Naming Maddie and Chim’s baby Robert Nash Han weeks ( or months, don't understand show's timeline anymore) after Bobby died doesn’t feel like a tribute. It feels re-traumatizing.
If someone I loved deeply had died—especially in a tragic, traumatic way—and then weeks later someone close to me named their baby their full name like “Robert Nash,” I’d be wrecked every time I heard it.
It’s not sweet. It’s not healing. It’s grief on loop.
Grief doesn’t need a constant echo. A tribute should bring comfort—not reopen the wound every time someone says the name. That’s why people usually go for middle names or subtle nods—something that honors without overshadowing.
Instead, this feels less like a sweet memorial and more like… emotional possession by proxy. Like the writers are trying to resurrect Bobby through this baby instead of letting his death land.
And Athena calling the baby “hi Bobby”?
That’s not your husband reborn. That’s a newborn.
It’s giving ghost baby. It’s giving unresolved grief. It’s giving “this poor child will grow up being a walking memorial.”
That’s not comforting—it’s creepy. The emotional logic just isn’t there.
So while Jee-Yun’s name was love, Robert’s name feels like loss that hasn’t been dealt with.
Instead of honoring Bobby by living better, the show made a baby his namesake like he's being reinserted into the narrative.
That’s not tribute — that’s emotional displacement.
I don’t think Buck ever truly understood what Tommy needed from him.
He didn’t need a grand gesture —
Just a confident sign.
A crack in the door. A flicker of warmth. Some signal that says: you’re allowed to try.
And when he gets that?
He moves.
— Buck says he wanted Tommy’s attention → Tommy kisses him.
— Buck says maybe he’s ready for something → Tommy says yes. Shows up to the party. Shows up to the wedding.
— Buck and Tommy hook up → Tommy makes breakfast, unpacks the coffee machine, buys champagne like maybe this means something.
— Buck says thank you → Tommy says, “And for you.”
He doesn’t storm in.
He doesn’t force his way into anyone’s life.
He just reads the room, and when he sees the smallest opening — he acts. Quietly, decisively, fully, with care.
But Buck never understood that.
And that’s the real tragedy.
Buck’s emotional. He feels everything.
But he doesn’t act on it without certainty.
He spirals. He waits to be invited.
Tommy? He came out late. He lived through silence.
He was in the Army. Under Gerrard. Engaged to a woman once.
He knows how to live with restraint — and still, somehow, he shows up.
Especially for someone like Tommy, who spent years in places where silence was survival — he’s not going to beg.
But he will take the risk, if you leave the door cracked.
And S8 Buck? Never did. Not enough.
During the breakup, Tommy said something real:
“I know how this ends. I’m your first, not your last.”
He put his fear on the table.
Buck did try — he even said, “they can be the same thing”
But even that wasn’t something Tommy could hold onto.
It was a maybe, not a confident yes.
And when Tommy reached for something solid?
Buck didn’t say, “You’re wrong.”
He didn’t say, “I want this.”
He didn’t say, “Stay.”
So Tommy left.
Later, at the bar, Tommy brought it up — said he thought about reaching out.
He drove past Buck’s place. He typed the message.(bubbling)
(But Buck never opened the door. So Tommy never hit send.)
Buck shut it down with : “No way.”
No opening. No invitation. Just more confusion.
Then Buck invited him. And Tommy took that as hope.
He didn’t just stay the night — he unpacked the coffee machine. He brought food. He probably bought champagne.
He thought it meant something.
But when Buck lashed out:
“You know, I don't have to want to sleep with everyone I have feelings for. And I don't have to have feelings for everyone I sleep with.”
Tommy read the room again.
Said, “Got it.” And left.
Not because he didn’t care.
But because he’d learned to stop reaching where he’s not wanted.
And the part that breaks me?
Buck knew.
He told Maddie the morning after: “I was cruel.”
Said, “I should call him.”
But he never did.
And this is where our headcanon comes in — because based on everything we’ve seen from Tommy:
If Buck had called.
Even just a text. Even unsure, even messy.
Tommy would’ve taken the chance.
