“Eddie might get a new girlfriend this season and that’ll be great for his story !”
“Eddie on the side of the table with the straights yay!”
Truly you’ve become the bucktommy fans greatest ally lately 💀
Really anon you want to go there??!!! You want to accuse me of being an ally to the bt fans because I can read the subtext and see the potential of what they are doing with Eddie’s arc this season. Me and ally to those same BT fans who spammed my inbox with death threats and hatred because I didn’t like their problematic and toxic white man plot device? Yo have got to be kidding me! Thank you for the laugh because after the day at work I had today I needed one!
Just because I can see and understand the hints and storytelling the show is giving us, and understand that getting Eddie out of the closet is a far more nuanced task requiring a lot more time and different players to get Eddie to a place where he can accept that he is whatever flavour of queer the show chooses to go with for him than it took with Buck - because they are different characters in vastly different situations with very different backgrounds and upbringings.
I’m truly sorry that you cannot see the very clear signals the show is putting out there in terms of Eddies storyline, that you cannot understand how Eddie going on a few dates with a woman is and can be a positive thing for his arc - helping him figure out it isn’t women he’s interested in dating - especially now he isn’t trying to find a way of recapturing and recreating what he had with Shannon - because he has finally been able to let go of a lot of the childhood trauma (in the confrontation with his mom) and is now able to grow up and into himself as a man not a teenager. We’ve literally just had a piece of media come out that had a very similar plot - can you honestly say that Shane Hollander dating Rose Landry in Heated Rivalry was a bad thing for Shanes story and his journey to accepting who he is? Why would it be any different in season 9 for the woman (if it even is a woman - we don’t know at this point but it’s fairly safe to assume) Eddie dates? Why can she not be a plot device unitised to help get Eddie further along his queer journey in the same way Tommy was. Tommy was a plot device - nothing more and nothing less - he was there to create and facilitate the situations that were needed to get both Buck and Eddie to the places they needed to be at certain points in the story through seasons 7&8, and a woman dating Eddie would do the same thing - creating situations where Eddie can figure out he doesn’t actually like women, and at the same time play into Bucks jealousy and weird feelings/behaviour around the women Eddie dates and the reasons behind said behaviour and feelings. There needs to be a catalyst - Eddie isn’t just magically going to wake up one day and go ‘hey I’m gay and in love with my best friend’ - that’s just not a thing that is going to happen - there is a journey to go on for him and that is what we are doing - what we are seeing building in each episode across this season so far.
As for the way they have placed everyone at that table is incredibly interesting and telling - creating both callbacks to the lawsuit arc and the mediation there, as well as pitting characters up against one another - Chim is facing Hen, Maddie is facing Karen, Eddie is facing Buck. Placing Buck on the same side of the table as Hen is indicative of the fact Hen is in a similar situation to the one Buck was in that led to him filing the lawsuit. There is also the fact they have placed the characters who used to be work partners opposite one another - Hen and Chim, Buck and Eddie - with Maddie and Karen - the wives - both stuck in the middle of this situation - a visual representation of the metaphorical! This does imply that there is still on going underlying tension and issues between Buck and Eddie in the same way there currently are with Chim and Hen that haven’t yet been dealt with.
And now I’ll get to the real, main reason I decided to answer your ask rather than block and delete you. So I can talk about costume and colour theory! Yes, we do have the canonically queer characters on one side of the table, with the canonically straight (at least for now) characters seated on the other side of the table, that’s very intentional. I’m also going to point out a few other things going on here in this scene from a colour theory perspective.
