#abc 911 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

m3r1m4r5u333 · 3 days

Text

So I just need to ramble some more about Eddie being queer-coded, and especially bi-coded. And pining. Always pining.

5x11 is an interesting episode. The episode is called "Outside looking in". Which btw makes me think of some stuff I've posted about before - how Eddie feels like queerness is not an option for him. He's watching from a distance, outside looking in. Sure, he'll support other queer people, but what about himself? Not an option.

Religious family, perhaps the lingering fear of losing Christopher's custody, fear of making his son's childhood even harder, and also I think... Just fear of discovery. I think Eddie has pined after Buck for a long, long time, and fears that people would realise how he really feels if he came out. It would be like stepping under a spotlight with no payofff. Just awkward, embarrassing because he thinks his feelings are a dead end. First he thought Buck was straight. And then even Buck turning out to not be straight changed nothing - Buck is already dating someone else, gushing about him to Eddie.

Anyway... Outside looking in. It's a very Eddie-centric episode, focuses a lot on Eddie's identity. He's quit 811 and works at a call center. The job doesn't suit him. It's dull, feels meaningless. He quickly becomes bored, sad, lonely. He's lost his identity, even his scars are missing when he gets ready for the day.

An interesting bit about Eddie's daily routine montage is the music that plays during it. It's Are you down to ride? by Skegss. Very queer-sounding!

"Let's pretend like we've done this all before

So much wilderness to go and explore

Your imagination is the best recreation

Remove the mask you're wearing and overcome your fear

Cut it with your smile and show the world what you're really like..."

...There's also the repeated flip, an alternating question of "Are you down to ride?/Are you down for life". The song is all about trying to overcome fear, to embrace your true self.

I won't quote the entire song but overall, there are lots of lines that sound like hints to hidden queerness. First of all, "so much wilderness to go and explore"? The montage also shows a framed photograph in Eddie's room. Curious "wilderness" there - a picture of some very phallic looking cacti!

"...This is it, this is what you were made to be

Yeah, might seem strange to you

It's as strange as hell to me..."

The word strange of course always makes me think of queerness, too. That's what the word queer used to mean. So strangeness, combined with the line about "this being what you were made to be". Curious.

Then the dialogue in that montage.

May telling Eddie that "the word of the day" ... ("..???". It's a fancy word I couldn't catch, I'm not a native english speaker),

means "to leave abruptly."

Which combined with the music about overcoming fears, removing a mask... naturally makes me think of coming out of the closet. Also, there's Eddie's abrupt decision to quit the team, and even his big decision to move away from the overwhelming pressure of his religious family.

The decision to quit the team forms after Eddie is hurt on the job. But it also forms after Eddie starts dating Ana, and after the relationship fails spectacularily - due to Eddie not loving her, and clearly not being ready to move on.

Personally I feel like Eddie freaks out about his strong connection to Buck and that is one reason why he wants to quit the team. It's there in that panic attack scene at the fire station. So many hints of unrequited feelings, and so much staring at Buck. So I think part of the reason why Eddie quits his job..? It's to gain some distance to Buck.

Eddie in Outside, looking in... The word of the day being "to leave abruptly"...?

It also has that scene in which Buck and Taylor come to Eddie's for dinner and Eddie tells Buck that Buck needs to move on, Eddie has. (It's obviously a lie, Eddie is a mess.)

When May whips out that word about leaving abruptly..., Eddie isn't a fan of it, wryly says "And I thought "bamboozle" was the word of the day lowpoint". (Bamboozle = to trick or deceive someone, often by confusing them)

Moving on isn't easy. Leaving the closet isn't easy. Deceit, tricks, confusion... no fun either.

Anyway, back to bi-coded dialogue.

There's Linda, another colleague, who keeps recommending Eddie some recipes. Btw I think I've said this before but. To me it sure sounds like this show loves making food related sex jokes!

In another episode we have Buck (a bisexual) telling Bobby and Athena that he likes their cooking equally.

Then there's Eddie later, in season 7, talking about his relationship troubles with Marisol, getting a text from Marisol who wants to know what Eddie wants for dinner. Buck suggests sushi, Eddie answers "The menu is not the issue."

And color me crazy if you like, but as far as I understand, it's a pretty old euphemism that men are "meat" and women are "fish"... So jokes about liking "fish". Sure sound like euphemisms to sex with women.

Anyway, back to Linda and recipes.

Eddie sees Linda, tells her

"By the way, you were right about the fish sauce! Never would have thought of it."

Linda answers "Told you. Umami levels off the charts!"

Eddie promises Josh to get to work right away. Then goes to post public service announcements on social media.

But turns out it's "Exit ramps closed..."

And in the montage his printer won't work. He makes a press release about a structure fire. A structure fire... sounds like an identity crisis.

Eddie's daily routine montage continues. He cooks breakfast for Chris and tells him to

'eat up so he can focus at school.'

Eddie calls him Bud as he says that. Which sure sounds to me like meta writing to the buddie fans. "Hey buddies, now's the time to get ready for school - pay attention!"