He’s always taken the chance.
So yeah. Maybe Buck felt rejected and abandoned.
Maybe he thought Tommy gave up too fast.
But from Tommy’s side?
He’d kissed first. Said yes first. Shown up every time.
He’d taken risks, again and again — every time Buck gave him a sliver of permission.
And Buck never realized how easy it would’ve been to meet him halfway.
He just needed one more sign.
And he would’ve come back.
Like he always did.
PS: This is just my interpretation — canon-supported but built on emotional headcanon. Personally, I don’t think Tommy ran because he was scared. I think he didn’t see an opening. And Buck never realized Tommy didn’t need a guarantee — just a signal. he would moves the second he's allowed. Always open to thoughts, counterpoints, or things I missed — would love to discuss more 💬
he wasn’t supposed to matter this much — and yet he did
let’s talk about her obsession for a second (because mine doesn’t need a reason) — because she’s not even in the fandom.
and honestly? she’s not wrong.
that tiny pilot with maybe twenty minutes of total screen time still managed to leave more impact than most long-term characters.
which got me thinking — not about her obsession, but why everyone’s reaction to tommy, the breakup, and even the silence after felt so intense.
so let’s talk about that. It's very long read. I just wanted to put all my thoughts in one place.
the accidental success of tommy kinard
tommy was never meant to be the guy.
he was supposed to be a fun reintroduction — a storm-chasing pilot who helps 118 pull off a cinematic rescue and maybe gives buck something to bounce off emotionally. a narrative experiment; that’s it.
but something unexpected happened.
lou ferrigno jr. played him like a real person.
from the first moment we saw him — calm in chaos, flying into a hurricane like it’s just another tuesday — the audience was hooked. and then, when the chaos gave way to small talk, self-awareness, and that quiet gentleness in the kiss scene… something clicked.
tommy wasn’t a stereotype. he wasn’t written for spectacle. he felt human. he carried himself with quiet confidence and a hint of regret — the kind of presence that doesn’t feel written, it just exists.
we learned just enough to understand him: a tough past, a strained relationship with his father, years spent hiding who he was under captain gerard’s old-school toxicity. suddenly, the version of tommy we met back in season 2 made sense. that brusqueness, that chip on his shoulder — it wasn’t arrogance, it was survival.
and people related to that.
not just queer viewers. not just fans. anyone who’s ever had to hide parts of themselves to fit in. anyone who’s lived a life that made them cautious, or older than their years.
narrative investment through scarcity
funny thing about tv: the less they show you, the more you build yourself.
tommy barely had lines, but the lines he did have felt like full sentences of emotional history.
that’s called implied character investment — when a performance is strong enough that people fill in the blanks.
viewers gave tommy an entire backstory because he felt real. they built the connective tissue the show didn’t have time to.
that’s how you end up with a character who appears for maybe six episodes total and still becomes unforgettable.
accidental sincerity
this is where the writing and the performance clashed — beautifully, accidentally.
tim minear and oliver stark have both hinted that buck/tommy was meant to be a short-term story — a “coming-out” arc, not a love story.
they saw it as an experiment.
but lou ferrigno jr. and the way the scenes were shot gave it sincerity the script didn’t anticipate.
the gentleness of the first kiss, the steady voice in the breakup, the calm sadness in his eyes — it all felt honest. not symbolic.
and when you give audiences something emotionally real, they treat it as emotionally real.
that’s why, when the relationship ended, people weren’t just disappointed — they felt betrayed.
because the show told us to care, and then acted like we shouldn’t have.
the realism of tommy’s breakup
tommy saying “no” to moving in wasn’t a rejection. it was realism.
he saw what buck didn’t: projection. the rush of being wanted. that they weren’t ready, that the relationship was still too new, too idealized.
he wasn’t saying i don’t love you — he was saying love isn’t supposed to feel like running.
but buck, being buck, heard that as distance.
he turned “not yet” into “never.”
and tommy, caught between boundaries and affection, accidentally broke up without meaning to.
