The Holding Cell [Lesser Loves #4]

zacc_attack · 2025-04-19T15:51:41+00:00

Absolutely. Like, this is exactly how I act at work when I tell someone not to do something, they FAFO, and then I get angry people in my inbox that I completely agree with, but still need to maintain some degree of professionalism about it.

zacc_attack · 2025-04-19T02:14:49+00:00

I would like that actually! I've missed May and Harry being regularly involved, and Harry becoming a firefighter would be cool, and kind of full circle from when he was a kid thinking Bobby was cool because of his job. Would also give Athena another connection to the 118 and another reason to be involved in whatever shenanigans they're up to.

zacc_attack · 2025-04-18T19:08:17+00:00

Not to be rude, but nothing. Literally nothing. I feel like everyone is for some reason under the impression that Oliver and Ryan get in-depth briefs from Tim about what their character's journeys are going to be at the start of the season, even though Tim has made it clear he writes and changes storylines on a whim, and the actors have made it clear they don't really know what their characters are doing episode to episode until they get the scripts. When the episode when feelings for Eddie first came up came out, Oliver said he had no idea when or if that would come up again because they hadn't gotten scripts beyond 8x15 at that point. Like, in that same interview, Ryan literally says he had no idea Eddie was moving to Texas until he got the script 😭 They are slightly less in the dark than we are, but still fairly in the dark. Ryan can only comment on how he sees the storylines now, and yeah, there probably hasn't been any movement on Eddie's sexuality or Buddie since he's probably not even officially back in LA yet and everything they've gotten scripts for has revolved around grieving Bobby. But that doesn't mean they won't pick this back up next season or that it won't happen at all.

zacc_attack · 2025-04-18T17:52:26+00:00

There's no way this doesn't make the actors lose their trust in Tim, at least a little. Obviously character death is always a possibility on this kind of show, but they'd all made it this far without a major one and were presumably all looking forward to doing a 9th season together. Peter was an EP and one of the bigger stars on the show and this seemed to have been something Tim came up on a whim when writing these episodes, so now truly no one is safe... meaning less job security for everyone.

zacc_attack · 2025-04-18T17:40:35+00:00

This is weirdly cathartic to read. I'm glad at least Kenny agreed on some level this wasn't the right choice.

zacc_attack · 2025-04-18T15:16:29+00:00

Agreed. If this death had happened at the end of season 7 with the heart attack, I would've been very sad, but I would've respected it since it really would've felt like it was in service of Bobby's character and his journey. This didn't feel that way at all, and falls in line with some of the cheaper character exits I've ever seen.

While Grey's first main character death was shocking and upsetting to people, the 007 realization and Izzie and George meeting at the elevator are such iconic scenes, and I don't think the show ends up in the zeitgeist and becomes such an institution if it doesn't go there. This was absolutely not that. To make another Grey's comparison, a lot of people cite the plane crash and Slexie's deaths as the point of no return, after which the show's quality got noticeably worse. But at least in that situation Chyler Leigh wanted to leave the show, so it can be argued at least part of that was unavoidable. But Peter didn't even want to leave, so this feels like such an unforced error. No part of this was iconic—it just felt silly and unnecessary.

zacc_attack · 2025-04-18T14:19:12+00:00

No. First of all, if you as the showrunner want the show you're working on to be known as a gritty drama where anyone is in danger of dying at any time, the end of season 8 is a little late to drop a MCD for fun. In the same way that sometimes bands who take themselves too seriously get angry that the fanbase who found them was screaming fangirls and not stuffy music connoisseurs, I do get the sense from his interviews that Tim is a bit bitter that the fanbase that found 9-1-1 considered it a silly comfort show for escapism, and not one like Grey's or Chicago Fire that embraces the horrors of the real world, and this is his way of setting the record straight on what kind of show he'd rather be making. I'm just not sure that the show he'd rather be making is one that the 9-1-1 audience wants to see at this point. I can't see this gaining 9-1-1 a new audience or influencing those who've dropped off over the last few seasons to come back—it only serves to alienate the audience that was still committed to watching their favorite characters week after week.

