlight. Buck has enough pieces out now, he can't keep the light out, or his feelings for Eddie out, much longer. And he thinks it's all over, this is what succeeds at killing him, at pulling him down to somewhere he can't be saved
But then Eddie gets there. I love the yellow element the desert puts in here, but anyways...
Buck begs for Eddie's life, we get a reminder that Buck would die for Eddie, while we stop seeing the blue of the shed. This is about Buck's feelings for Eddie overwriting his self-preservation, in a similar way that the yellow window while wearing Buck's blue works for Eddie at the hospital.
The black truck covered by blue, when the truck was the yellow slamming into Buck's feelings, another representation of the deadlock, the truth about the lights putting their feelings into focus, and slamming into them is under blue. They both uncovered it now.
From here we have a lot of shooting parallels, I made a post about this already.
But for me, the thing here is that what gives Buck the strength to actually fight is Eddie. This is the man clawing at the dirt and running toward gunfire with zero regard for himself if it means Eddie is safe. He saves himself because he can't handle losing Eddie. But it's interesting that Eddie is there by chance. Eddie had no idea what he was going to find, and he found Buck without knowing if he was even alive.
But we also see Eddie locking in in the second it takes him to realize what's happening. In a parallel to how Buck was willing to stop being himself for Eddie's life, Eddie is ready to give up what makes him him for Buck.
Eddie was in the army, but he was a medic, not a soldier. He missed the structure and joined the fire department, not the police. Eddie wants to help people, but here, he was a soldier, it's clear even on the way that shirt is suddenly more green than blue. We know Eddie has training, he cocked the gun, he used a woman as human shield. He knew what he was doing and he was willing to do it.
I do think it's fun that both of them saved them from themselves in a sense. Eddie gave Buck what he needed to escape, and Buck gave Eddie what he needed so he wouldn't lose everything in that desert.
Anyways, things move, the sheriff shows up, Eddie notices Buck is about to go down before Buck actually goes down because he doesn't stop looking at any point. Then he is pointlessly checking Buck's pulse and not doing any medical check we know he's capable of, just to convince himself they're gonna be okay.
Because in the end, they always get there for each other.
Then we have the final scene with them about to drive off back to LA.
Things to note, sand hoodie, we love to see Eddie in sand, means he's closer. And this allows him to get closer to his color in contrast of the time he spent in disguise. Buck is safe, he's safe, maybe now feelings can enter the chat.
"You ready?" "Never readier" like I said up there, both of them need to be ready to go there. And they get in the car at the exact same time. The deadlock is no more. They have all the pieces to find their way.
But well, they are Buck and Eddie. I kinda think that this episode mirrors the way the rest of this is going to unfold. Buck is trying to hide from the light he was forced to look at, and Eddie can't see the full extent of the damage just yet because he's too worried about Buck. But they'll understand each other soon.
Now for not all that relevant things. This is Eddie's phone. And this phone in particular is new, he had a black 15 pro for the first 2 3rds of the season, the blue 15 plus showed up in 9x11 when Abigail called him.
I have a theory that basketball is attached to major changes to Buck's character, and there was a basketball in that room.
I think this is it for now. I might come back to this episode on a later date, depending on how the season develops. But it all comes down to how this episode gave them the last few pieces of the puzzle, they just need to put them in place while recovering.
Okay, this is a meta that's been ping-ponging in my brain for about 2 and a half years now, but I never fully wrote down because it felt too crazy. And it is gonna end up speculative and a bit behind-the-scenes conspiracy theory adjacent, so we are going to keep an open mind. This will probably also be very long because I need you guys to follow the whole thought process here. So we are gonna trust my pattern recognition skills that made me bet on a car crash to give Eddie a Moment and Buck a Trigger for the duration of this and go from there.
So welcome to the well is to the lightning as the shooting is to the kidnapping and the road to buddie canon is right up ahead. Or how I believe Tim Minear is using the way that Buck and Eddie's life experiences are parallel but misaligned to get back the specific triggers he wanted to pull in s4 when Fox started to censor the show.
If you've been around here long enough, you probably know I have a lot of theories about the behind-the-scenes and about Ryan being brought into the show. Do I have more reasonable theories that explain how you accidentally set up a slow burn like buddie? Yes. Is it a lot more fun to pretend they saw the potential from the get-go and were gauging the audience reception during s2 and fully committed in s3 before they started getting censored? Absolutely. And that's the road we are taking here.