that little moment of surprise — the “yeah, i guess i did” — still hurts, because it tells us even he didn’t expect it to end like that. and he was so gentle and careful through it.
it wasn’t about gender or queerness.
it was about life experience — the kind that makes you cautious with hope.
and that’s what made him so relatable.
narrative neglect
if you go back and watch season 8, you can feel how their relationship got lost in the shuffle.
every scene they had together was interrupted — eddie was in every shared frame. even the editing echoed tommy’s line about “competition.”
even the show’s own framing mirrored tommy’s frustration: he was never the priority.
so when he finally said eddie felt like competition, it wasn’t jealousy.
it was emotional exhaustion.
the man was just tired of waiting to matter.
that’s what audiences picked up on — not rivalry, but recognition.
parallels with abby (and why the ga understood them)
it’s no accident that the two people the ga connected to most — abby and tommy — were both adults rediscovering themselves.
abby wasn’t perfect; she hurt buck too.
but viewers understood her because they’d been her: burned out, lonely, trying to start over.
abby left to find who she was after years of caregiving.
same with tommy — he was learning how to live openly after years of hiding.
different journey, same emotional truth: being brave enough to start again after hiding for years.
that’s why their exits hurt more than buck’s heartbreaks usually do. they didn’t feel like plot points; they felt like people leaving. both were forgiven by viewers. because they were real.
abby’s arc hit people who’d felt trapped — in relationships, in routines, in responsibility.
tommy’s hit people who’d ever felt late to their own life. those who’ve loved cautiously because life taught them to. those who know the fear of being too much and not enough at the same time.
the general audience didn’t connect to tommy because he was a love interest — they connected because he felt lived in.
he wasn’t written as a fantasy. he was someone who’d made mistakes, carried regret, and still managed to be gentle.
and you don’t need to share his sexuality to recognize that kind of humanity.
that’s why both abby and tommy left a mark — because they reminded people of themselves. and when the show moved on like it never happened, it felt like it was erasing them, too.
the relationship hamster wheel
and maybe that’s the real reason the breakup felt so heavy — not because of what it was, but what it meant.
buck’s love life is a loop.
every season: meet someone → crash → say “i’m learning.”
after nine seasons, that line has stopped meaning anything.
at some point, “learning” starts to sound like “refusing to grow.”
tommy represented something the show hasn’t let buck have: maturity.
a relationship that wasn’t chaotic, performative, or about rescuing someone.
it was calm. steady. adult.
losing that felt like watching the writers hit rewind — back to the version of buck who learns the same lesson for the ninth time.
the “what the fuck happened” reaction
when the breakup aired, even casual viewers blinked. wait, that’s it?
that’s not a ship meltdown — that’s narrative confusion.
people felt like they’d just been asked to care about something the show immediately discarded.
that’s what “accidental sincerity” does — it makes the audience take your story more seriously than you intended.
sure, most ga viewers have moved on now.
but that initial sense of what the fuck happened came from genuine investment.
the cost of resetting growth
nine seasons of lessons, people stopped buying the idea of “growth.”
tommy’s story could’ve been the moment buck finally stepped out of that loop — a relationship built on calm, not chaos.
instead, it became another discarded chapter in a show that mistakes repetition for evolution.
and this is true for the other main characters too — the same repetition of “evolution.”
and maybe that’s what stings most: buck keeps feeling deeply, but never acting on it.
he bakes, he grieves, he spirals — but he never reaches out.
not after the breakup, not after the hookup, not even after tommy helped him in the biolab rescue.
the ball’s been in his court for months, and he’s still standing there, holding it.
he’s just so passive for a guy the show keeps framing as a go-getter.
he’ll throw himself into danger for the 118, but never into vulnerability for himself.
and that’s the tragedy — not that tommy walked away, but that buck stayed still. He always does.
and maybe that’s why people still talk about him
maybe people have moved on now.
maybe buck will stay single till the finale and the writers will call it closure.
tommy shouldn’t have mattered this much. he wasn’t meant to.
and yet, somehow, he did.
because sometimes a character written as a footnote walks on screen and reminds everyone what sincerity looks like.
and once that happens, you can’t unsee it.
