Sorry I Don't Care Bobby's Mom Should've Taken Him With Her. I Don't Believe In Not Giving Children A

every buddie argument is so good because their conflict is never about not loving each other. they're always both coming from such a place of care and understanding even when they're spiralling. this argument is sooo... god. at its core it's "i know why you have to leave and i would never ask you to stay but i don't want you to go" and it's "i'm trying so hard to be okay with leaving my life behind but you're making it harder for me to leave" AND!! it's "if you need to be mad at me, be mad, it's okay" and within all of that!!! the actual conflict is!!! that they don't want to be APART!!!

the thing is. there was a way to write the bucktaylor breakup in a much more coherent way that didn't make buck look an unreasonable freak. it's simple -- when hen and chimney ask bobby and athena how they knew where they were, have bobby and athena tell them that they got a lot of 911 calls from jonah's neighbors who heard suspicious noises and were moved to call 911 because they heard about him from the evening news. cut to reveal: taylor kelly aired the segment about jonah before they caught him.

this way, the buck/taylor conflict becomes much more meaty and complex: taylor legitimately would have betrayed buck's trust in this instance and gone behind his back, but she also would've been vindicated in her choice to do so because it saved hen & chim's lives. thus they both have points, and they break up over the fact that they have irreconcilable priorities -- taylor will always choose the truth & the greater good, and buck will always value interpersonal trust more.

the problem with the way it was written in the show is that by the time taylor did the segment on jonah, he was already caught and she knew he was already caught, and thus all of buck's reasons for not wanting her to do the segment (#1: they didn't have 100% proof; #2: airing the segment could make jonah target hen & chim) were null and void at that point. so buck looks like a whiny unreasonable asshole when actually for once i don't think he's supposed to, i think we're supposed to think it's a moral gray area. but it's not. because they wrote it bad. but it would've been SO EASY to write it well, and that's what makes it so frustrating.

911 Text Posts 11/? (Eddie Diaz)

buck is so so good at the bits of parenting that eddie is struggling with at the moment, and eddie sees that as a personal failing on his part because he thinks he has to be everything to chris at once. but actually they can both parent chris, they can complement each other!!! he just hasn't realised that yet but he's so so close!!!!

One more thing though. So let's say this episode was supposed to just be about Athena's grief, and the rest of the fallout will be in the next two episodes. Well, unfortunately, they did a bad job of handling Athena's grief too.

Don't get me wrong, Angela Bassett was AMAZING. She did a perfect job with what she was given. Her breakdown with Hen was heartwrenching, and the scene at the end with his casket was the closest I got to crying, all on the power of her acting.

But as far as the character of Athena goes, I think the writing only failed her.

First of all, and most importantly, the subplot of the mom with the dead kid was not the mirror to Athena's grief that it should have been. Athena was not in denial that Bobby's dead. She wasn't avoiding planning the burial and funeral because she was in denial. She was avoiding it because those are hard things to do, things that no one who has lost someone wants to do. So did investigating this case help her avoid that? Yeah, but it did it in a way that was confusing to the audience, because it made you wonder if Athena, and we the audience by extension, SHOULD be doubting whether Bobby is dead. But then that emotional thread didn't play out and just left Athena's inherent cynicism reaffirmed. Miracles aren't real. The end. How did that show us anything about Athena's grief? How was that narratively satisfying?

Second of all, they did several things that didn't make sense for Athena as a character. The biggest one, I already mentioned: she was avoiding her kids' calls. I don't for one second believe that Athena would leave her children alone in their own grief. May and Harry saw Bobby as a father, and it would be one thing for her to be acting withdrawn or stoic, but to IGNORE their calls is cruel in a way I don't think Athena would be.

Also, while I did enjoy the scene where Athena gets angry with Chim, the fact that this is her only interaction with him in the episode is I think another disservice to her. The fact that she barely interacted with the rest of the 118 is a disservice to her. This was an important chance to show that Bobby was not the only glue holding Athena to the 118, but instead they drove a wedge between them. Maybe they will address this in the next two episodes, but even in the short term, in a season that has far too frequently had Athena off doing her own cop thing, to further isolate her when it really counts just makes you wonder what they even plan to do with her if Bobby is really gone.