So we are going to take the fact that Eddie complements Buck narratively in a perfect way as a purposeful thing that was added to his character construction with the intention to hit as many procedural slowburn tropes as possible. And boy, do they hit them.
When you break down major character beats for both of them, you get the same general idea. Obviously, some things have bigger effects on one than the other, but the intention inside a narrative is the same. They are mirrors. And that has been exaggerated in more recent seasons with the implication that they are roughly the same age. Both felt lost all around the world before moving to LA to follow someone. Both have a first love that left them with no closure and defined how they view life. Both have the issues with family, the bigger respect for chosen bonds over blood. Relationships they stayed in because they were comfortable in a similar way. We even have small things like the fact that both of their first loss on the job is someone falling to their death.
But the key here is the fact that major changes in their relationship are tied to death. Or the fear of losing the other to death, I guess. It's marked by ndes. And that goes from agreeing to die with each other in 201 to the shift in their friendship that exists in the space between s2 and 3 to the fever dream that is 913.
The tsunami is The Thing about the construction of their relationship as something more. I have talked extensively about this before, but the work to establish Buck/Eddie/Chris as a family unit is what makes buddie the force you can't fight against. Arguably, the only character who would be able to fight that is Shannon, but there's still a question since she abandoned Chris, and that makes her irredeemable. But the choice to take the space left by Chris' mother dying and introduce the concept that Buck loves Chris like a parent, locks them together. And that love for Chris has had a central role in every nde the other was forced to watch. So they are always fighting for their family, and you have the romantic implication of that because that's something Eddie tells Shannon once Chris is born, and it's now something that Buck echoed while talking about Eddie in 912.
But my thing here is that the fastest consequence of the shooting ties it back to the well. The well leads to Eddie changing his will, and the shooting leads us to the will being revealed. And Eddie's breakdown is heavily tied to the information we learn in Eddie Begins. So it's all one big arc.
We know for a fact that Fox stopped the concept of Buck being bi from happening in s4. That means we can extrapolate that buddie as a whole was being blocked by Fox. This is where the conspiracy theory fully enters the chat.
It's not crazy to assume they knew s6 was going to be their last season on Fox. So that meant they needed to do something about Buck and Eddie if the show was ending. I think the 6a drought was them trying to force Fox's hand to let them do buddie to end the show. A gamble, if no buddie doesn't hurt the show, then we keep them separate, if it does hurt the show, we shove them together to say we did it. Obviously, it hurt the show, so they got the green light to start an arc, and that's where the lightning came in. So they could do a speed run of what they tried to start with that arc that started during Eddie Begins. But then ABC entered the chat, and they backtracked because they didn't have to rush anymore, and then a lot of problems happened behind the scenes, the strike, the disaster that was s8 with Peter leaving, and things got derailed, but they were just put back on that track.
Why do I think the lightning means they were trying to set up buddie in the same way they did for s4? Well, the lightning and the well are the same, but mirrored. Literally. And I know I use that word a lot, but I do mean literally. I have a set on that if you want better visuals, that I made when I was first thinking about this, I just need to stay within the image limit here.
The base elements of both situations are the same. Random call gone wrong. Night. Storm. Chance thing triggered by lightning. Both volunteer into the situation. Team as an audience. You gotta save yourself, granted, more metaphorical with Buck. Family expectations as a core thing to overcome. First breath is the thing to show they are safe now. We even have visions of Chris happening for both of them. But it's also mirrored in the sense that Buck is in the sky while Eddie is underground. Buck is in a very populated urban area while Eddie is in the middle of nowhere. But there's also the fact that even though it is a traumatic thing, it doesn't have immediate consequences.
Look, one or two things lining up could be an accident. Every single element being on opposite sides of the frame while they tackle the same narrative goals? This is on purpose.
When you look inside the narrative, they wanted to trigger Buck, but nothing came of it. And we know the cancellation and subsequent sale to ABC led to a lot of reshoots, so we are gonna take a brief pause while I tell you what I think was the original plan for the s6 finale if that really was the series finale before I continue, because the elements are still there, just in a way that would trigger them faster, because I'm already here and I might as well since this is where this madness started in my brain.
