Here's how the BuckTommy break-up should've went down...
Tommy reveals that him and Abby were previously engaged and Buck become visibly bothered at the mention of her When Tommy presses him on it, he tells him about his history with her and how she just left him in LA without bothering to formally break-up with him, along with him finding out she was engaged when they encountered each other at the train emergency.
But Tommy being Tommy ends up cracking a couple of jokes at Buck's expense and is relatively insensitive about how Abby's ghosting impacted Buck, leaving Buck hurt and a bit embarrassed as Tommy leaves him to pay the bill.
Then, he can go to see Maddie at work where he vents to her about what happened. Then they can have the whole scene with Joss giving his advice.
BUT, instead of listening solely to Josh, Buck goes to see Hen.
Buck tells her about what happened and she is immediately sympathetic. He ends up telling her that he never expected Tommy to be so insensitive about what he went through with Abby and how it didn't seem to be like him, only for Hen to make a slight jab about how that's exactly what Tommy is like. Buck is immediately alarmed and ends up pressing Hen to tell him more until she finally caves. She tells him about the way Tommy treated her when she first came to the 118 and how he did the same thing to Chim. She even decides to go as far as to make him privy to the conversation she and Karen had with Tommy at the medal ceremony.
Buck, obviously, is stunned and horrified at what he learned and immediately leaves the Wilson household.
Once he's back home, he spends the whole time running through his entire relationship with Tommy from the first kiss up to now. And while he can think back to a couple of good moments, the moments that come back up the most are the bad ones.
Him leaving Buck behind at the restaurant.
Him devouring cupcakes while Eddie's getting his heart shattered.
How pessimistic he was at the medal ceremony reception.
How he practically admitted he and his coworkers were laughing at him getting his shoulder relocated.
Him not bothering to indulge his research.
How he practically called him ugly because of his boils and didn't even attempt to kiss him.
Every single comment he made on how hot he was and not a single one about his interests, likes, or him as a person.
And as of late, him making jokes about him being ghosted.
All instances where he felt stomped on while his partner was going on like nothing happened.
The same way that Abby did when he learned she ghosted him and came back in his life with a whole new fiance.
After that, Buck calls Tommy to meet him at his place.
Later that night, Tommy comes over and Buck lays out everything on the table. He tells him about how hard and lowkey embarrassing it was to tell him about how he was also seeing Abby and how the relationship ended and how he didn't appreciate how Tommy reacted to it. Tommy tries to deflect and say that he was only being funny, but Buck pushes back. He brings up all of the times he hurt him and how it surprised him to know that he's done the same to so many people.
Tommy ends up asking where he got that from and Buck says nothing. But after a few seconds, he asks if Hen or Chim told him something and Buck gets furious. He scolds Tommy for being so bigoted towards them and how it made no sense for him to treat them like that when he was a gay man. Tommy tries to make an excuse about him being in the closet and going along with Gerrard to protect himself, but Buck immediately shuts it down.
The two of them continue to have a back and forth and it isn't until Tommy tells him to "grow up" that Buck stops arguing, a look of finality flashing across his face. He ends up telling Tommy point blank that he really liked him and how he made him realize a part of himself that he never knew existed, but he couldn't be with someone so dismissive and so capable of hurting other people with no regard for their feelings.
Tommy immediately laughs it up and asks Buck if he's actually breaking up with him. And Buck says yes with no hesitation.
Seeing that he's serious, Tommy heads to the door but not before commenting on how he thought Buck was cute and how they could have some fun out of it, but he was wrong. He opens the door and says "See you around, Evan."
And Buck, with a look of seriousness and resigned hurt, simply says.
"My name is Buck. If you actually cared to know me, you'd know that."
Why the BuckTommy break-up fell flat narratively...
Disclaimer: I am not defending this ship. I hate it and I'm glad it's dead.
1. Prior to the break-up, he made a jab at Abby for dating a guy half her age and riding Buck off as "a himbo." Even though he's literally doing the same exact thing.
That, kids, is what we call "hypocrisy."
2. Tommy said that he "knows how the relationship ends."
Sir, if you know how it ends, why did you go for it in the first place? This just gives off that he was only dating Buck either for a good time or because Eddie wasn't showing any signs of interest, so he just settled for his bestie.
3. Tommy tries to pawn off the catalyst of the relationship ending on Buck, saying that he would "break his heart."
Even though HE was the one doing all the heart-breaking shit to BUCK throughout the entire goddamn relationship.
4. Josh's dumbass advice.
Okay, that's not fair. Josh's advice wasn't dumb per-say, but it was completely irrelevant to Buck's issue. I know that he probably doesn't really know who Tommy is, but making him sound like he was this gay pioneer who led the charge at Stonewall and that his scars should be respected?
Absolute nope.
It ended up making Buck's move-in proposal feel like he was doing it out of obligation because Tommy's been out longer than he has, so why shouldn't he ask him to move in with him?
And on that topic...
5. The return of the hamster wheel
You would think that after dumping Taylor the way he did, Buck would remember that he doesn't necessarily have to hold on to relationships that aren't working and he can just cut it loose, right?
Wrong.
Instead, they have Buck actually take Josh's advice and pull a Taylor 2.0 by asking Tommy to move in with him. This show continues to leave Buck on that fucking hamster wheel instead of letting him get off and it's working my nerve. Even if this was just the show's way of showing that Buck's toxic relationship tendencies don't change because he's with someone of the same sex, it's still redundant and annoying.
6. Buck.
The first and only time Tommy chooses to refer to Buck by his preferred name is when he's dropping him like a baked potato.
And the show never even gave Buck the chance to tell him off about it.
The fucking audacity.
And finally,
7. TOMMY KINARD HIMSELF
This whole scene, the narrative tries to paint Tommy out to be this sympathetic character all throughout, making him look all sad and talking about how "he knew the parking spot was too good to be true" and citing Buck to be the one who would break his heart.
Despite the fact that he literally broke Buck's again just seconds ago.
I'll never understand why the show decided to take this route with Tommy's character for the episode even though in past episodes, he's been canonically depicted to be insensitive at best and flat out bigoted at worse. And throughout the entirety of his and Buck's relationship, he has said and done things that have hurt Buck and he never even apologized for it. And if he did apologize, he gave a lame apology as to why he did do.
*cough* first date *cough cough*
And it definitely doesn't help matters that the show made the active choice not to bring up his past actions within the relationship or for Buck to even know about it. Instead, they made Abby the catalyst for the break up when it could've been Tommy himself being the catalyst.
Obviously, there were a million ways the show could've given the BuckTommy break-up a major impact and there were definitely ways they could've made the break-up solid with the Abby revelation.
All in all, the break-up could've been executed better, but at least the ship is dead.
Given Tommy's comment about Gerrard and his relationship with him, I would absolutely not be surprised if that ended up causing conflict in their relationship given Gerrard being the 118 captain again.
We all know that Gerrard is gonna be on his bullshit and come after everyone and Buck, regardless if he's a target or not, is not gonna let that man talk reckless to him or his team. But I wouldn't put it past Tommy to tell him to just keep his head down, let Gerrard talk his nonsense, and not to say anything.
Even if that means letting Eddie and everyone else be punching bags and get insulted and ridiculed.
And Buck is just gonna be so confused and lowkey pissed off that he expects him to be quiet and let that dickwad bully his family. And he'll most definitely be giving Tommy a bombastic side eye about it.
