Emotional Growth in 9-1-1
This newest episode is so interesting, because looking at Eddie it becomes obvious that we are looking at a man who is emotionally neglected and stuck at the age that he got Shannon pregnant.
He had a kid so young that he never had the chance to figure out who he was as a person, and then he used his identity from the military straight into the LAFD as trying to tell himself that he's someone who saves other people.
He also felt like he was saving Christopher when he became a single father, so that was an easy transition for him.
But then Christopher goes and makes an emotional decision to leave, and I feel like a part of Eddie is only just realizing that he never had that autonomy at any point in his life and it's sort of this panicked knee-jerk reaction to go straight out to him because he doesn't know what else to do and doesn't have the emotional maturity to stand up to the consequences of his actions and try to fix himself.
We see this in the way he is doing things like growing a mustache or shaving it off and then reenacting Risky Business.
He's not facing the emotions.
...versus Buck who has had the chance to experience a lot of the world because he was emotionally neglected. He went out and traveled the world and figured out what parts of himself that he liked and didn't like, and then became a firefighter because he knew he wanted to help people (even though that is a part of his trauma, the people pleasing, most of it is completely honest).
We see him in therapy several times, and it's obvious that over the seasons he has been trying to come to terms with the darker parts of himself.
And now he's at a point in his life where he's just discovering another part of his identity, he's now finally secure in it...and then when Tommy left it felt like part of him was leaving.
Buck's endgame has to be Tommy because it's the only thing that makes sense in terms of his character arc.
To fall in love and make that home.
Because unlike Eddie, Buck has had the chance to have a lot of different relationships in several different ways, so he knows what it's like to have an infatuation versus actually being in love, and Tommy feels very emotionally different from every single other relationship that we've seen him have on screen.
The only relationship in which we saw Buck being himself.
The only relationship where he felt seen.
The only relationship where he was happy.
The only relationship where he was finally Evan, without the trauma behind his name anymore, and not just "Buck".
...and the fact that we have seen Tommy's character in previous flashbacks as part of all of the "Begins" episodes, it would be the perfect parallel for Tommy to be where Buck ends and Evan begins.
By Eddie running away to Texas and letting Buck stay in his house, it is very synonymous with how Buck is stepping into that chapter of his life of settling down and creating his own family outside of anyone else's expectations.
Eddie was Buck's first real friend in the 118, one of the first ones to start to let him feel seen.
...but now Buck no longer needs that constant validation. He is stepping into a much more healed version of himself, even if he still is a little bit impulsive sometimes—though his impulsiveness can be good, we've seen that on the job. It's saved more than a few lives when no one else might have taken the risk.
Because of how Buck has grown, we have seen him actively learning from his mistakes—versus Eddie, who is still running from them, which is why this plot line makes a lot of sense to me.
Eddie can't grow where is.
That's why Buck living in Eddie's house is so symbolic, because it's a way of showing how different the two of them are now. Buck can grow and move forward in a place that Eddie was never able to.
He recognizes change and embraces it. He jumps into the unknown with two feet—it's the one thing we have seen consistently from him over the seasons, and I think this is where Buck is taking a moment to breathe and really think about what he wants next.
If the writers do it right, we will see Buck settling into himself even more...
...and then reach back out to Tommy.
Feeling more settled, he and Tommy will finally talk and all of their issues will be dragged out into the open and dealt with.
They both acted impulsively but in different directions when they broke up, and I think this season will be about Buck finally slowing down and looking before he leaps.