We can speculate that Eddie was supposed to have a bigger role in 611 due to Oliver mentioning scenes with Ryan he was excited for people to see, including a scene where Eddie breaks about it, that never aired, and Eddie's absense is intense on that episode in a way that feels unnatural.
In a space where Natalia and Marisol never enter the chat, or Natalia only enters the chat to help Buck cope with death and dips, so we have the lightning, the poker date, the cemetery breakup, and something in the middle there that makes Buck reevaluate his own life, possibly involving the donor baby since most of the scenes of the ending we got were probably reshoots due to the inconsistency of props in the loft, the bridge collapse can hit enough points to make our aborted love confession in the form of the will reveal into a proper love confession. Not really trying to self promo but I did write a fic at the time that a lot of the comments seem to agree would work on canon with this base idea in mind.
And the idea was to take the fact that Eddie seemingly didn't remember the shooting and the framing similarities from the shooting to the bridge to trigger a conversation. 10 minutes and you get them together and end the show.
Does it hit it in the same way with the same care as the lightning vs the well? No. But on a time crunch, it works. Especially considering we have the bathena and madney elements of the bridge collapse too. You have Buck's helplessness because the whole team is injured so he's doing the saving alone, it's unexpected. It wouldn't be perfect, but works.
Then you force a conversation because one or both of them got triggered, get them together, show is over with both of them on Eddie's couch with Chris, yay.
Obviously, that didn't happen, but the bones for it to happen are there. And being bored and rewatching the show like I was being paid for it during the s6-7 hiatus, I sat with myself to think about how to recreate the shooting if we ever reached a point to really trigger buddie.
I did get to the car crash part but never in my wildest dreams did I think that we were gonna get a whole episode around it. So my spec was a lot more compact. I got to the car crash because of the way buddie moments end up mirroring the calls in 208, except for the crash. It doesn't really matter overall anymore, but we do have the crash now.
The shooting has a lot of core elements that make it as intense as it is: Buck is doing the saving alone, it happens by chance, they aren't supposed to be there, Buck doesn't trust the crew around him, it brings up past trauma for both of them.
But 913 hits WAY more points than I was expecting, with pulling the same emotional triggers, the same base plot, and the mirrored elements.
Funny thing first. We have callbacks to 201 both situations.
Charlie is the name of the dude with grenade in his thigh and the kid getting poisoned. And Hector is also the name from the guy from the auto shop from Eddie's first call.
We also have this that everyone picked up on, and I could write a whole separete meta on this shirt alone, and the possible implications. Just know it's a good sign.
We have mirrored elements. Buck drives them to Charlie's place, Eddie drives them to the diner and during the crash. The shooting happens in broad daylight, in a populated area, the crash happens in an isolated space in the middle of the night. They are helping Charlie because of Eddie, they are in that town because of Buck.
And when it comes to hitting the same base plot. Both are doing the saving alone. The authorities around them aren't helpful until the rescue is done. Disturbed mother is the reason it happens. They are there by chance. Both got picked as targets by chance. Both face past trauma to actually complete the rescuing.
The show went a lot deeper into the past trauma than I was expecting, since they chose the Daniel of it all, but we also had the physical trauma of electrocution and the psychological trauma of guns for Buck, and Eddie had to face someone pointing a rifle at him, in the same way Buck rolls under a truck to save Eddie. 913 also sprinkles a nice dose of 506 parallels with the first time buddie got kidnapped, which works as an extension of the shooting to trigger Eddie and adds another mirrored layer to all this.
But okay, I talked and talked, what does all of this mean?
Breaking down Eddie's arc that starts with Eddie begins and was the last of Eddie's arc to really go anywhere, since the answer for Eddie has been accepting he's in love with Buck since s6, we actually paved the way so that Eddie would let Buck in fully. I explore a bit of the emotional part of this concept in my Eddie fell first essay, at the core of it, Eddie's breakdown leads him to a point where he doesn't use Chris to hide from the concept that he needs Buck. When Buck breaks down that door, he lets Buck in fully.
We have the core issues with Eddie Begins being family expectations and the way Eddie ends up suffocated until he moves to LA and that is exaggerated by the physical representation of what's happening to him, the world is literally crumbling around him, he is about to drown, and he needs to get himself out of there. And he does that alone, because that was the part he needed to do for himself. He uses Chris and the family he found as motivation, but he gets out on his own.
