“he’s going to get treated like he’s smarter and more mature than Buck despite all evidence to the contrary (that’s how everybody is treated), and he’s going to get his “more responsibility” at his job.”
I will never forget the way both Tim and Ryan talked about Buck after 809. The idea that Buck is some immature guy and Eddie is this mature man is RIDICULOUS. Like Eddie is incredibly immature and you know what I wouldn’t even mind it if they would actually allow his character to grow (as Buck has and continues to do). Eddie’s character has had little to no growth for 8 seasons now and part of it is Tim refusing to let Eddie take any true responsibility for his actions. The Texas arc was a joke the second they did not let Chris truly voice his feelings on what Eddie did and instead painted it as his parents being the mean bad guys that are keeping Chris away from him.
This is all true but the thing that really grinds my gears is that it’s not even just Eddie. Why the hell does Maddie get treated like some wise queen when it comes to giving Buck advice? She’s older, but she doesn’t actually have more life experience. Different life experience. But not more! She has dated two men. She met Doug when she was a teenager and he consumed most of her younger years, then she went from her first (terrible, I am not denying what she went through) husband to her second pretty quickly. What does she know about being alone? She never has been for more than a few months at a time.
And it would be one thing if the show actually had the guts and creativity to just… let her be wrong sometimes. Like actually say “Buck listens to her because he idealizes his big sister, but she gives him bad advice on some things because she just doesn’t know what she’s talking about and that’s normal and okay and more interesting.” But they don’t.
Eddie and Maddie both have different life experience than Buck, but not actually more, and they’re both blinded by their ignorances relatively frequently.
Buck wasn’t living in his parents basement playing video games before he joined the fire department. He was living a whole life prior and having valuable experiences that literally could not have all just been sex. And he was living it alone. When he ran into trouble, he had only himself to rely on.
So why doesn’t he ever get any fucking credit for being a grown man who has survival skills and a textured background of life experience?
“Buck’s like Eddie’s other child” DON’T piss me off. I know that particular statement was mostly about sticking it to the shippers. But it’s absolute bullshit, Buck has been the one to bail Eddie out again and again and again. Eddie can’t even raise his own child without outsourcing tough stuff to Buck. Eddie bought his kid a PS5 rather than putting a ramp in his doorway. He’s deeply immature and stunted by his trauma, but the narrative refuses to acknowledge that. His mommy’s at fault.
Buck has lived a life Maddie couldn’t imagine (and vice versa), she should sometimes be wrong in the advice she gives him, and explicitly treated as wrong by the narrative.
As a Buck fan, it’s absolutely maddening. Like I’m not saying that Buck’s perfect. He has moments of immaturity, moments of selfishness, moments of ignorance. Those can’t all be blamed on Fanon AuDHD that the show will never co-sign. But importantly, Buck always wants to do better, and he often comes to the right conclusion on his own given time. Sometimes they write him in a way where he’s allowed to be smart and even wise at times. And then other times they hand him the idiot ball in a lazy shortcut to building up another character. And it doesn’t even serve the other character well when you actually step back and consider what gives them the right.
