Stupid Gay Firefighters

That speech he gives Bobby at the end of the episode, about how he understands what he’s lost by being fired? That’s kind of him swearing his first oath of the series. Getting fired in the pilot and the events that follow before Bobby gives him his second chance at the end, that all helps Buck realize just How Important firefighting is to him. How highly he values it. And boy does he value it highly. To Buck, firefighting is a sacred calling. An honorable brotherhood that allows him to do the most important thing in the world: to be of service to others.

Being of service to others, being useful, is when Buck feels like his best self. It makes him feel good. It makes him feel like he matters, like he’s doing something important in the world. It’s often the way he expresses his love and gratitude for others and the world around him. It’s so beautiful and I love him so much.

This brotherhood, knighthood aspect of how he views firefighting is, I think, part of why he was So Adamant that he attend Eddie’s ceremony at the end of s2. Yes, it’s Eddie, and Eddie was already important to him, even that early on. But it’s also because Eddie is being officially sworn in to the sacred brotherhood. It’s Eddie. But it’s also firefighting. He has to be there.

I also believe the fealty of it all is one reason he waited so long before letting go of Abby. He swore an oath to her that he would wait for her to come back, and he meant it with every fiber of his being. Honestly, that’s peak romance. My boy is a romantic for real for real.

When Eddie said “you can have my back any day,” he wasn’t swearing to have Buck’s back. He was giving Buck permission to have Eddie’s back, and Buck took that very seriously. Obviously. He was giving Buck permission to swear an oath of fealty to Eddie.

Buck’s oath to Eddie and later to Chris is so interesting to me for a few reasons. One, I don’t think he fully swears this oath to himself right away. It’s kind of like the firefighting thing above, where it started as sort of a partial oath, that he later realizes the importance of. When Eddie yells at Buck in the grocery store about how much Chris misses him, he’s genuinely surprised, and immediately contrite about it. He wants to fix it right away. Had he known, that his absence would cause Chris pain, he never would have done what he did.

He didn’t realize until this moment that he broke his oath.

So he redoubles. He swears for real this time, in his apology to Eddie in the kitchen, after the lawsuit. He apologizes with extreme earnestness and sincerity, despite Eddie’s protests that he doesn’t need to. Because to Buck, yes, he does need to. He broke his oath. He needs to make amends. He cannot feel okay about that until he expresses his solemn remorse.

This is him officially swearing an oath of fealty to Eddie and Chris. He might as well be kneeling before Eddie and presenting his sword, for how seriously he means it. Eddie and Chris needed him and he wasn’t there, and he will never ever let that happen again.

And he doesn’t. He is always, always there for Eddie and Chris whenever and for whatever they need. Chill hangouts, school projects, rides to the airport, serious family talks, saving Eddie’s life (obviously), all the way up to literally giving up his home, so that Eddie can leave him to go be with his son, so Christopher could get his dad back, so they could be together again.

And he’s so glad to be able to do it. I imagine he felt a real sense of relief the moment he realized that he could give up his loft to solve Eddie’s sublet problem. That his decision was made the instant he had the realization. If there’s something he can do to help, he’s going to do it. He cannot live with himself otherwise.

We see this same thing in moments like the crane climb during the shooter arc. He would much rather put himself in harm’s way than see his loved ones in harm’s way. If there’s something he can do to prevent that harm, he will do it, because that is the less painful option to him.

But the really chewy thing to me about his oaths to Eddie and Chris, is that Eddie seems very aware of this aspect of Buck and accepts it and relies on it. It’s what he says when he reveals the will, that no one will fight for his son as hard as Buck. And Buck basically confirms his oath again when he says “you know I wouldn’t” with all the gravity of a neutron star. You know I would never forsake my oath, my sacred duty, is basically what he’s saying.

I would say this trait of Buck’s reveals itself even in more casual moments. Like his vowing to do Hen’s yard work because he forgot her birthday. Broke the friendship oath! Gotta repent!

But one reason I’m writing this meta now instead of three years ago, is that his recent addiction episode was so utterly fealty coded that I lost my entire mind, and I need to talk about it.

Part of why Buck values his job so much is what it does for him: allowing him to help people first and foremost, but he also loves the action and activity and camaraderie of it, etc. But as much as he values firefighting for himself and his identity, he values it even more highly as its own thing, above and beyond himself. He values it as an ideal. A thing larger and more important than himself.

Buck doesn’t care about chain of command, but he does understand when rules are there for a good reason, and that’s something he does care about. To him, those rules are part of the knight’s code and when you swear an oath to knighthood, you swear to uphold those rules and values. When he almost took the fentanyl, he broke his oath. And so, he could no longer be a knight. He’d betrayed his sacred calling, and so he presented himself and his sword on bended knee to put himself at the mercy of his honorable lord to do with what he would.

He doesn’t make excuses. He doesn’t make any attempt to justify or defend. He just lays himself bare before Chimney with full openness and vulnerability. He admits what he almost did with complete transparency and full awareness of how bad it nearly was.

And even in the depths of his suffering, he still takes it all So Seriously. Chim asks if he’s high at that moment and Buck swears no, no, never at work. And he means it so seriously. Because to Buck, upholding the values of firefighting is more important than getting to be a firefighter himself. Because in the state he’s in in that moment, he cannot truly be a firefighter in the way the matters to him, and so Chimney must cast him out.

Thankfully, Chimney chooses another path. Love that dude, for real.

But Buck was being completely serious when he asked Chim to fire him. He was ready and willing to lose the job he loves so much, that gives him so much purpose and identity, because, in his view of things, he had broken his oath to it.

To me that scene is almost two different Buck’s talking with two different Chimney’s. Buck the knight is speaking to his leader, his lord. He’s revealing his betrayal of their sacred duty and is ready for the consequences of that. Buck the friend is speaking to his friend Chimney, who he knows will help him in his hour of need, but specifically only with the addiction. He does not expect Chim to help him keep his job. In fact, he actively fights against it when Chimney talks about how they could say nothing and keep it a secret and work on it alone together. He will accept no outcome that does not remove him from duty, because at that moment, he is not fit for it.

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