Then we have the shooting, the 506 kidnapping, and the triggers there that eventually lead to Eddie breakdown, all tying back to what we learned in Eddie begins. The sniper brings back a specific trauma for Eddie that he doesn't analyse until he finds out everyone he saved was dead and let himself crash, and build himself back up.
But an important aspect there is the way that Eddie is actively shutting Buck out until Buck breaks down the door, and Eddie lets him see all those pieces of himself. And Eddie has been good at letting Buck in since. Except for a bit there in s8 but I'll get there eventually.
We are gonna enter my speculation for where this arc is going now.
A big thing leading up to 913 is poking at Buck Begins. Things have been placed in a similar way to allow Buck to truly face how it fucked him up that his parents wanted him to be his brother. Buck treats his own body like a tool. He doesn't consider himself first, like, ever. And this season we have been working toward fixing that. He's been less reactive on the job, granted Eddie has been beating him to the punch during the more insane shit to stop Buck from putting himself in that space (look, I mostly ignore word of God when doing this shit, but Tim sounded like he was annoyed no one made that about buddie, so I'm gonna use it). We also had a really big moment for him where he was faced with the chance to just go along with what someone wanted from him, but he recoginized it wouldn't serve him, and walked away. 9x11 we had the concept of Buck accepting he's better for maturing and that he wants to appreciate that part of himself. And obviously, his parents divorce right before all of this happened.
So, 913. We are dealing with the coma dream in a similar manner that we deal with the Eddie flashbacks in his breakdown arc. Bonnie wants Buck to be Derek. In a similar way that Buck's brain created an reality with Daniel, where Daniel is actually just evil Buck. But the core of the coma dream is for Buck to realize that he is enough for himself. So he can get himself out of his head. We also have Bonnie controlling him with cattle prod. Basically a taser, so he's being eletrecuted in a smaller dose. In a similar way Eddie gets shot 3 times in 315 and only once in 413, because you don't need the full trigger.
Something that has been driving me insane about Oliver's acting in this episode is the way that when he's on the floor saying "I'm derek" the way his voice cracks almost sounds like Daniel when you try to listen for it.
We also have the way Buck empathizes with Bonnie in a similar way Eddie does to Mitchell in 506. And the way that in a much smaller scale, Eddie wanted Buck out of that ambulance, and the way Mitchell tries to use Eddie to control Buck. Obviously, Buck volunteers to make sure Eddie is going to go back to Chris, but his words feel interesting to me with the way Mitchell gets Buck to cooperate by threatning Eddie and Chris, since he clocked threatning Buck's life would not do a lot for him.
Buck is also confronting losing Bobby, something that's a big aspect of the coma dream.
So Buck is in the spot to be thrown to the floor so he can build himself back up with a better view of himself and better way on how to treat who he is to himself. How to exist beyond the expectation in a similar way Eddie has been doing since 516.
So we are in a good spot so that Buck can let Eddie in fully.
Why is that important? Well, they are still in the 817 fight.
Something about when Buck and Eddie fight, is that they hug after. That sounds goofy, but they don't do a lot of intentional physical touching. But like, after the lawsuit? They hug. After Buck lost his mind in 704? They hug. After Buck looses his mind in 809? They hug. They have not hugged since Eddie left for Texas. And there has been moments where it would make sense, 913 being an big exemple. Bobby is literally dead and didn't hug about it.
The thing about the 817 fight is that Buck can't see past his own assumptions and Eddie can't figure out how to get Buck to listen to him. They are not listening to each other in that scene in many ways. Eddie crosses a line and Buck doesn't meet him halfway. In fact, it makes Buck make even worse assumptions. They are not at point where they can face everything. So he reverts back to what's safe: hiding behind Christopher. Keeping the status quo and ignoring the tension that's been building between them since... well... always.
But unlike any other near death experience with Buck and Eddie so far, they are both put in a position to assume the other is dead and they are both in a position to save the other.
It's a joint nde.
Which means they can't really ignore an aspect of the shooting and the lightning they have been ignoring: what do you do when you're the one forced to do the saving.
That thing were Buck pretends he's not affected by the shooting by saying he's not the one who got shot and we all ignore the fact that Eddie knows how long Buck was dead down to the second is no longer an option.
They were both in the car. They were both held at gun point. They were both instrumental in making sure the other makes it out alive.
