i’m sure it’s been brought up by someone else but would it be a reach to say that whats-his-face and whats-her-name from ep 7 are meant to be a callback to buck’s discomfort over tommy having been abby’s fiance and the discomfort he felt in that situation where it made him feel like didn’t belong in that relationship anymore? like i know with abby and tommy, he questioned tommy’s treatment of abby and how he thought it was wrong for tommy to “lie” to her, but even then i never thought that was the actual point of buck’s discomfort…
(this is going to be a long ask so i apologize)
i’m going to try and make this make as much sense as possible, but here we go
abby was buck’s first serious adult relationship, just like tommy was buck’s first relationship after discovering an element of himself that he had been missing up until then (i’m not going to go into detail on all of the parallels between tommy and abby bc it’s been done time and time again)
but we see a certain level of disinterest from tommy towards buck throughout their relationship; when we get to 8x06, they try to imply through the whole josh glee speech thing that buck’s main source of discomfort in their relationship is that tommy lied to abby about his sexuality. even at the time i didn’t buy that reasoning because it feels a bit out of character for buck to consider breaking up with tommy for not being comfortable coming out to abby… i think the real reason was that he began putting pieces together in his mind and was drawing conclusions the audience already had.
buck was basically a rebound for abby (ik that’s watering it down a little bit but for all intents and purposes…) she basically told him as much after the train derailment, and practically had the same exact “i’m your first not last” conversation with him as tommy ended up having.
i think deep down, buck realized that to both abby and tommy, he was never something serious- he was kind of (again watering it down a bit) just a fun fling for both of them and only found out after the fact that not only had he been used for that purpose, but it wasn’t communicated to him until it was over.
buck very much wants a full two-sided relationship with someone that he can settle down with. he knows this, and we know this. which is why i think initially, when ep 7 came out and the whole moral of the episode was “oh buck realizes he wants to find love” people took pause and felt a bit annoyed that the plotline felt a bit like beating a dead horse, especially considering that was effectively what buck’s entire arc w tommy was in s8.
now, looking at s8 and how things kind of got derailed, i think it makes sense that they are now trying to revive that point for buck if they are planning on continuing his story this season the same way they were going to in s8 (whatever that may be)
and they did that by having buck sleep with a married couple. they intentionally made the choice to have him sleep with them separately, not together, when (if the whole point of the episode was JUST about buck wanting to find love) they could have easily just had him sleep with both of them at once. but by sleeping with them separately he doesn’t realize they are a couple, and doesn’t realize that it’s a casual thing for either of them until after the fact. combine that with the symbolism of buck hooking up with the woman “first” and the man “second” (ik the montage it was intercut but it started with him going out with the woman first and he got her number first too), and to me the parallels between tommy and abby become very clear- a couple (former in tommy and abby’s case) who used him as a fling without telling him until after the fact and left him at the conclusion that he wanted something serious more than casual.
i feel like this comparison has to have already been made but i haven’t seen it anywhere and i think it’s a very interesting concept considering what they seemingly were setting up last season with buck (and eddie)… and i was curious what your thoughts on this angle are?
again i apologize for the long ask, i just couldn’t figure out a way to make this more concise 😭
Hey Nonnie.
Thanks for such a great and in depth ask. I really agree with pretty much everything you’ve said and it’s a lot of the way I feel about things. I definitely think we’re meant to see Jade and Zane as parallels to Abby and tommy. Even on just a surface level we have Buck being pursued by both people who were or are part of a relationship with one another - specifically for his being a “unicorn” not one of them was actually interested in Buck the person all four relationships (of whatever length they were) were all focused on what Buck could do to them, what he represented and not what was mutually beneficial.
I also agree - I don’t think that Tommy lying to Abby and his treatment of her as a result of the lying was the soul source of his discomfort - I do think it was a part of it, I think it made him question if he would be treated in a similar way or if Tommy was lying to him as well (which he was imo by virtue of not being upfront and honest about why he was with Buck or that he didn’t see the relationship being a long term one - until he was forced into that confession. And while there technically isn’t anything wrong I’m not stating from the get go that you don’t see the relationship as being long term etc - especially with Buck stating that he didn’t know what he was ready for - Tommy made no effort at all to check in and have that conversation at any point during the relationships length!) but not the main source.