So pay attention to what, what happens after that, how are we schooled?

Eddie takes Chris to school, gets to work, and is seen talking to Linda again.

Eddie: Are you sure about this?

Linda, very confidently: Equal parts potato and butter!

Then Eddie is seen posting about "traffic collisions". One taking place at Sepulveda 405 fwy. Sepulveda is btw derived from spanish, and means "to bury". And 405? Could it be an episode? I think it is. And that one, season 4, episode 5... It's Buck begins.

Interesting, how that episode also has someone running away from his family: Buck. There's Buck, learning to ride his bike, running from home, running to Maddie to be patched up because he crashed on his bicycle.

Has Eddie maybe "crashed his bike", and gotten hurt, too, and that's made him quit the team abruptly?

Then the montage with Eddie in Outside, looking in, it also includes a child on the phone asking Eddie...

"Are you a real fire fighter?" Eddie says yes, I'm a real firefighter.

We've heard that question before! Another child sneeringly asks that same thing from Buck when he's forced to do desk duty.

(It's in that super buddie-coded episode, Monsters, the one with the crows who are repeatedly called buddies.

The crows attack young boys who torment them, the team wonders if the crows are waiting for these boys to come out.)

So... In Monsters, a boy asks Buck if he's even a real firefighter, Buck says that he is.

Which rather makes me think of bi erasure once again. The persistent belief that bisexuality isn't "a real" sexual orientation. "Oh everyone is "bi" these days, it's trendy!/You just made this up to get attention/You're really just gay/straight and won't admit it...

It's all about "You're not even real". The inability to take the bisexuality seriously is a never-ending reaction to us bisexuals. We are thought to be these mythological creatures, unicorns.

So I think it's very interesting that this is asked of Buck, and later of Eddie.

"Are you even a real firefighter?"

Very similar to this repeated challenge of... "Are you even a real person?"

Bisexuality is always very quickly dismissed as an option. It's apparent in this fandom too.

This actually reminds me of another scene in which Eddie once again calls Chris Buddy... And tries to tell him about meeting Ana, and really liking her. Chris is making a salad as Eddie starts talking about Ana, is enraged to hear about Eddie dating this woman, throws the salad on the floor, storms out. Eddie is left alone, collecting the pieces of that salad bowl. He looks sad.

Another thing that makes me return to the idea that Eddie is bi/pan? The hints about his relationships failing and dating being a performance - because he can't move on.

Right before Eddie asks Ana out, there's this emergency with that rapper dude. The episode is Jinx, the same one in which the team is trapped inside their truck due to deathly amounts of electricity. (Subtext!)

Jinx also has the clowns. Which I'd made crazy posts about before so to briefly summarize - I think the clowns are the queer audience, choking on the queerness of Buck and Eddie together.

Anyway, that rapper in Jinx:

Izzy chainz... Stuck on you. Or maybe,

Is it chains to be stuck on you? Catch me here - a qr code. Or a queer code?

That's Eddie, really. Not having moved on.

But Eddie tries to move on. Even though he's not ready. Eddie needs pep talks from Bobby to go on dates. He's not really ready to move on from Shannon, has not processed her death, their marriage failing.

But he hurls himself into that relationship anyway... And then anxiety builds. It's a sum of several factors, but still.

The panic attacks are quite revealing. They build a picture of Eddie not only being over Shannon, but also realising that he's now stuck on Buck as well, and cannot handle losing him.

One panic attack - when he sees a patient who looks startingly like Buck. Another when someone thinks Ana is Christopher's mother - making Eddie remember Shannon. And likely also Buck, because Ana's reaction is not only to deny that she's Christopher's mother. She also continues saying "I'm just a friend!" Much like Buck, who keeps parenting Chris despite not being a parent to Chris, despite being just a friend to Eddie.

Third panic attack... when Ravi thinks Ana is Eddie's wife - even though Eddie clearly doesn't love her, even forgot to introduce her because quite frankly, he's too distracted by Buck.

Is it chains, stuck on you..." Yes. Certainly, there are lots of chains stopping Eddie from moving on.

Those 'chains' made Eddie's relationship with Ana an impossible up-hill battle from the start, they're the reason why that relationship ends up failing. He does not pursue her freely, genuinely, he is trying to fall for a concept of them together.

The breakup also hints that Eddie's been catching feelings for Buck, and is left reeling, trying to understand them, and get over them.

But he still hasn't. They've always been there, from the way he just jumps into making Buck his family, to present day in season 7 where Marisol struggles to place her bag on Eddie's hallway table. There's just no space for someone like Marisol to set down their belongings, they joined this race years too late.

The space is already taken. The toy truck Buck gifted to Chris years ago takes too much the space for anyone else to get too comfortable. It's the first thing Eddie wants to see when he comes home. That's quite telling.

#911 buddie #evan buckley #buddie #eddie diaz #buddie 911 #911 on abc #evan buck buckley #911 abc #tv: 911 #eddie díaz #abc 911 #are you a real firefighter?

40 notes · View notes