I’ve seen posts dismissing Buck and Tommy’s relationship as shallow or forgettable — and I get it, it was short, Tommy’s a guest star, the arc ended quietly.
But I think reducing it like that misses something much more interesting the show was actually trying to do — about Buck, about emotional intimacy, and about what it means to be seen in a relationship.
This isn’t about shipping, or trying to make a case for “endgame.” It’s about giving narrative weight its due. And about why Tommy Kinard, even in limited screen time, brought something out of Buck we’ve rarely — if ever — seen before.
🧵 Re: That Buck/Tommy Take — I Disagree (Here’s Why It Deserves More Respect)
I got an anon earlier, and out of respect for their request, I won’t post it directly — but the gist was this:
“Buck and Tommy’s relationship wasn’t that deep. Tommy wasn’t a good partner. Why are people so obsessed with it? Can we stop fixating like it mattered?”
And respectfully?
Absolutely not. That reading misses a lot of what the show actually did — and what it meant. Let’s talk about it.
1. “It wasn’t that deep.”
Then why did it break Buck?
If it was just a fling, why did he:
Go into full spiral trying to get Tommy’s attention in 7x04?
Ask for a second chance and a coffee date — then invite him to Maddie’s wedding as a date (7x05)? That’s not something you do for just anyone.
Practically burst out of the closet to his family when Tommy showed up (7x06)?
Obsessively bake, spiral, and hesitate on texting Tommy again in 8x07? (Compare that to how he treated Taylor, Ali, or even Natasha post-breakup. Nothing. This was different.)
The entirety of 8x11 episode?
Start peacocking in a helicopter in 8x15?
That’s not surface-level. That’s a man who caught real feelings and didn’t know how to handle them.
And Tommy? He wasn’t untouched either.
The shock on his face during the breakup, the sadness in the bar conversation, the heartbreak the morning after — and even in that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in 8x15, watching Buck’s hallway breakdown from across the room — all of it points to something deeper. He felt this.
Maybe he didn’t expect it to be serious. But it became serious — quietly, fully, and in ways that clearly left a mark.
2. “Tommy wasn’t a good partner.”
This one honestly stings. Because Tommy might be the best partner Buck’s had on-screen.
He respected Buck’s boundaries. Checked in often.
He prioritized Buck. He prioritized Buck’s comfort — comforting him post Buck’s basketball spiral, showed up to the wedding like it meant something, and turned into a doting boyfriend during the Billy boils drama.
He offered open, enthusiastic affection — called Buck hot, smart, impulsive, adorable… repeatedly. To his face.
And Buck? Buck called him “cool.” Once. At the very beginning.
Tommy gave emotional warmth constantly. Buck basked in it — but we never saw him offer the same back. That’s not on Tommy.
3. “They barely developed it.”
Yes, Tommy was a guest star. The screen time was limited.
But don’t pretend there was no development — because there was, and more quickly than some longer arcs. (Cough Taylor.)
We got:
Initial attraction
Mutual admiration
Emotional hesitation
A breakup with actual dialogue
A post-breakup hookup, driven by unresolved feeling
Lingering fallout that continued afterward
That’s more emotional continuity than Buck’s had with multiple long-term love interests. If the writers didn’t mean for it to matter, they sure wasted a lot of carefully written scenes making it feel like it did.
And yes — we keep using the same five scenes to prove our point. Because that’s what we got.
But what we got? Was charged. Focused. Intentional. Emotionally dense.
And let’s be real: screen time is scarce on a show like 9-1-1. It’s not a character drama — half the runtime is dedicated to emergency calls, visual effects, and procedural pacing. Everyone’s fighting for space. Ryan Guzman literally said scenes get cut all the time. Oliver and others have talked about emotional beats that never made it in.
So the fact that Buck and Tommy still got this much? That alone should tell you the writers wanted it to land. And it did.
4. Tommy brought out something new in Buck
What sticks isn’t just the dynamic — it’s who Buck got to be inside it.
