15 Best Buck & Eddie Scenes on 9-1-1, Ranked
If there is anything 9-1-1 is good at — and it’s good at a lot — it’s great relationship building. From the unexpected romance of Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) and Athena Grant (Angela Bassett) to the best friendship of Henrietta “Hen” Wilson (Aisha Hinds) and Howard “Chimney” Han (Kenneth Choi), and many others, 9-1-1 has done an excellent job creating powerful and enjoyable relationships that fans have fallen in love with. One of the things television show fans love to do most is “ship” two characters, whether they’re together or not, and when it comes to 9-1-1, there is no relationship fans enjoy “shipping” more than Eddie Diaz (Ryan Guzman) and Evan “Buck” Buckley (Oliver Stark).
Evan “Buck” Buckley has been with 9-1-1 since the show’s premiere, though he is now a very different character than he was when the show began. Eddie Diaz joined 9-1-1 in Season 2, Episode 1, “Under Pressure,” and while Buck was initially unsure about Eddie, their relationship has grown into a very close one. Affectionately referred to by fans as “Buddie,” the relationship between Eddie and Buck may have started as colleagues and moved to friendship, but fans are hopeful that one day — perhaps even in Season 8 — the relationship will progress to one of romantic love. In the 100th episode of 9-1-1 — Season 7, Episode 4, “Buck, Bothered and Bewildered” — Oliver Stark’s Buck discovered he was bisexual and shared his first kiss with a man, another firefighter named Tommy Kinard (Lou Ferrigno, Jr.). Though there was some backlash from the episode, most fans appreciated the character being able to find more of himself and look forward to seeing how it might progress in the upcoming season — with or without Eddie.
15. Buck Supports Eddie Through His Son’s Departure
Throughout 9-1-1‘s seventh season, Eddie faced some pretty unexpected drama. In Season 7, Episode 7, “Ghost of a Second Chance,” Eddie met a woman named Kim (Devin Kelley), who looked exactly like Eddie’s dead wife — and Christopher’s mother — Shannon Diaz (also played by Devin Kelley). After spending time with her in secret, Eddie finally tells Kim about Shannon in Season 7, Episode 9, “Ashes, Ashes,” expecting to never see her again. Instead, Kim returns to Eddie’s home in Season 7, Episode 10, “All Fall Down,” dressed as Shannon in an attempt to help Eddie gain some closure, a gesture that seemed kind, if not slightly bizarre. Things took a turn for the even worse when Eddie’s son, Christopher (Gavin McHugh), and Eddie’s girlfriend, Marisol (Edy Ganem), caught them in an embrace.
Despite Eddie’s efforts to resolve things with Christopher, including calling Buck in for reinforcements, Chris called his grandparents in Texas and asked them to come to Los Angeles and get him so that he could spend the summer away from his father. Buck, who had already attempted to get the teenager to come out of his room and talk to Eddie, returned from visiting Bobby Nash at the hospital with Eddie and tried to get Chris to stay, to no avail. The moment Chris leaves with his grandparents is a heartwrenching one, and Buck’s presence appears to be the only thing that gets Eddie through it. It’s a testament to their friendship and how much Buck supports both Eddie and Chris.
14. Eddie and Buck Steal the Show at May’s Graduation
Set in 2020 but filmed before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most graduations and their celebrations, Season 3, Episode 18, “What’s Next,” featured the graduation celebration for May Grant (Corrine Massiah), who was a 2020 high school graduate. At the event in 9-1-1‘s season finale, Buck was seen spending a lot of time with both Eddie and Chris, though almost nothing could top the photos Eddie and Buck took in the photo booth.
The final montage of “What’s Next” showed many of the members of the 118 and their LAPD and 9-1-1 dispatch colleagues taking advantage of the photo booth and the props, but Eddie and Buck proved to be the most fun. Season 3 of 9-1-1 was tough for Buck and Eddie both individually and as friends, so it was great for fans to see them having a fun time together as the season wrapped.
13. Buck and Eddie Go Treasure Hunting
Season 4 of 9-1-1, which was a short season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, had a number of really incredible episodes, and Season 4, Episode 12, “Treasure Hunt,” was definitely one of them. After the unexpected death of a local author, the team from the 118 and Athena get called to multiple incidents where treasure hunters get hurt trying to solve clues from a riddle left by the author. The 9-1-1 dispatchers start trying to guess for themselves, and even Bobby Nash gets into it, buying a whiteboard on his way home so that he can lay out all the clues and his theories — much to Athena’s chagrin.