So they both have to face the "what the fuck do I do now that I realize how far I would go for you" on top of everything else they managed to ignore with the well, the shooting, and the lightning.
We don't know if Eddie knows Buck was clawing at the dirt for him. We don't know if Buck knows Eddie's instict was to try to pull him up. They don't know about the other screaming their name while the rain pours. Eddie yelling at team of doctor or how everyone is treating Buck like he's the widower they need to keep calm.
But this time both of them needed saving and both of them got saved.
The shooting makes it very obvious that Buck would die for Eddie, and then we have Eddie daring Buck to stay alive by telling him he needs to be there for Chris if something happens. The kidnapping reinforces that while telling us that Eddie would kill for Buck.
Mirrors.
That means they need to face the concept of believing they are about to be forced to live without the other. And how far they are willing to go to make sure that does not happen.
An important point for Eddie specifically here is that he is not thinking about Christopher. There are 2 mentions of Chris during the episode: when Buck tries to appeal to Bonnie being a mother and at the end when Eddie says he call Chris already. He wakes up, realizes Buck is not there, gets tunnel vision and doesn't consider a single consequence. He was ready to kill a person. He cocked the gun. That has to have consequences.
Obviously, Buck is missing, he knows Chris is safe, so Buck can be the #1 priority. But he was willing to risk it all, his freedom included, to get to Buck. And that's an interesting way to shove Eddie into a feeling realization. "What does it really mean that this person drives me crazy but I'm willing to do anything to make sure he will keep doing it?" He's being faced with almost dying, almost getting arested, thinking Buck was dead, and realizing how far he would go to get Buck back or to avenge him.
And Buck had to deal with almost dying, thinking Eddie was dead, giving himself up to make sure he stayed alive.
So for once, buddie wasn't about Christopher.
The only way they make it work is if they stop hiding behind Chris. And the show took a couple of steps that direction.
We don't know a lot about the rest of the season, but we know Buck is not doing well. We have the bts in the house that show us the banana bag. We also have a couple of clips of Ryan that make me speculate on Eddie putting his shields back up.
So if I'm right, which is a huge if, huge if, they are about to hit a 511 moment. As in trying to pretend everything is fine while starting to fall apart. And they're gonna break to start to build themselves back up closer and hopefully romantically.
We do have in the breakup green scene coming up, most likely after whatever happens that makes Buck need the banana bag, I wrote a more detailed meta on that, but considering the patterns here, and the fact that the breakup green is actually about the root of the issue in Buck's love life being about to be addressed, and have the relationship be tested to see if it can survive the honesty, it seems like things are gonna come to head.
The speculation was always that whatever happens in the desert makes them retreat to safety before forcing them to face the issue. I wasn't expecting a joint nde but that just makes it better lol.
Considering the fact that a big aspect of what was going wrong in 913 was that they were being assumed to be a couple, this will be on Eddie's head along with everything else. So one can sure as fuck hope that means he is about to be forced to look at how he treats Buck.
So to make this really long post that doesn't cover everything I want to because tbh, if I try to explain props and colors around this, I'm gonna be here for days, into something more clear: the signs I see here point to Buck being due to a breakdown of some sort while parallel to that Eddie ends up being pushed to be honest with himself, all leading to them being forced to be honest with each other.
Will that be romantic? Well, I sure as hell hope so. But this is just a theory. A game theory lol.
In all seriousness, this is a pattern I saw during s6 that went nowhere and I assumed was wrong, then I watched the show hit every single thing I thought they would in an episode written by Tim Minear himself. So I'm feeling bit insane. Understandably, I guess.
But don't take me too seriously, I just wanted to try and download yall into what made me start that speculation since it sorta happened, granted in a way better way than I could ever come up with.
one of the things i thought about after watching 9x13 is how much buck and eddie unmask around each other. walk with me here. we have two men who for better of for worst, put on performances to a degree. buck who transforms himself in what he believe will be the most palatable version of himself to receive love from others. eddie, who does his best to perform as what he believes a good man and a good father would be (plus, of course, eddie himself saying verbatim he feels like he has to perform (re: dating)).
then we have 9x13. and also, honestly, the kitchen scene. but 9x13 in PARTICULAR. the "fight" that escalated during their drive and then into the dinner. buck being dramatic with the fork. raising his voice. yelling. pushing back. eddie, annoyed, showing his anger, showing his frustration, not holding back what he wants to say.
