hi hocus! i was just wondering if you could let us know where your head is at after the s9 ending? i know you were pretty hopeful for something on the bt front, but after those tim interviews dropped, where do you think that leaves buck’s love life for s10? i personally see 10a focussing on buck + theo and 10b only touching on buck’s love life if the show doesn’t get renewed for another season.
Alas, I do have to concede that "Tim's gonna Tim" did, in fact, come to pass. Now, whether Tim Tim's back in a direction I would be happy with as far as Buck's love life remains to be seen, and I think will depend on how permanent an addition to Buck's life Theo turns out to be. I SUSPECT that Buck trying to get permanent custody of Theo after someone in Connor or Kameron's family comes forward, and that fight dragging on will be the main meat of Buck's personal storyline next season...that or they will handwave the complications of Buck being Theo's biological father, but not his LEGAL father and his main storyline will be settling into single fatherhood. If they go with the former, then I expect it will end with Buck either gaining permanent custody and some heartwarming arrangement where Theo's other family steps up to help him with childcare during his insane hours as a firefighter, or Buck will come to the conclusion that Theo living with his grandparents/aunt/uncle/whatever is actually what's best for him and give him up while promising to remain part of his life.
In either case, that really doesn't leave much room for a romantic storyline. Now, if season 10 ends up being the last (and I do think there's a very real chance it does in this economy with the expense of the show and the pretty good-but-not-SPECTACULAR ratings it pulls) that changes things up a bit, as I DO believe the intention for Buck's character is to have him settled with a family of his own as his ultimate endgame.
Which is where Tim's interviews factor in. Now, as always...my opinions are based on nothing more than the fact that I've been in fandom for over 30 years at this point (fun fact, this is the last year that I will be saying that, as my birthday will push me over the line that it will actually be closer to 40 than 30, holy fucking SHIT), and have actively been in TIM'S fandoms before. I can be, and frequently have been, wrong.
But, as I said in answer to another ask a few weeks ago, Tim's most recent interviews read, to me, as basically a declaration that no one is getting what they want on that front. I'm not going to speculate on how invested Tim ACTUALLY is in Buddie, but the fact remains that (ESPECIALLY in this societal climate), ABC is not going to give the green light for it to happen, even if Tim, Oliver Stark, and Ryan Guzman wanted to do it (and to be clear, I don't think all three of them do). The factors that make queer!Eddie an extremely hard pill to swallow for 911's GA, and therefore a bigger risk for the network than Bi!Buck by an order of magnitude, have not changed. That said, it's also apparent that the Powers That Be were probably turned off by the tantrum that large parts of the online audience threw every time Tommy Kinard got so much as mentioned. Unfortunately, this has the effect of basically making Buck and Eddie completely radioactive as far as romantic storylines.
At this point? I think the most LIKELY scenario is one or both of them get a love interest shoehorned in at the series finale a la Natalia in season 6. I do rather think Buck's shoehorn would be Tommy (kind of the way that DJ and Steve reunited in the series finale of Full House?), but beyond that, I dunno.