Firstly the placing of Eddie on the side of the table with the canonically straight characters - its intentional I assure you to place him there, and to make him be the one wearing grey on that side of the table while Maddie and Chim are in black and white - its literally telling us that Chim and Maddie are black and white in terms of straightness, Eddie however is not - he is grey because he isn’t straight - if he was he’d be in black or white as well - the grey literally separates him from the rest of the straight people in the room (We don’t know the mediators sexuality and we likely won’t be told, but we’ll assume straight as we have nothing at this point to suggest otherwise) in the same way the blue, yellow and pink/reds (which also interestingly create a primary colour wheel on the left side of the table - you can create a rainbow out of them where you cant with the right side. Plus Hen and Buck make chim in colour mixing terms but I do not have the time to get into all of that) separate the left side of the table from everyone else. The implication here is that if Eddie was in fact straight, then he would have some black or white in his clothing - in the same way Chim, Maddie, Athena and the mediator do. Eddie is the odd one out in this pattern and his position unbalances the table as well - the grey should be in the middle seat if the grey was in harmony with the black and white.
We have Athena in black and the mediator character in white at the foot and head of the table - black and white has been a colour theme of this season so far - we’ve seen a large increase in the amount of black and white being used in scenes - the art at Eddies house and at Bucks, the costumes, other props etc, the other characters. It’s been pretty loud when compared with previous seasons. The mediator is neutral and trying to seek surrender and resolution - hence the white shirt, while Athena is in black as a counterbalance to that at the other end of the table. Black is a symbol of power and authority and for Athena specifically it serves to highlight that she is the one who has made this mediation session happen.
Then we have Chimney who is in either a very dark olive green or green toned black zip cardigan (it looks green below, and that’s the colour I think it is, but it does look black in other shots we got) with a white tee underneath - so much being played out here - if it is a dark olive green - its symbolic of military - which is why we see Eddie in so much khaki green - its playing on his military past and when he is feeling under attack in some way, in the same way Chim is likely feeling here - he feels at war and or under siege. The White tee underneath that is suggestive that he is ready to surrender - it’s a white flag in essence - that he will carry on fighting, but underneath it all he wants to resolve the situation and move forward (not saying that will necessarily happen in this scene, more that the white is indicating what Chim ultimately wants - the crossed arms and green point towards him holding fast to his position for a decent chunk of time).
Hen is in blue - in denim. Denim is a fabric associated with being hard wearing - its origins are in workwear and its a fairly protective fabric, so that aspect is suggestive that Hen is in need of those elements, that those elements of her personality - she is hard working and protective of others etc - are at the fore right now. The blue is also an interesting and revealing choice - blue is such a dual colour, it’s associated with depression and coldness and fragility, but it’s also connected to the concept of peace and serenity. It’s a colour also associated with honesty, trust, and commitment. These are all elements I expect to see in play in this scene - especially the ideas of depression, fragility, honesty and trust - they might be things Hen feels have been striped from her, or they might be things she is trying to regain, I expect to see her finally being fully honest about what is going on with her (more so than we’ve already seen) and the fact she doesn’t know and how that is affecting her - letting herself be vulnerable and fragile - but also not wanting to be seen in that way by those she holds most dear.
Then we have Buck in his dark yellow ochre almost orange knit sweater - a choice that made me laugh when I saw it, its a repeat outfit for Buck - its the same sweater he wore to the therapy session with Dr Copeland we saw in season 4, which ties into this mediation session and indicated that Buck is in an open place right now and prepared to engage in this mediation session. There is an element of what he said in that s4 scene - about hiding his feelings from others and I do wonder if we might see a subtle nod towards that - I’m very much expecting Buck to be a fairly minor player in the scene overall (this is about Hen and Chim at its heart), but 911 is brilliant at utilising scenes not centred on a specific character to set up the ground work for future scenes and hint at things to come. So with this in mind, and the other times we have seen Buck in that same, specific dark yellow ochre - most notably the scene when he is back at the 118 and Bobby has let him go early (because Bobby is still not ok with Buck in that moment) and Buck comes across the woman driving around with the man through her windshield - we can see the parallels this scene is creating with the lawsuit arc from season 3 (there is another element that also plays to this which I’ll get to in a moment) and we should draw from that arc in this scene - it won’t play out identically - 911 is too smart for that - but the key take aways - such as trusting your team to know their limits and to let you (as captain) know if they cannot do something etc. As Bobby said back in s3 - ‘it’s time for me to get out of your way kid’ - meaning Chim is going to need to get out of Hens way - that supporting her and being there for her and with her is the most important thing he can do. Now that might not mean her coming back to the 118 initially, but that a clear path forward and for her potential return will come from this episode.