He was softer. More grounded. He wasn’t chasing a high or trying to play a role. He was allowed to be unapologetically Buck — extra, campy, chaotic — and Tommy met him there.
No need to impress. Just… show up. And be seen.
Hell, even his whole look shifted — relaxed in a way that felt intentional. Not just a “new season” change, but a visible softening. His hair. His clothes. His vibe. It was noticeable.
That’s rare for Buck. And worth paying attention to.
Just because a relationship was short doesn’t mean it was shallow.
Just because it ended doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.
Just because you didn’t care for it doesn’t mean the story didn’t.
You don’t have to ship it. But pretending it was meaningless? That’s a disservice to what we actually got — and to a character who, for once, saw Buck clearly… and liked what he saw.
P.S.
This isn’t about being a Lou Ferrigno Jr. fan account or trying to hate on people who ship other characters with Buck.
I genuinely love character analysis — we’ve been doing it for others as well — and this post or previous are coming from that place, not from bias or bitterness.
You don’t have to ship Buck/Tommy. But if we’re going to talk about what the show chose to give us? Then let’s give it the credit — and the critique — it deserves.
Fandom has a way of turning every moment into a test. Who you support, what you criticize, how loudly you do it — it all gets measured. And lately, it feels less like people are talking about the show, and more like they’re competing over who can be the most outraged.
But not every situation is the same. There’s a difference between a pattern of harmful behavior and a handful of reposts that some find questionable. What looks alarming to one group may not even register for another. Flattening those differences into “cancel equally or you’re a hypocrite” isn’t accountability — it’s performance.
The truth is, people are messy. Characters are messy. None of us are going to think, vote, or react the same way. That doesn’t make one person more virtuous and another less. It just makes us human.
Outrage isn’t the same thing as integrity. And demanding that everyone react in lockstep doesn’t build community — it turns difference into war. If you don’t like someone, step back. If you don’t like their work, don’t consume it. That’s a boundary. What it doesn’t need to be is a crusade.
Fandom isn’t supposed to be a purity contest. It’s supposed to be a place to share what we love, disagree without destroying, and recognize that the world is grey, not black and white. We don’t need to join every outrage cycle to prove where we stand.
At the end of the day, the only person you can hold accountable every day is yourself. Everyone else? Let them be.
P.S. Leave people alone. We don’t actually know Lou’s views from a few reposts — and even if we did, they’d still be his. I stepped away for a month and came back to another meltdown.
P.P.S. To my anons: I’m sorry for not responding or sharing sooner — I was living in a weird world for a while and stepped back from socials.. Some of your asks about Eddie or Tommy, I’ll still share soon, but let me know if you don’t care anymore after the month-long gap. The one about Lou’s reshare I won’t be posting; I don’t care enough to put it out here. Politics is personal, and I’d like to keep it away from this page. I also don’t want to join performative outrage.
9-1-1 Season 9: Buck & Tommy — Drag, Rebuild, or Scrap?
Where we left things: Buck and Tommy’s story so far is surprisingly short if you lay it out on paper. They met in 7x03 during the hurricane rescue of Bobby and Athena, kissed in 7x04, and went on their first date in 7x05. By the end of 8x06, they were broken up. Then came the one-night stand in 8x11, a shared mission in the biolab arc, and Tommy attending Bobby’s funeral in 8x16 as a pallbearer.
On paper, that’s a year and a half of story; two seasons of yes → no → yes → no with very little foundation built on-screen. The infamous “six months of dating” mostly happened offscreen. The breakup came during the first real conflict we actually saw, and the hookup in 8x11 added some spark but no depth.
That’s why the question heading into Season 9 is tricky: what do you even do with them now?
Option 1: Keep them estranged
The slow-drag route. Buck spends the early episodes grieving Bobby, while Tommy hovers at the edges: around the 118, in air-support missions, and at firefighter memorials. They circle each other, share meaningful glances, but don’t move forward.
→ Risk: pause fatigue. 9-1-1 doesn’t write long, nuanced slow burns; it does big swing → drop → reset. We’ve already seen that cycle once.