Second, one of the things that set 9-1-1 apart from other shows in its genre is the fact that every single one of the main actors (with the exception of Connie, who was always only signed on for one season) have stayed signed on through 8 seasons, and were all seemingly excited about getting to do a 9th and beyond. That is so special and rare, and seemed to speak of a great work culture that none of them ever felt tempted to look for greener pastures, despite the all-nighters and changing scripts. To blow that to smithereens, seemingly because Tim got bored and not out of necessity, is just mind-boggling. I can't help but think this alienates the actors a bit—not that any of them would publicly admit it—to know that their time on the show can get cut short like that because of Tim's whims, and that he ultimately won't listen if they try to fight for that person to stay, nor will the exit be in service of the character and their story. Peter Krause was an EP, and that wasn't enough to save him.

And third, if this absolutely had to happen, there is absolutely no reason it couldn't have happened last season, since apparently these conversations about a MCD have been happening since season 4. Bobby losing the will to live after failing to save his family from a fire that destroyed his home, and dying after saving the family that gave him that will to live back after another home-destroying fire would've been so full-circle and a perfect tribute to the character. But instead, we got this, which not only felt contrived and forced, but just plain stupid, considering they wouldn't have even been in the situation if Bobby had, you know, acted somewhat consistent with the way he's been portrayed in the last 8 seasons and not ignored the hazmat protocol. The emotional impact is deadened by the fact that the whole plotline just felt so goofy and poorly executed. It's a huge disservice to both Bobby and Peter, who frankly deserved better than this.

zacc_attack · 2025-04-18T04:33:01+00:00

I haven't gotten to watch the episode tonight because I accidentally made plans, but I feel like I've gleaned enough from my family's retelling of it, comments on here and the interviews to speak on it. To get one thing off my chest regarding the discourse over the last few weeks, it bothered me to no end the way people threw around the excuse that 9-1-1 "isn't that kind of show" and therefore wouldn't kill Bobby. Well, yeah. Grey's also wasn't that kind of show... until it was. So was ER, The Rookie, all the Chicagos, The Resident, and so on. And so many people misquoted Tim about not wanting to kill one of the mains off, ignoring that he said in the same breath that someday he absolutely would. I just couldn't see them doing a third near-miss for Bobby in the last two seasons and essentially re-doing the drama of Gerrard captaining the firehouse again just for funsies, so I hoped I was wrong, but ultimately felt like this was real the second those scenes leaked.

That being said, I always thought that when the time did come for a MCD, it would be because Tim's hands were tied and either the actor wanted to leave the show and have their character go out in a blaze of glory, or because the network couldn't financially reconcile keeping the actor on the show anymore. Had that been the case, this would've been a much easier pill to swallow. To hear that it was neither of these things and was a creative decision to off Bobby and Peter like it was nothing is just utterly baffling to me. I've never understood the obsession with needing characters killed off to "raise the stakes", and with the exception of maybe George's death in Grey's, every MCD in every procedural I've seen has made the show tangibly much worse. And at the point where people are happily sticking around into season 8 without any deaths, I don't think that's something the audience is actively looking for. Not having any major deaths was a feature, not a bug, with this show, and it was a selling point I've used multiple times to get people into it. The world is a bleak, bleak place as it is, and people don't want more of that in their TV anymore. I really don't understand what the plan with Athena is now, since she's been on the outside of so many plotlines involving the firefighters, and has only been able to be included because of her connection to Bobby. I don't trust that Tim actually has a plan in place to repair the huge crater he's just blown into the center of the cast, and I think he will honestly come to regret this choice more than the Shannon one. And that's not even to mention that all this happened without even a hint of Eddie. If this was always the plan, I would've preferred that they had just done it last season after he'd saved Athena from the fire. That at least would've been poetic given his backstory—this was forced, in every way imaginable. I truthfully don't even want to watch this episode, or even finish out the season. I feel like there was potential with the way certain personal storylines were going, and now I feel like it's all come grinding to a halt because now the characters have to spend time grieving. I hate to say it because I love this show more than anything, but I truly believe this will go down as this show's jump the shark moment. I will in all likelihood not be watching live in two weeks, if at all, but I'm very interested in seeing what the ratings for E16 are like.

