#911 spec

what do i want for season ten? i'm so glad you asked! buddie canon— but only in harry's fever dream. what's that? well, picture this. it's the season ten opener. harry has come into his own, he's in the middle of a big fire set piece, heroically saving everyone even though the rescue keeps getting more and more complex than what they were originally called into. it's a full episode of him being SO good at his job. everyone is so thankful. he really gets into the flow of things, he has a rescuing people montage set to 'holding out for a hero' by bonnie tyler. then there's a moment when it seems he won't make it out and the music cuts out... but he does! he arises from the flames, triumphant and holding someone's cat. he walks up to the team, but they alone are not clapping for him. what. chim's not even yelling at him for pulling that last stunt. and they're not even in turnouts. they're looking... past him? he follows their gazes. it's nothing but bright light. suddenly it's voiceovers from the team drifting in with... medical machines beeping?!

the next few episodes are athena investigating this from the police side and may investigating from the nursing side. and chim losing his mind about, essentially, dropping the team's baby bc he blames himself for harry's fever that won't go away. hen has to step up as captain while he deals with this. she also helps may with one of her medical leads, which ends up cracking the case (bad batch of medicine— it was also making other people mysteriously ill). may & ravi broke up, but we don't find out why until midway through the season. they're very dramatic about it but it's over something really stupid.

buck and eddie are also here. when harry wakes up, he's weird with them bc one of the things (that the audience was supposed to notice and identify as Off) in the fever dream was them being in a relationship. this goes nowhere btw. maybe one of them decides to take up paddleball during a midlife crisis and breaks a shin. the other will never let him live that down.

“I just dreaded the whole auction thing. I’m like, who’s going to bid on everybody? At one point, I’m like, ‘Can Buck just bid on Eddie?’ And they’re like, you can’t do that, you’ll be queer-baiting. I’m like, fine.”

HELLO?? it’s not queer-baiting if you actually do something with it.

the only way for them to say that it would be queer-bait is if there’s no established end to justify the means.

and i feel like buck bidding on eddie could’ve been a good way to explore the way buck feels abt eddie, especially since the expectation is that buddie would go on a date. or at least there’d be banter abt it.

also maddie was there. the potential to have a “it wouldn’t be so crazy” follow up was right there.

i mean, i know they were doing other storylines at the time, so it’s not like they had space for all that, but it’s interesting that tim was even considering it. but the thing is he wasn’t considering a follow-through, just that it would happen and go nowhere. just a “oh we could do this” not actually thinking abt what it would mean.

I’d written up a whole answer and put my phone down before hitting post and lost it 😭 Thank fuck your ask was still there.

ANYWAY. Yes, that’s also my question. I do think that Eddie isn’t oblivious about being attractive to men: he picks up on Father Brian flirting with him and notices that the husband of Buck’s trio is making eyes at him, so I wouldn’t call him a lost cause. Considering Tommy was his friend first and foremost (or, at least, tried to woo him doing friend activities), I think he’s oblivious to that exactly—the evolution from friendship to romance and physical attraction. That specifically is the problem with him and Buck. Eddie loves Buck so much and he’d do anything for him. He would do a lot for any of his friends obviously, but Buck is special, because he’s his very best friend.

The way I’d suspect he’d realise is, well, being confronted by the bigger picture. Either facilitated by Hen, or perhaps (god willing) a boyfriend who explains Buck is an obstacle in the development of their relationship, or by Buck confessing to him, or perhaps through himself and his own reflection on their relationship as he (through Christopher growing up) finds more time for himself. Maybe even the latter in tandem with Theo being taken in by next of kin after he and Buck and Chris created a little family with the little boy in spite of the temporary nature of fostering. I don’t know.

I absolutely hate that I (think I) know enough to correct you on this, nonnie, but I’m pretty sure the one saying that was kendall lmao. i just saw that exact clip on my tik tok a few days ago

pushing that aside - i most certainly agree with you. atp i don’t trust this show to do any representation in the way it deserves to be done. and buck’s bisexuality is one of their biggest fumbles. hell, it’s been almost three seasons since tommy awakened the dormant bisexual in buck, and they still have to say the word bisexual in the show. we naively thought we’d hear it after the break up because it all seemed pointed at buck figuring himself out. then we thought it could happen because oliver said we were gonna see how buck is indeed bisexual. meanwhile he was referring to buck hooking up with a married couple. and like. he can’t be serious lmao

the issue is that this show aims for something big, and then refuses to do the work to reach that point. the way they fumbled the bisexual rep is just another thing they’ve fumbled (not to minimize it, just. putting it in perspective)

i know oliver has been quietly rooting for buck to be diagnosed with adhd on the show. and i do agree it fits buck. but i also think the writers would fumble that storyline in a truly historic way, would probably rewrite buck’s story to make it seem like the adhd was the reason he acted out as a child, and not his parents’ neglect (something they’ve indeed started to do already).

a few episodes down the line, Theo's adoption comes up, and there's question as to whether Evan will be the only one to adopt him, or if Tommy will also adopt him. (is Tommy's recklessness for stealing helicopters a hinderance? could his involvement in the adoption cause issues?).