Option 2: Rebuild fast, then show the milestones
If the writers want BuckTommy to matter, reconnect them early (maybe grief as the bridge, urgency as the catalyst) and finally let us watch them build the relationship on screen. Give us the milestones we never got in S7–8: actual dates, talks, conflict and resolution, learning each other’s rhythms.
Basically, retrofit the six months we were robbed of.
Option 3: Scrap Tommy entirely
Wouldn’t be shocking if the show drops him like Abby, Ali, and Taylor. Tommy becomes “the one who got away,” and Buck gets shunted into another forced-growth arc.
But Tommy carrying Bobby’s casket wasn’t a disposable choice; it tethered him symbolically again to the 118. Dropping him now would feel cheap, even by 9-1-1 standards.
Why this feels hollow compared to Lone Star
Unlike any of Buck’s relationships, Lone Star’s Tarlos had a clear structure. Every season gave them a milestone:
S1 → hook-up / dating
S2 → moving in + breakup
S3 → reconciliation + engagement
S4 → wedding
S5 → marriage conflict + resolution
Even when messy, there was a skeleton. Each season added a rung on the ladder.
BuckTommy? First Kiss → dating → breakup in under two seasons. No milestones, no foundation. That’s why dragging this out now feels tedious — déjà vu with none of the investment.
So, what will Season 9 do?
If BuckTommy is meant to be endgame, the writers hopefully commit early and use Season 9 to show the growth they skipped.
If they’re not, they owe a clean resolution instead of another loop of pause and ambiguity.
Right now, it feels like they broke BuckTommy up way too early. Another season of circling each other with no payoff would just make the whole thing feel hollow.
PS: Tim, please don’t let this be another dropped thread. We’ll root for BuckTommy either way... just… be kind this time 🙏.
❌ What Should Not Happen Between Buck and Tommy in Season 9
(And why it’s harmful if it does)
⚠️ Disclaimer:
This isn’t about policing queer identity. People explore. People learn. People fall in love late. That’s all valid. But this is about how media frames queerness — and how 9-1-1 risks reinforcing damaging tropes that queer audiences are exhausted by. When straight love stories are treated as stable and romantic, but queer ones are messy, painful, or never quite “enough,” it stops being representation and starts being a pattern. Especially in 9-1-1, where Buck and Tommy had a chance at something emotionally grounded and real — and the show chose to throw it away. What happens next matters. Not trying to overstep— — just putting into words what I don’t want to see happen.
TL;DR: Stop treating queerness like a detour.
Buck doesn’t need to date around to realize he loved Tommy.
Tommy isn’t a placeholder.
And if Buck won’t talk to him now, don’t pretend he’ll magically be ready for someone else.
Growth means honesty. Not avoidance.
🚫 What Should NOT Happen:
1. Buck “explores” queerness by dating multiple men or women before realizing Tommy was “the one”
→ Bisexuality doesn’t need to be proven through hookups. Tommy is not a test run.
2. Tommy stays emotionally stuck, waiting for Buck to figure himself out
→ That’s not love. That’s sidelining. Tommy deserves a story that isn’t on pause.
3. Buck returns with no growth, just longing
→ Love isn’t a Band-Aid for what you refused to confront. Do the work or stay away.
4. Tommy is framed as Buck’s “first but not true” queer love
→ This is the starter-boyfriend trope. It’s outdated, demeaning, and Tommy deserves better.
5. Tommy starts dating someone else, but they’re just filler before Buck returns
→ New relationships aren’t fake just because they’re not with the protagonist.
6. Tommy is punished by the narrative for moving on
→ Moving on is not betrayal. Stop treating emotional survival like a character flaw.
7. Buck’s queerness is only shown through hookups or heartbreak
→ Being queer doesn’t mean suffering has to be your default love language.
8. Tommy’s new partner is written as toxic just to make Buck look good
→ That’s not drama. That’s manipulation dressed as plot. Let Tommy choose well.
9. Buck dates someone awful just to realize Tommy was “the good one”
→ Let Buck grow — not get traumatized into appreciation. Regret isn’t a love story.