And this is without even getting into what it says about the 118 that THEY aren't shown to be surrounding Athena. Anyone who has lost anyone knows that that's just not how it works. Families huddle together when someone dies. The episode made it seem like Athena was alone, and they could have justified it with writing that shows how grief can make a person feel alone, but they didn't do that. She literally just WAS alone in a way that doesn't make sense for her character or for any of the other characters either.

if taylor shows up again just so tim can do a scene direct from fanfiction in which buck is like "oh btw i'm bi" and taylor is like "me too. congrats on finally figuring out your feelings for eddie" and buck's brain implodes well. that would be the funniest thing he could possibly do

Eddie Diaz, Queerness, and Faith

So I've had this idea floating around in my head all day following the most recent episode and with Buddie canon seemingly closer than ever, I thought I'd share it with y'all.

An interesting storyline I would absolutely LOVE for them to explore with Eddie is his relationship with Catholacism/Christianity as a whole and his sexuality, both in childhood and as an adult. I think it's inevitable that his relationship with religion would be brought up if they decide to go the route of Eddie being a repressed gay man. It's kind of unavoidable given his family history and his resurfaced Catholic guilt. I mean, growing up in Texas in the Catholic church as a gay kid??? As a queer atheist, it sounds like my own personal hell.

That being said, I think it would be really cool to see Eddie's journey to self-acceptance coincide with a restored faith in God and the church. It's not a storyline I've personally seen very often with gay characters (the only example I can think of atm is Eric from Sex Education), and I think it could be a really valuable form of representation for both progressive forms of Christianity and queer BIPOC Christians.

I don't think it's realistic given Eddie's decades-long repression for him to have this realization of feelings for Buck and just be okay with it without taking the time to interrogate all of his past relationships (romantic, familial, and religious) and how they have contributed to his repression. I would love to see him come back to LA post-feelings realization and for him to have more conversations with Father Brian about all of this. I want there to be a conversation between them about how Father Brian can reconcile being a gay man (because let's face it, he likely is, despite being celibate) and his faith in God, as well as being an active participant in the church who is guiding other people in their faith. I want to see the juxtaposition of Eddie growing up with a faith that is, at it's core, based in guilt and shame, to stepping into a faith based in love, acceptance, and affirmation (as, imo, Christianity SHOULD BE but all too often is not). I want more bonding and one-on-one conversations between Eddie and Bobby about faith, too. It would be really nice to see them bond more over something they have in common outside of their profession, especially with Bobby being a father figure to Buck.

I think his relationship with Buck could also be a way to explore inter-faith relationships. Now, I could be completely off-base with this, but Buck strikes me as a character that, while superstitious, is not religious. There hasn't been anything I've seen up to this point, that I can remember anyway, that suggests Buck believes in God. If it is the case that he is an atheist or agnostic, I would love to see how they navigate their relationship surrounding the topic, especially given the long and difficult history surrounding homophobia in the church. I don't even necessarily mind the topic becoming quite contentious (between them or brought on by external circumstances), but at the end of it all I want to see them get to a point where they approach this potential difference with love and mutual respect.

Idk I think it would just be really cool if they made this decision with Eddie's character. I know I've seen a few clips of Ryan in interviews talking about his own faith journey: growing up in the church, becoming distant from it as he got older, and then later coming back to God and religion. It would be awesome to see him being able to pour some of his own personal experiences with religion into this character, especially with how their journeys with faith would be kind of paralleled (though not entirely the same).

Anyways, if anyone wants to send me pre-existing fics or even write some based on this premise, I would love to read them 😊

eddie went to the seeley booth school of being actively behind the wheel but only staring at his passenger princess instead of the road

eddie saying he's sorry that buck couldn't keep the dog, that he had to give him up and it's said so sincerely and deeply and yeah it's about the dog but it's also about him, it's him saying im sorry i can't stay im sorry i can't let you keep me here im sorry that we have to let each other go, im not sorry for going to be with my son who i belong with, but im sorry you won't be there with us too