SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers from “Buck Bothered and Bewildered,” the fourth episode of “9-1-1” Season 7 on ABC.
Apart from a sticky synergy stunt at the Bachelor mansion, the 100th episode of “9-1-1” didn’t feature any emergencies that rival the most off-the-wall disasters the show has experienced during its seven-season run. But it did conclude with potentially the most shocking moment the Ryan Murphy-produced first-responder show has ever seen: a kiss between the ostensibly straight Evan “Buck” Buckley (Oliver Stark) and another male character.
via: The Wrap
Buck’s big romantic moment in “9-1-1” Season 7 may have been shocking to the firefighter, but for Oliver Stark — the actor behind the fan-favorite character — that wasn’t the case.
“We’ve been headed here for a long time, consciously or not. The threads have been there for some seasons now,” Stark told TheWrap.
The actor noted that he “immediately” loved the idea when series co-creator, showrunner and executive producer Tim Minear called and pitched a plot involving Buck slowly realizing he has a crush on former firefighter and current LAFD Air Operations pilot Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr.).
“I have been thinking about this story for a long time,” Minear told TheWrap. “I was kind of bored with the hamster wheel of the relationships [Buck] had been in. His story needed a slap. It needed some something fresh. This felt like it could be important to some people, and it felt like it was right for the character.”
Choosing Tommy as Buck’s new love interest came down to timing and Ferrigno’s charisma. Originally, Lucy was supposed to pilot the helicopter used to rescue Bobby (Peter Krause) and Athena (Angela Bassett) from the cruise ship disaster from the three-part premiere. But because of her role in Fox’s “Rescue: HI-Surf,” Arielle Kebbel was unavailable for the scene. That left Tommy.
“I remembered how much charisma Lou had in the scenes he didn’t have to play an a-shole,” Minear said. Tommy first appeared in “Hen Begins.” During these flashback episodes, Tommy fails to stand up for Chimney (Kenneth Choi) when he’s facing racial discrimination, a moral failing he later learns from.
Minear thought that Buck and Tommy would have good chemistry. Also, because Tommy already exists in this universe, that allowed him to establish a new love interest without having to invent and introduce an entirely new character.
The EP described Tommy as “Buck 3.0.” “Tommy’s a little bit older. He knows more of who he is than he did when he was at the 118. In fact, you will hear a little bit of that in the next episode,” he teased.
True to the episode’s title, “Buck, Bothered and Bewildered” shows off a rarely seen side of the character. Instead of the suave heartthrob he typically is, Buck stumbles over his words around Tommy and acts like a fumbling teenager.
“I’ve always had in my head that I wanted a partner for Buck to be someone where it wasn’t easy,” Stark said. “He doesn’t know what these feelings of jealousy might be. He just feels something and it’s unsettling and it’s new.”
There’s another reason why this romance is remarkable. Typically, when a presumably straight film or TV character starts to have romantic feelings for someone of their same sex, that story is accompanied by overplayed scenes of self-doubt and denial. “9-1-1” doesn’t take that route.
Buck’s panic never seems to come from the fact his latest crush is on a man. Rather, it’s the intensity of these feelings that makes Buck falter.
“It’s 2024,” Minear explained. “I didn’t want to make it the bravest episode of 1983. That didn’t interest me. But I also want to be honest about it.”
Minear noted that next week’s episode, “You Don’t Know Me,” will be devoid of “soul-searching tropes” or Buck “questioning his masculinity.” Instead, the showrunner tried to take a fresher angle for this particular story.
Following Thursday’s episode, Stark opened up about the character’s sexuality, telling Variety that showrunner Tim Minear called him during the third episode of the season and asked him what he thought about the storyline and making his character bisexual.
“He had already been in contact with Lou, who plays Tommy — he wanted to know that he was on board before bringing it to me. So not with too much notice he said, ‘I think this is the most truthful way to continue Buck’s storyline.’ And I said, ‘I 100% agree,'” Stark said. “I think it’s deserved and I think it’s earned — and I am excited to to get the chance to tell it.”
The actor also shared that the kiss didn’t play out the way he thought it would, despite many conversations ahead of time. “The way that I felt shooting it wasn’t necessarily the way I had felt like Buck was going to react. It became far more emotional than I expected it to,” he shared. “But that’s one of the joys of this job, and of being an actor, is finding those moments as they happen and having the freedom to explore them and go with them.”
In other 9-1-1 news, Angela Bassett, spoke with Variety about her thoughts on the episode, and here's what she had to say:
“I just saw it today! I was a little behind, so I had to thankfully I could go to Hulu and catch up on it,” Bassett told Variety‘s Marc Malkin at the launch event for Hulu on Disney+. “He was quite the ladies’ man from the beginning — the wild card — so this is something new and surprising for him as well.”
Bassett, who has portrayed Sergeant Athena Grant-Nash alongside Stark since the drama’s 2018 debut, added that she heard about the kiss after it was done.
“So I asked him, I said, ‘How was it?’ He said, ‘When you close your eyes, it all feels the same,'” she said with a laugh.
“9-1-1” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC. Episodes are available to stream the day after premiere on Hulu.
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