10. Buck avoids accountability, hoping time will “solve” things instead of talking to Tommy
→ You don’t magically become ready in the next relationship if you never faced the last one. Passivity is not a personality. It's avoidance.
If Buck truly loves Tommy — he should talk to him. Be direct. Be honest.
If he doesn’t love him — then he should stay away.
✨ Bonus Tropes to Watch Out For in Season 9:
(Because Sometimes Writers Can’t Help Themselves)
11. “Now that he’s queer, Buck must suffer more than anyone else”
→ Buck has already carried a mountain of emotional pain. Queerness shouldn’t mean more punishment.
12. “Tommy should forgive anything, because Buck’s figuring it out”
→ This is the same trap Hen/Karen fell into. Hen cheated, Karen had to be “understanding.” Emotional labor ≠ love.
13. “Now that Buck is bi, he becomes hypersexual or ‘confused’ by everyone”
→ Being bi doesn’t mean you lose your emotional depth or loyalty.
14. “Queer love is always tragic; straight love is stable”
→ Hen/Karen? Nearly broken up. Buck/Tommy? Already broken.
15. “One queer character is deep, the other becomes a plot device”
→ Tommy should not become “the guy Buck almost texts.” He deserves his own arc, not ghost-status.
16. Buck’s queerness is “proven,” then erased by pairing him with a woman
→ Bisexuality isn’t a checkbox or a detour. If Buck dates a woman just to “balance” the narrative, that’s not representation — that’s quiet erasure.
🛑 For contrast: Lone Star handled queerness with more care. (not perfect or that they didn't frustrate with lazy writing)
TK and Carlos already knew they were gay — and their story began with clarity, not confusion. Buck’s journey is different. That’s valid.
But Lone Star gave its queer characters stability, love, and respect, even while showing their flaws.
Carlos’s past marriage to a woman was treated with emotional honesty — not used to erase his queerness.
Neither of them needed to “sleep around” to prove their identity or seriousness about each other.
And their pain (drug abuse, deaths, etc ) didn’t define their queerness — their commitment did.
Mainline 9-1-1 could — and should — learn from that.
💬 Before You Write the Next Chapter:
Buck doesn’t need to date more men or women to figure out if he loves Tommy.
Either he does, or he doesn’t.
What he doesn’t get to do is use other people as stepping stones to decide.
Queerness isn’t a test you pass by hurting people.
And love isn’t something you discover by leaving a trail of emotional casualties.
If Buck loves Tommy — let him show up.
If he doesn’t — let him leave him alone.
But don’t make someone else suffer just so he can answer a question he’s too scared to ask.
💬 Final Thought:
If Buck and Tommy reunite, let it be because they choose each other again — from a place of growth, honesty, and mutual readiness.
Not because everyone else failed.
Not because one waited while the other wandered.
And not because the show needed one more tortured queer arc.
If they don’t reunite — then let that be a choice that respects them both.
No more tropes. No more lessons. No more ghosts.
Just grown-ups. Talking. Feeling. Choosing.
Let’s just walk away from using tired tropes to avoid doing the emotional work — in writing and in love. and using stereotypes to compensate for a lack of storytelling courage. Show some heart in the stories.
9-1-1 used to play like an album. now it’s just haunted noise.
(a pre-season 9 reflection on rhythm, stagnation, and tim minear’s ghosts)
There was a time when 9-1-1 felt like a full album — every episode its own track, but all flowing together.
You had your loud bangers (the disasters), your quiet ballads (the emotional beats), and that perfect rhythm that made the season feel like a story.
Now it’s like someone hit shuffle and walked away.
It’s not about how many episodes there are in a season: 10, 19, 24, whatever... It’s about intention. And somewhere along the line, He stopped writing with it. Every episode should connect, breathe, mean something. Instead, we get noise.
the lost rhythm
remember when the show had flow? when emotional arcs echoed from week to week?
now every episode exists in its own bubble.
buck grows, regresses, grows again.
eddie’s still angry.
athena keeps losing husbands.
maddie’s trauma just reboots every season.
hen and karen toggle between adoption and career crises like someone flipping a switch.
the emergencies are louder, sure. flashier, even. but the stories underneath? thinner. outlines of what they used to be.
