#something about the episode painstakingly reminding the audience that Buck is VERY SINGLE

[kitkatpancakestack]

Still tumbling headfirst through my 9-1-1 re-watch and now I'm throwing this into the abyss: the parallel between 3.12 (Fools) and 2.01 (Under Pressure).

I know it is well established that 70% of Ana's existence is just to parallel Buck in regards to Eddie, but I still don't think we talk about it enough! It's kind of unhinged?! Fools is an insane episode for setting up the Buck/Ana dichotomy, and the context within which that dichotomy is explored is essentially what is revisited in season 4.

Don't be fooled (lmao), this is absolutely a there's-no-way-buddie-isn't-endgame post.

All the rest under the cut, because ya girl is about to monologue.

Okay, so the episode opens immediately on the group of kids trying to be internet famous. These are the same kids in 2.01 with the whole microwave and cement fiasco. It's easy to make this connection because they had a memorable emergency. Right off the bat the show is more or less forcing a recollection of what happened in 2.01 onto the viewers, and since it is literally the opening minutes of the episode, that collective acknowledgement now exists, and will be (at least it was for me) a parallel undercutting the entire episode.

Let's summarize real quick what this episode was about. Yes, Ana is introduced, and it seems like the show is hinting at Eddie maybe moving on with her now or in the future. But the main storyline follows Eddie and Christopher, and Eddie figuring out how to show his son how to navigate the world with CP. It's important that this episode isn't just Eddie-centric, it's Eddie and Christopher-centric.

Additionally, the emergencies in this episode are about relationships either not being what they seem, or pulling through when it seemed like they were doomed from the start (the kid at the beginning "needing new friends," the woman who got shot by her husband, the woman who got stuck in the window on her first date). Yes these relate to Eddie and Ana, obviously, but dare I say this also relates to Eddie and Buck? Humor me here:

Besides the 2.01 implication at the beginning of the episode, there's a moment with Eddie and Carla walking through the hallway of Christopher's new school. It's probably tinhatty and purely conspiratorial, but the first thing out of Eddie's mouth is about the room number 201. I just . . . I spit out my drink. It could have been any room number - in fact they could have worked the script a dozen different ways so as not to necessitate a room number - but they do and then they just happen to land on 201? *side-eye intensifies*

(side-bar: there's something about the science teacher, in a classroom painted with solar system paraphernalia, talking about how "Christopher tells everybody Tsunamis are no big deal," literally bringing Buck into the scene even though he isn't physically there. Hello seemingly pointless dialogue???? Things that make you go "Hmmmm.")

And the parallels don't stop there! I know this one has been mentioned before on this site but it bears repeating for this post. When Eddie and Ana meet, we have yet another callback to episode 2.01, when Ana correctly guesses Eddie is short for Edmundo, and Eddie says, "Most people guess Eduardo." Most people who, Eddie? I know one person and that person is Buck, and it occurred back in 2.01 when they were still in the thick of their enemies to lovers speed-run. Once again Buck is insinuated into the space without being physically present.

And then the scene with the woman stuck in the window, and Eddie and Buck divided on either side of her. The way this scene starts disastrously but ultimately ends on a positive note. The way Buck airs Eddie's laundry out of nowhere after remarking how he himself is indeed single. The way the scene tells the audience that even when things go wrong, everything will work out in the end if you're with the right person. The way the next scene is Eddie and Buck sitting down to discuss Christopher and the skateboarding incident.

I know I'm deep in crackheadery territory at this point in the hiatus but I cannot get the weird feeling out of my gut when I think about this episode. Superficially, yes, it appeared to be about Eddie and Ana's rocky start to their relationship. But with all the mentions of 2.01 and knowing what I know now about how heavily Buck and Ana are paralleled, the ep starts to feel like a metaphor for Buck and Eddie: the rocky start to their relationship, how far they've come, the fact that with the right person everything works out (see: the advice Eddie chooses to follow regarding the skateboarding incident)

It's almost like they created that divergence on purpose. They gave us two episodes, one where Buck met Eddie and things went wrong, and another where Eddie met Ana and things went wrong, where both conflicts are eventually resolved, as if they want us to consider their standing in Eddie's life side-by-side. They tacked 2.01 as an undercurrent to the events of 3.12 from the very beginning because they want us to pit these two against each other. Not to mention heavily, heavily foreshadowing Eddie's main conflicts in the next season, which we couldn't see when Fools aired, but with season 4 hindsight is 20/20.

I feel like the show just knocks us over the head with it sometimes. The parallels demand us to consider which of these two people, who represent different things Eddie is looking for in his life, is the correct fit. And (especially considering season 4) it unsubtly suggests that the surface appeal of Ana is chronically incomparable to what Evan Buckley brings to the table for the Diaz family. Eddie spent the entire episode searching for very specific advice regarding Christopher, advice he wouldn't know until he heard it, and for that matter of the three people who offered advice about Christopher, Buck was the only person Eddie actually requested it from. I don't fault Carla because she needed to say what she said, but it was still mostly unsolicited. We won't even talk about Ana and her fundamentally incorrect assumptions about Christopher's needs. But we see Eddie seeking out Buck's opinion and support, and just . . . holy cow. We know how it ends, too.

Ana and Buck just aren't even on the same level, they never have been, and I don't think anybody could be. And I think by the end of season 4, Eddie is finally starting to realize this, too.