I am very interested in your speech on how Buck is being treated by his family, if you would like to share. 👀
I mean I’ll fully admit, it’s nothing new, but like I said, I’m thoroughly over all of the negging. Also flagging for spoilers of 910:
I get that on some level, he gets the little brother treatment. However, the group chat and I get highly irritated by the fact that it doesn’t just come from Hen and Chim (which would make sense, given that he was their probie). Eddie does it as well, even though Buck technically outranks him.
But it’s so much more than that. It’s the unchecked bullshit that Eddie pulls in his direction, the way he speaks both to and about, Buck, right in front of his face. It’s the way that the writers room had the gaul to both point out Eddies violent streak and verbal abuse of others in this weeks episode, without bothering to smooth things over with how he’s been towards Buck in the last few seasons. It’s the fact that twice in this episode, we also saw him and Chim make comments that effectively threw Buck under the bus/made him the problem, instead of holding any kind of ownership of their own shortcomings.
We heard Chim spend a whole chunk of this episode tonight talking about his concerns of having Harry at the 118 and fearing upsetting Athena. At the same time, there hasn’t ONCE been a single mention or move for Chimney to have someone be an impartial voice of reason in relation to the fact that Buck is both his brother-in-law and now subordinate. Instead, we were served with the fact that in 908, Chimney said if Buck “pulled” what Hen did with her health, he’d fire the other man “in a heartbeat”, while also receiving the attitude that Eddie supported Chim’s thought process. They gave us a two-second shot of Buck’s face there that speaks volumes to me, when his best friend and boss/brother-in-law are both saying they would throw him to the wolves without a second thought. Two people who he’s supposed to be able to trust implicitly. The fact that we don’t get a single line from Maddie about any of this is also a concern. I get that she’s caught between a rock and a hard place because its her husband and her brother…but also, Buck has been her brother his entire life, and he’s done nothing to deserve the attitude that’s been served to him for the better part of the last season. Buck is the throwaway person they blame for “complicated coffee orders” and blame as the one who “fucks things up”. Nevermind the fact that Eddie fucked his own life up so royally that he had to move halfway across the country, or it was Buck who saved both their asses in season 8. Buck took over Eddie’s lease as a sublet (regardless of the fact that he drove away potential renters—he ultimately helped Eddie so the man could go be with his son); and when Chim was going to die of the accelerated CCHS, Buck was the one who called Tommy. Far be it from me to sound like an asshole, but he could’ve just said ‘hey, it’s a sick day. See y’all later!’.
I do appreciate that we’ve seen Ravi show up for Buck in the midst of it all, and I think that there’s an importance in that friendship that doesn’t get covered nearly enough. Unlike Eddie, Ravi can call Buck on his bullshit without negging him or acting in borderline abusive ways. Ravi also showed up for Buck when he moved into his new house and thought Bobby was haunting the place.
What bothers me most, though, is that all of these people in this firehouse (except for Harry, and maybe even Ravi a little), know Buck’s backstory. They know about his parents, and Daniel, etc etc. Yet they continue to treat him like crap, to not apologize for the things they do and say, to act as though no one shows up in support for them when Buck goes out of his way to show up. Buck, who offered to leave the 118 when Maddie left town because he thought everyone hated him. Buck, who bent over backwards to be there for Eddie through everything with the Kim/Marisol/Chris arc. Buck, who tried to show up the best way he knew how for his loved ones after they all lost Bobby, only for Hen to slap him in the face with “he was our boss, but he was my friend, and none of you checked in and asked how I was.” BUCK, whose boyfriend broke up with him, and instead of ANY ONE of them trying to figure out what we’ve all agreed is an inherently fixable situation….all told him to move on and took his phone away.
Something that occurred to me tonight after viewing the episode—and please hear me out without consideration of the “Buck should leave the 118” trope—is the fact that children of trauma and abandonment will seek out love in any form they can get it. We know that Buck did this because the show likes to remind us of Buck 1.0 occasionally, and how he states in the pilot that he was a sex addict (and even gives us hints of that in the first few seasons). And to that end, I think Buck has done the work when it comes to finding validation through sex…but I don’t think he’s learned enough about the toxicity of the kind of abuse you will accept when you’ve faced the issues he has. There comes a point and time in dealing with all of that trauma in therapy where you start to realize that you deserve better than what you’re being given.
To that end, I’ve said many a time that Buck and I have similar stories, and it took me a really long time to learn how to stop accepting the toxic bullshit. I had to nearly die to cut off my Eddie because I finally reached a point where the one-sidedness of that relationship with enough. I got to a point where I was tired of asking to be heard, and be seen, and tired of seeing people who are supposed to love me unconditionally immediately go on the defensive and make excuses.
And I will fully admit: yes, all of this impacts me wanting Tommy back, because we know Tommy sees Buck. He supports him, and shows up for him. He doesn’t tell Evan his antics are ridiculous, or that his feelings are unwarranted, no matter how out-of-left-field they seem. Buck deserves to have someone in his corner who sees those qualities and doesn’t judge him. He deserves to have someone (who isn’t part of the fandom) stand up for him. And yes, he deserves to have someone who he can take the mask off for, and fully feel his emotions. I stand fully by the fact that if Tommy knew about all of the shit that’s been said to Buck over the past year, he’d flip a lid.
One of my favorite things a former therapist used to say to me is that we don’t live in the trauma olympics, and yet… it seems like everyone on our little wee woo show is determined to suggest that they do, and that their trauma is worse than the person next to them in that firehouse. I just….it’s fascinating to me (in a sad way), how in the face of Bobby’s death, Buck has twice had to hear about how his support wasn’t good enough. First with Eddie stating that Evan was spiraling (see: grieving) and no one knew how to talk to him about it (which seems much more like a them problem than a him problem) plus the whole thing of basically insinuating he didn’t try hard enough to save Bobby; and then Hen saying no one checked in on her in her grief and that’s why she shut everyone out with her health. But yet these same people mocked his attempts to support them after Bobby’s death. So… what’s the right answer?
At the end of the day, I truly do just get so sick of all of the excuses. I get sick of the justification, and the fact that blatant abuse is viewed as “love”. It’s not love. It’s toxicity, and it’s not fair. And I do genuinely find it to be bullshit that TM & Co feel no need to acknowledge any part of it.
So yeah. (In closing, I'd believe Eddie really did any kind of recent therapy if his characterization actually showed it.)