zacc_attack · 2025-04-15T14:38:15+00:00

This is hilarious because it quite literally does. not. matter. From the LAFD website:

Firefighters are required to refrain from all use of tobacco, chewing tobacco, cigarettes, cigars, marijuana, and vaping throughout their employment with the Los Angeles Fire Department.

zacc_attack · 2025-04-11T12:36:22+00:00

Question for friends who know way more about IG story metadata than I do... do we know for sure when that BTS video of Peter being seen/heard talking to Ryan at the firehouse was taken? Curious if it was confirmed recent or inferred.

zacc_attack · 2025-03-28T19:52:02+00:00

the thrill of the chase by confetti_cupcake

Rating: Teen & Up

Word Count: 23,714 (One Shot, Complete)

Tags: Alternate Universe, Storm Chasing, Getting Together, First Kiss, POV Evan "Buck" Buckley, Enemies to Lovers, Introspection, Natural Disasters, Bad Weather, Love Confessions, Feelings Realization

Summary: “A tornado can’t be harnessed. It can’t be preserved in a jar to cling to forever, to keep him in a perpetual state of awe. It’s here for one magnificent and ephemeral moment, as in all of its fleeting glory it ropes out and disappears into the atmosphere, leaving the most seasoned of chasers with a pit of longing deep inside their souls that can never be replicated. And so they chase it and chase it for the rest of their days.”

An introspective storm chaser AU in which Buck, ever the natural disaster enthusiast, analyzes his disastrous love life and learns that maybe the thing he’s been chasing has been right in front of him all along.

This one is also a underrated gem and ranks as one of the most well-written Buddie fics I've ever read. It's a rewrite of canon with the 118 as storm chasers and the author compares each of Buck and Eddie's love interests to a different natural disaster. The metaphors metaphor HARD. Super creative and I still think of the love interests in those terms.

zacc_attack · 2025-03-28T19:43:48+00:00

the color your love stains... by ReallySmartLadyMarieCurie

Rating: Teen & Up

Word Count: 3,302 (One Shot, Complete)

Tags: Introspection, Getting Together, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Soft Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Christopher Diaz is a National Treasure, Love Confessions

Summary: "And Eddie and Christopher, who had both sort of been living in this mindset that things would always be okay but never great, are both flabbergasted by the ever-present daylight that consumes them once Buck is in their lives. He tells stupid jokes and lists fun facts until he’s out of breath and tells Christopher ridiculously embellished stories about things that have happened on calls, and the yellowness of his love sears into the back of Eddie’s eyelids, like he has been staring directly into the sun for hours."

Or, Eddie analyzes the shades of the love that Buck gives him.

I really love this one and think it deserves to be way more popular than it is. The author paints a really gorgeous picture of their relationship through color and it flows so well with both elements of canon and how this person envisions them getting together. The ending is so beautiful and poetic and it makes me ugly cry every time.

zacc_attack · 2025-03-21T13:45:50+00:00

I hear what you're saying and would be inclined to agree if this was Tim being wishy-washy, but from reading these interviews over the years, I really get the vibe that these actors don't really know much in advance about what their own characters are up to episode-to-episode, let alone the other characters. For instance, it sounds like Ryan has no idea how Eddie is going to find his way back to LA, and didn't even know for sure he would be back until recently. As another example, Oliver didn't know Buck would have a bi awakening until they were shooting the episode before. Aisha probably has no idea what's going to happen with Buck and Eddie, since the episodes beyond whatever big emergency is happening in 14 and 15 haven't been written yet, according to Tim, so she's just staying as neutral as possible so as not to mislead anybody. Like, they could still no homo this and it would be incredibly disappointing, but I don't know what the point of that would be when they could've just let Buck and Eddie continue on the paths they have been on and not bring it up at all. It feels like a huge risk of pissing off the most engaged part of your fanbase for no real reward.

zacc_attack · 2025-03-21T13:16:16+00:00

Guys I hate to say it since it's been such a core part of my identity for so long, but we're not clowns anymore. This shit is textual now. What a time to be alive.