I also think that the glee monologue from Josh was meant to highlight all the things missing from the relationship and actually get Buck to question his relationship - I don’t think it was meant to be a convincing argument in favour of Tommy - I think the intention was always for Buck to misunderstand what Josh was trying to do, to highlight (because that is the central theme of Bucks romantic journey - that he isn’t able to understand what he is looking for in a relationship because of his upbringing and that the relationships he keeps finding himself in are as a result of that upbringing - so he keeps associating physical intimacy with emotional intimacy because that is how his parents showed him love. He is learning to undo that conditioning) to the audience as much if not more than to Buck himself, all the things his relationship with Tommy is lacking - his reaction to Josh asking if he was in love with Tommy was revealing all on its own without the rest of the speech.
I think part of Bucks entire journey, especially since the network change and he and Tommy first kissed, has been very much centred on Bucks search for emotional connection and intimacy and showing how he’s getting better at figuring out when he isn’t getting that and also realising that he’s jumping to sexual intimacy too quickly - that he gets a tiny crumb of it and immediately jumps into bed with someone rather than taking the time to really get to know them before moving into a physical relationship. The Tommy of it all and his struggle with getting over that break up (initially), for me was centred around both paralleling the Abby of it all, whilst also highlighting exactly where Buck was getting his emotional intimacy and the fact that had been impacted - and he hadn’t truly recognised that and still doesn’t recognise what that meant.
I am of course talking about Eddie and Christopher - I remain strongly of the opinion that the BT relationship would not have lasted anywhere close to as long as it did had Kim not appeared on the scene and everything that went down there with Eddie causing Chris to leave. The web is super tangled up with this entire thing because there are multiple angles in which to see the ripples of what happened.
There is of course the physical absence of Chris - that had a big impact on Buck - his internalised failure to get Chris to stay with his dad in the aftermath the most obvious one, but also the fact that co-parenting Chris is actually a massive part of Bucks identity and self worth at this point - its an emotional tether he gains a huge amount of positivity from helping ground him and feel worthy in ways he doesn’t elsewhere in his life. There is obviously guilt wrapped up in this as well - because if he is feeling this way then how must Eddie be feeling and what right does Buck have to feel anything much about it. So Tommy becomes a sort of replacement for that emotional tether missing in his life.
This situation in and of itself pushes Buck into remaining in a relationship we have already had hints he’s realising isn’t actually what he wants or needs (some of the looks we’ve seen Buck give when Tommy has said something - such as at the medal ceremony - or his lack of interest in or care for Buck more generally before the Kim thing blew up) Buck doesn’t end it for the same reason he didn’t end things with Taylor in season 5 - because Eddie is emotionally unavailable to Buck at that point in time and so physical intimacy is Bucks fail safe alternative and he doesn’t have to go seeking it out in mindless hook ups if he stays in a relationship even if it isn’t serving him.
That Eddie has himself gone down this route prior to all of this, because of the very fact Buck has come out and is now an option - his clinging to Marisol as a result - because Eddie would’ve broken up with Marisol if Buck hadn’t come out to him in that kitchen scene - it’s a pivotal moment for Buck and Eddies relationship - nothing changes because Eddie is having internalised gay panic over his best friend being an option and then not actually being available - Eddie reads Buck saying he cant stop thinking about Tommy as a rejection - he can obviously never feel about Eddie in that way and so Eddie must stick to what he has. It is no coincidence that Eddie is about to break up with Marisol a couple of episodes after he finds out Buck has ended things with Natalia - it is literally Buck and Eddie in the same pattern as we’ve seen them in since they met (well since Shannon died at least because I do think that there wasn’t enough before that point to begin that pattern we’ve seen since as they were still getting to know one another and the show was figuring out the dynamics for all the characters. I also remain convinced that when Tim talked about having to kill Shannon because there wasn’t anywhere to go with her at that point it was because they had decided there was enough interest in Buddie that they were pressing the green button on them being the big slow burn relationship for the show - I think they would’ve made Madney that slow burn will they wont they couple if Buddie hadn’t been coming over well as a potential with the audience! But that’s just my theory I have nothing to back it up beyond the way the story played out live and what Tim said in interviews at the time as well as vibes born of years of watching procedural tv!) It’s no coincidence that Eddie finds out about Marisols almost a nun, catholic past right after Natalia is no more, or that he asks her to move in right at a point where Tommy is very clearly flirting with him.