neither man ever really hold back in showing the "ugly" parts of themselves. the parts they believe will make them less receptive to those around them.
and its crazy bc it just reinforces that idea that they see the absolute best in each other. buck, considering eddie to be amazing, a hero, a silver star. eddie, seeing buck as someone who will give up every little bit of himself, even down to his scraps, for others. eddie, who jumps off the bridge so buck can't. buck, who says "he has a son. he's a father. don't hurt him. take me instead" because he knows how important eddie is to chris. how important that relationship is to maintain. it's just crazy.
like wow. this is your person. this is the person you can be your absolute worst with, but who also sees you as nothing short but your absolute best. even when you can't see it. them only acting this way with EACH OTHER adds such a depth to their dynamic. i was walking home from work like "wow. that's crazy. ya'll are some freaks"
hey do you all remember the whole slow cooker meal exchange from the texas arc when eddie was talking about how it had to be fork tender... and now buck is yelling at eddie to stick a fork in him. which is a euphemism for a recipe being fully cooked. you know, as in: ready.
Guys guys we do remember Thomas and Mitchell from 2x08 who are literally the love icon for Buck, yeah? And like i'm sorry why there are parallels to almost every shot from their montage to Buddie moments?.. Like some of them are a little more ambiguous but some of them are literally insane i just can't!
I mean do i feel crazy? Yes, a little. But also at this point it feels like the only thing left from the montage is literally the wedding...
Actually there are so many parallels between 'Wizard of Oz' and 911 that i even have proofs why Tommy won't show up again lol
Like in Wizard of Oz there were these flying monkeys that were obligated to grant 3 wishes to a person who had the Cap. Anyways, we know that Chimney saved Tommy in Chimney begins. And then Chimney was the one who was a reason Tommy helped 118 all three times he helped:
When Tommy helped with the fire in s2, it was Chimney who called him
When Tommy flied the helicopter to find Bobby and Athena in s7, Chimney ca,lled him
In s8 Tommy even specifies that he is doing it for Chimney despite the fact that it's Buck who calls him.
And yes, now three wishes are granted and Tommy is free, lol
Also Dorothy had the Cap in the Wizard of Oz when she took it from a Wicked Witch. And there are proofs that Chimney is Dorothy including the fact that Dorothy was kissed by a Good Witch of the North on the forehead at the beginning of the book and there was a round mark on her forehead after this kiss. Do we know who also had a round mark on the forehead for quite some time in the series? Yeah, Chimney Han who literally had it all the early seasons after having a rebar through his head.
I mean, i really was gonna write some crazy meta about 911 and Wizard of Oz because there are soo many parallels between all the characters... But then i kinda was busy so it doesn't exist but maybe someday lol
#mybuck who was in love with eddie from the moment he saw him but didn’t know what that meant, who stepped into eddie’s life and loved his son enough to die for him within a year of knowing him, who had to be torn away from crawling though 40 feet of mud by hand for eddie, who carried eddie out of active gunfire, who cared for his child in eddie’s absence even though it felt so wrong, who shares his joy with eddie and who sits with eddie in his grief, who kept eddie’s house warm and safe for him to come back to even though it killed him to be away from him, who would have died or worse so that eddie could get home to the child they both love
#myeddie who right away knew buck needed people to care for and let himself and chris be his people even when it felt impossible to trust anyone, who trusts buck with his entire heart in the form of christopher more than anyone else in the world, who loves and forgives buck through all of his ups and downs because he sees his heart, who tried to pull buck’s limp body up by a single cable, who counted the seconds that buck’s heart wasn’t beating, who jumped off a bridge so buck wouldn’t, who was so desperate to find buck dead or alive that he became a fugitive and jumped out a window and traveled for miles with a broken and bruised body, who is gentle and kind to his core but was ready to kill for buck without a second thought
crazy of the episode to end with them still on the road. like the previous episode made a point of being like "Eddie came home, because family always finds a way to come home" and then the implied home of this episode was...each other. the tension and suspense was over the moment Eddie put his fingers on Buck's pulse and said he'd be okay. It's almost like LA isn't the home they fought to get back to, it's each other and Maddie on facetime and Chris recently called. They easily could have ended with them passing a sign that says "Now Entering California" or LA or even parked outside one of their homes. But they didn't need to.