The other relevant thing with both Hen and Bucks costumes are the fact that they play into blue and yellow colour theory - and it is sitting on the queer side of the table - I don’t think I need to go into blue and yellow colour theory at this point - I have talked about it as queer coding plenty - but I did want to point out that this has been done intentionally by the show and it is very much designed as a subtle nod towards the queer stories on the show and that we should be paying attention to the use of those colours when we see them in the show (they have been seen in scenes heavily coded towards Hen, Buck and or Eddie - which only furthers the queer Eddie narrative we are seeing play out (regardless of if you can see it in the subtext or not anon trust me it is there and it is getting increasingly loud!) especially so far this season.
On to Eddie and his grey marl Henley, with the sleeves fully down. What a choice costume team - what a choice!!!! Much like Bucks sweater, this Henley is a repeat costume for Eddie. We’ve seen him in this grey marl Henley 3 times previously (he wears grey a decent amount, in varying shades and clothing types, but I’m focusing specifically on the Henley’s here) - the bring the boys together for a play date Christmas scene in 310, his apology to Ana at the school after the skateboarding incident with Chris, and then in 506 when he comes home to Chris after the prison break out (the ‘Dad you’re weird’ scene). Those are all scenes about connection or reconnection - in particular they are connected to making things right after doing or being involved something wrong and especially in relation to family (children specifically), and yes, the 506 one does fit into that concept - Eddie had connected with Mitchell who had done something wrong and wanted to make things right in some way with his son (and create a connection with him that lasted beyond his life by giving him his heart) and Eddie took that to heart and wanted to reconnect with his son (don’t forget he had ended his relationship with Ana only a couple of episodes earlier.
However the most interesting thing about the grey is that they put Maddie in black just like Athena - making Eddie grey in between black and creating a sort of visual triangle - which plays into the black/white/ grey concept that we seem to be going with this season as a theme - the idea that things are not black and white, but many shades of grey and to only see things in black and white is to miss the nuance, the detail and the ambiguity. Grey is also a neutral colour and that implies to a certain extent that Eddie isn’t taking sides.
The way they have been using black white and, grey this season so far in Eddie’s arc is so interesting to me and something I’ve not had the time to get into. I do hope to get the metas for the early part of the season finished and posted so I can explain it more than I have time to here, but I will say the fact that Eddie has only worn colour without black white or grey being present in his costume twice so far this season (at Church with Abuela and then later as he’s creating the ofrenda with Chris) and in the last episode they had Eddie in black when not at work for almost the entire episode - putting him into khaki and grey and then transferring to white to finish that episode is very telling and interesting and makes this grey Henley interesting as it continues that colour theming for him and his arc - the sheer amount of grey he’s worn thus far this season, and when he’s worn it, compared with when he has worn black or white, is very much connecting (so far - I’m not saying it’s definitely what the costume team are doing as I need more data!) to the idea of Eddie being in an in between place and that there is a transition happening for him - the black is connected to Eddie conforming to or upholding expectations, but its also been connected to death and the idea of parts of Eddie and or his past dying with the white connected to who Eddie is becoming. Like I said - I need a couple more episodes of data to really be sure because we’ve not actually had that many non work scenes so far this season, especially for Eddie, but I do have a meta in progress on the subject which I keep adding to as more information becomes available!
Ok I’m going to end this here as I need to go to bed and I really don’t want to spend more time explaining myself to people who just want to be rude and offensive to me and my opinions becasue they don’t align with theirs because they refuse to see or understand the subtext and the nuance of Eddies story and the way it needs to be told. I hope good things come to you anon, and you get some clarity and perspective on what you send to people, I can take it because I find it laughable that you’ve looked at my blog and my explanations for things but still manage to come to the conclusion you did. For everyone else who took the time to read this, I hope you enjoyed what became a mini costume meta and that it has you more excited for the scene and that you all have great weeks 💜💜💜