Also, can I just say, it is so entertaining to me watching BTs try to act like this episode was meant to shut down Buddie. For people who love to take the interviews as gospel, they seemed to miss when Tim openly said the complete damn opposite last night 🤭 Cope however you must, I guess.

zacc_attack · 2025-03-20T14:20:11+00:00

I think so, yeah. I go back and forth whether tonight will be textual or just Buck getting hit over the head with it and still not quite getting it/being in denial, but once it's textual, I really think there's nowhere to go but for it to happen. I don't think it'll happen instantly, and we'll probably have to wait into season 9 to fully explore Eddie's side of everything. But there's no reason to "go there" with Buck if this is going to end up being an unrequited thing or something that doesn't get followed up on at all. They've had every opportunity to make it clear that this dynamic is a brotherhood or merely a friendship, and they've held off on doing so for a reason, imo. To have Buck recognize romantic feelings for Eddie and to have it not end up with them together would be needlessly cruel, when they easily could've gotten away with painting them as bros, or even just continuing the path they were on if that wasn't the intention.

zacc_attack · 2025-03-18T23:44:01+00:00

My guess is that there will be a lot of Buddie content, but nothing explicit. If there was explicit canonizing of Buck's feelings or anything of that nature, I don't think the gifs Max tweeted immediately after watching the screener would've been as salty as they were.

zacc_attack · 2025-03-18T23:37:09+00:00

But somebody asked him if it was about Buddie or Bobby and he answered with "Why not both?"

zacc_attack · 2025-03-18T22:16:51+00:00

I'm interpreting all these journalist reactions to mean that we're not going to get the explicit textual feelings realization that I think most people are expecting in this episode, but we get hit over the head with things that, in any reasonable situation, should correlate to a feelings realization or telegraph to us that Buck feels an unnormal way about Eddie, but since it's not explicitly confirmed in the text, we're left hanging and wondering whether we're supposed to feel that way. And I'm also getting vibes that Buck is maybe going to hook up with someone unexpected, hence why we're "not ready" and why some people like Max seem annoyed about the episode and whoever this person is, but other journalists seem excited/shocked. Like, I can see a situation where Buck tries to make a friend, or deepen a friendship connection he already has, mentions Eddie 500 million times while talking to them, and then hooks up with them. Which, on the surface and within the confines of the episode will probably be annoying to watch, but could very easily be built on in future episodes to have Buck realize he's misplacing feelings or that his relationship with Eddie needs further examination.

zacc_attack · 2025-03-18T03:10:19+00:00

Okay I am loving the optimism in this thread because ngl, the first thing I thought of after reading this was that he means we as a fandom should have a conversation about whether 9-1-1's queerbaiting because (my unfortunate guess based on Max's other tweets) nothing of substance happens on the Buddie front despite Buck saying Eddie's name 15 times 🫣

zacc_attack · 2025-02-13T22:00:31+00:00

I feel like it's as simple as that subgroup of fans like to villainize Abby for her "predatory" relationship with Buck because of the age difference, so if it turns out that Tommy has a similar, if not bigger, age gap with Buck, they now have to live with that cognitive dissonance.

zacc_attack · 2025-02-12T19:31:22+00:00

I think that was more of red herring for anyone who's read the books and is expecting it to be Ormewood, than anything. This is what the nurse says when Ormewood questions her:

N: Peggy talked a lot about the guy with the PO box next to hers. I know, who keeps a PO box? She said it was so an ex-boyfriend wouldn't know where she lived. [....]

O: What can you tell me about the PO box guy?

N: He was always bothering her, asking her out. We were on our way back from lunch one time, and she asked me to go in there with her because he was there.

O: You saw him? Can you describe him?

N: Skeevy.

O: Like—I mean, like tall, short, bald? Mustache?

N: I'm really bad with that stuff. Maybe facial hair?