We all focus on Bucks jealousy etc from 704 - which we are meant to because we are seeing it from Bucks perspective, but its also being made very clear to us that Bucks jealousy has a good foundation and that Eddie is at least aware to a certain extent of it. We the viewer can read Eddie’s constant talking about Tommy this and Tommy that from Bucks perspective and it making him jealous, but we’re can also see it from Eddie’s perspective of him testing the waters with Buck - seeing what Bucks reaction to it all is. We will never know what would’ve happened if Eddie had been able to get to Buck before Tommy did and they’d actually been able to have a conversation about it - because Buck confessed to Eddie that he was on a date with Tommy before Eddie could have that conversation with him - which is how that kitchen talk could’ve played out had the Tommy kiss and date not happened.
There is also the fact that Eddies inability to grieve Shannon and their relationship properly is still very much in play -and how that impacts Buck, but that has been talked about to death so I dont want to get into it again!
All this to say that, yes I do think there is an element of 907 rehashing what we saw play out with Tommy over 8a (and a bit with 8b and the hook up as well) and I get why people feel aggrieved about it, but for me personally I think we’d have ended up with this arc regardless - I just think we’d have seen it play out a little bit differently if they’d been able to get Eddie to where they wanted him by the end of 8b as they had originally intended. Now we don’t know exactly where that would’ve been, but its safe to assume that he would’ve been a bit further along in his arc than he currently is. I think it was really smart to play the entire plot line out in the way they did and in the way you described - having the Jade first and then Zane second, dressing Zane very very very similarly to Tommy (all his outfits are basically Tommy outfits - right down to the black and red shot colouring of his date shirt matching the red and black shot Henley Tommy was wearing when he kissed Buck - both were tests - Tommy testing if Buck was into men and Zane testing if Buck would hook up with and then call him or Jade! And we revert to a black shirt with a black vest for the break up scene!). The entire thing was about calling back to Tommy and the fact he parallels with Abby and then playing into the fact that Buck never got given the full picture by any one of the 4 people from the outset and that his autonomy wasn’t respected in any way at all and so he couldn’t consent to what was happening to him (and this isn’t about Tommy kissing him - that part was fine, right up to the end of their date was all fine and as consensual as it could’ve been - I mean tommy could’ve asked to kiss Buck but that’s not really realistic and Tommy was telegraphing what he was going to do from the moment Buck said he was trying to get Tommys attention so that part is all fine for me from that perspective) that he was able to have that final scene where he turned them down and took ownership of his romantic endeavours is the key thing and the symbol of growth.
It feels very much like they’ve set Buck up through the parallels of Abby,Tommy, Jade and Zane, to finally spend some time actually figuring himself out and what it is he’s looking for and for him to click into understanding that he already has what it is he’s looking for. I haven’t had time to write my meta on the space arc, and how it all plots out the intended arcs for the characters for the season, but I will mention here that Buck is paralleled with Tricia who throughout her time in space, figures out what she has and what she wants romantically are not the same thing - that she is worth more than she has accepted and that she also has the tools to bring about change to her life. That’s the very brief version of her arc, but they show her actually managing to make that change in her life - from the things she learnt about herself, but also from what she already had. The shares are a metaphor for knowledge and internal power and that being what you need to bring about change. That the Jade and Zane plot for 907 also plays into that and emphasises Bucks repeated patterns is a really great thing from my perspective and one of the reasons I really enjoyed that plot (even as I hated having to actually watch Buck hooking up with people but that’s a Demi me thing!)
Thanks for the ask - it was a really great one and I hope my answer lives up to expectations 💜💜💜