And it sucks.
the forgotten depth
9-1-1 was built on the kind of backstories most shows dream of. Every character came in messy and human: addiction, grief, guilt, faith, survival. The first few seasons balanced all of that (somewhat) so well. The emergencies were the hook, but the personal stories were what made us care.
Now it’s like Tim can see the depth but doesn’t know how to navigate it anymore. His vision feels small — there is a creative paralysis. He acknowledges how complex these people are, but never really explores them. he gestures toward emotion, then pulls back before anything lands.
Buck’s search for identity, Eddie’s survivor’s guilt, Hen’s moral dilemmas, Athena’s balance between justice and mercy — all there. all half-written. It’s like he’s scared of what happens if he actually lets them change.
Audience looks at these characters — their past, their potential, and imagines a hundred ways their stories could grow.
But Tim? he writes with tunnel vision. At times, it feels he has nothing to say to us.
tim and his box of ghosts
Tim once said he regrets killing Shannon because she haunts Eddie’s storylines.
But maybe the truth is — it’s him.
Grief isn’t the problem. In fact, grief can yield some of the strongest and most impactful stories.
The problem is that Tim doesn’t know how to write people who are grieving and living at the same time.
A stronger showrunner would’ve given Eddie parallel emotional tracks:
one where he still remembers Shannon, still feels the guilt, and one where he’s learning to move forward, to stumble through something new, to live while hurting.
But instead, we’re stuck in purgatory, not because Shannon died, but because Tim doesn’t know how to let his characters grow.
and the same with Buck and his relationship hamster wheel.
In his latest relationship with Tommy, something that could’ve been new, complicated, alive, still ends up haunted by the same ghosts. Tim can’t seem to let Abby go, so every time Buck tries to move forward, the writing drags him back through the same emotional maze. different partner, same recycled beats.
Instead of growth, we get repetition dressed up as revelation. It’s the same pattern: buck opens up, learns something, regresses, starts over. It’s like Tim’s afraid to imagine Buck in a story that isn’t about fixing the past.
He keeps saying the characters are “haunted.”
But really, it’s his writing that’s haunted.
by unresolved arcs, by an inability to let go, by fear of building something new.
Instead of writing new conflicts, Tim just repackages old ones.
same themes, new packaging. again and again.
It’s not that grief or trauma are bad story elements; it’s that he treats them like anchors instead of stepping stones.
That’s why Eddie’s still stuck. That’s why Buck’s still haunted.
Because Tim doesn’t know how to write “moving on” without writing people out.
And that’s the real trap.
Bobby’s death should’ve been a reboot, not a wrap-up
when bobby died, the show had the perfect chance to shake itself awake.
to break the loop.
to make every character confront who they are when their foundation’s gone.
Instead, it became a three-episode arc.
buck isolated.
Eddie lashing out.
Hen backing down.
Maddie having another baby.
It wasn’t bad writing; it was unambitious writing.
a story that could’ve been a beginning turned into a band-aid.
Season 9 may pick it up. Maybe it won’t.
But the season 8 finale felt like he’d already given everyone closure in a way, but at least he did hint story will show new adjustments ...that Bobby will keep haunting, and a reshuffle may happen at 118. ...so will seeeeee.👀👀
it doesn’t have to be deep — it just has to connect
No one’s asking 9-1-1 to be grey’s anatomy or shameless. We know it’s a procedural.
But even procedurals need rhythm, purpose, and flow.
it doesn’t have to be deep. it just has to be intentional.
right now, it’s not an album anymore. it’s a jumble of singles that forgot the story they were meant to tell.
before season 9 premieres
I just want the show to remember its own heartbeat.
to care about the quiet moments again.
to stop chasing shock value and start caring about what lingers after.
the sirens can keep wailing, the emergencies can keep getting bigger...but if the rhythm stays broken, it’s still just haunted noise.
PS: pre-season 9 brain dump. If the tim/show proves me wrong, I’ll happily eat my words.