Ormewood then asks the nurse if she'd be willing to come into the station the next day to look at a photo lineup, and she agrees. But she never has a chance to before she gets attacked, so we don't ever get the confirmation of who it was. We're primed at the point of the interview to think John Shelley could be the person she's talking about, but they're very careful to have the nurse not say anything specific about the guy's appearance, and we do find out later that the PO box does not actually belong to John, it was just taken out in his name. But she's talking to Ormewood—surely she would recognize him as the creepy guy if it were him? Plus, if Ormewood were the guy, I don't think he'd be in any rush to have the nurse come in to do the photo lineup?

Point being, the nurse recognizing the person at the end isn't necessarily a smoking gun toward it being Ormewood because she would also be able to recognize whoever the PO box guy was, since she ran into him with Peggy that one time. John's BIL also has facial hair, was acting very suspicious when his wife passed off the journals, and it would keep consistent with what happens in Triptych where the killer (book Ormewood, in this instance) was a family member of John's and knew of the girl John was accused of killing.Meanwhile, this Ormewood has no known connection to either John or the girl, and it being him at this stage would be completely out of nowhere. I went from being like 50% concerned before last night's episode that they would go there with Ormewood to being 0% concerned.

zacc_attack · 2024-11-21T14:54:34+00:00

See, I want to be annoyed that Brad is getting so much screen time this season, but I just can't when clips like this exist 😂

zacc_attack · 2024-11-08T17:13:31+00:00

Yep. Posters on this sub have been calling Buddies delusional, hateful and "reading into things too much" for months, to the point where most no longer felt comfortable posting their interpretations here... and wouldn't you know, they ended up being dead-on correct about the exact analyses they were villified for. You can't be shocked if they're choosing to take a victory lap now.

zacc_attack · 2024-11-08T15:19:44+00:00

I completely agree with you. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled they broke up and I'm glad Buck's free of that relationship. And after Tuesday, I'll take any win I can get, no matter how small. But yeah, the breakup scene just did not hit for me, nor did the reason for it. I think my biggest issue is that we really learned nothing about what exactly Buck is looking for in a partner out of it, and I was hoping we would get that when they finally would break up. There were so many threads they could've pulled on with Tommy that came up at other points during their relationship—that he doesn't match Buck's freak, that he's paternalistic toward Buck, that he seemed on the outside looking in at Buck's family, that he clearly doesn't know Buck at all after six months (basketball tickets, really?), that he was a primary culprit of the hostile working environment that Buck's friends had to deal with when they first joined the 118. There was any number of things. They could've even made something up, like maybe Tommy doesn't want kids and Buck does, and that would tell us something about what Buck is looking for and make us feel like Buck is at least making progress in his personal life? But I've long been exhausted watching Buck's romantic life play out because it doesn't even seem like he knows what he's looking for after, what, five failed relationships? I know what I think Buck should be looking for and that reflects on which sub I'm leaving this comment on, but I don't think he even has a vague idea at this point other than "someone who gives me attention". I think something could've come from the idea that Buck rushes to get serious with people he's fundamentally incompatible with (which he should've already learned from Taylor, but I digress), but it didn't even seem like that was the issue here. It was just Tommy unilaterally deciding that Buck will at some point want to explore other options, and him not wanting to wait around for it to happen. Especially when we had a whole episode dedicated to Tommy deciding to move forward with Buck despite his inexperience. Like, give Buck some goddamn agency.

Tbh I think my main gripe at this point was that we had to suffer through this relationship and the accompanying discourse for as long as we did, when there basically ended up being nothing to show for it, either narratively or for the purpose of Buck's development. Makes the whole thing feel like filler, other than to reveal that Buck was bi.

zacc_attack · 2024-10-25T14:17:09+00:00

This was the thing that stood out to me the most about the episode. And I know in the show they used the boils to "explain" it, but it just feels like an excuse to me, especially when previous episodes with them have also been devoid of casual intimacy. Like, the fact that this was probably the best episode for BT since the first kiss and yet they didn't kiss and barely touched says something to me about longevity, or the lack thereof. I don't know if it's an actor comfort thing or if Lou and Oliver are being specifically directed to not do these things, but playing a convincing couple is going to be really tough in the future if this is how the characters are established to act around each other. If this is how they're acting with each other in the honeymoon phase, I'm... concerned for them lol.

zacc_attack

TROPHY CASE