The treasure hunt and its accompanying problems in 9-1-1 ‘s Season 4, Episode 12, “Treasure Hunt,” is inspired by The Secret by Byron Preiss. The Secret , published in 1982, holds the clues to 12 treasure boxes buried throughout the United States and Canada. If someone located one of the treasure boxes, they could exchange it for a precious gem from Preiss — or his estate after his unexpected death in 2005. Since the book was published in 1982, only three of the twelve boxes have been found.
Though Buck initially partners with Taylor Kelly (Megan West), he eventually brings Eddie in on the search. Buck and Eddie work together to try and glean information from the events on their shift and from probie Ravi Panikkar (Anirudh Pisharody), who works on a different shift. They nearly give up, but then Taylor remembers a clue that leads them to the location of the treasure, though they manage to arrive at the same time as the rest of the 118. The episode is fun for all the characters and gives audiences a chance to see Eddie and Buck use the partnership they’ve built in a whole new way.
12. Eddie Tries to Cheer Up Buck
After Buck quits his job in what can only be described as an adult tantrum when Bobby tells him that he’s no longer cleared to work in Season 3, Episode 1, “Kids Today,” and spends the rest of the week in bed, Eddie takes it upon himself to get Buck out of bed and out of the house. Eddie needs someone to watch Christopher, who has cerebral palsy, while he’s at work, and who better than his best friend, who has nothing else to do?
Later, Buck takes Christopher to the Santa Monica Pier, putting both of them in unexpected danger when a tsunami arrives, but it is the moment when Eddie leaves Chris with Buck that tends to resonate most with viewers. “Take him out, have some fun, maybe you’ll learn something,” Eddie says. “He never feels sorry for himself.” It’s the first of many reminders for Buck that being temporarily out of a job isn’t actually as bad as he’s making it seem.
11. Buck and Eddie Get Dosed on LSD
Season 2, Episode 6, “Dosed,” is an interesting combination of tough moments and hilarious ones for the 9-1-1 characters. After the 118 saves traffic reporter Taylor Kelly when her helicopter goes down, Taylor follows the 118 around for a few days to put together a story on them for the news. While she’s there, the 118 responds to a call at an exotic pet store where a man is choking on crickets from an eating contest. The owner, wanting to thank the 118 for all the work they do, sends over brownies that everyone except Chimney gets to eat.
While on a call at a beauty pageant, Athena realizes that Hen, Eddie, and Buck are high and incapable of doing their jobs. The exchanges between Eddie and Buck at the pageant are hilarious, and help offset the feeling viewers get when they watch Bobby — a recovering alcoholic and drug addict — experience his high back at the firehouse. Chimney is the only sober one, which leads him to believe it was the brownies, though it takes a comment from the exotic pet store owner in Taylor Kelly’s new report to finally confirm it.
10. Buck Finds Solace at Eddie’s House
Buck, still recovering from the lightning strike in Season 6, Episode 10, “In a Flash,” spends most of his day during Season 6, Episode 12, “Recovery,” dealing with visitors sent over by his sister, Maddie Buckley (Jennifer Love Hewitt). Though Maddie is trying to help, ultimately all the visitors end up tiring Buck out, and he escapes his apartment to go to the only other place he feels like he can relax — Eddie’s house.
“This is Eddie’s house, I’m not really a guest,” Buck tells Maddie in Season 3, Episode 11, “Seize the Day,” when most of the 118 are gathered at Eddie’s house celebrating their chosen family.
Though Buck initially tells Eddie that he can’t ask him how he’s doing and then abruptly falls asleep on the couch, eventually the two friends are able to have a frank conversation about what they’ve both experienced. Both of them have had near-death experiences, and they’re able to talk about what it’s like to recover and move forward. It’s an important moment in their relationship and in Buck’s healing from the lightning strike.
9. Buck Shows Up When Eddie Needs Him
Throughout 9-1-1‘s fifth Season, both Eddie and his son Christopher are struggling, and Eddie even leaves the 118 for a while, beginning in Season 5, Episode 10, “Wrapped in Red.” After Bobby tells Eddie that he’s not ready to come back to work, Eddie spends more time in therapy, which ultimately leads him to call one of the people he was previously in the army with in Season 5, Episode 13, “Fear-o-Phobia,” only to learn the devastating news that sends him into an unexpected rage. Chris hears him through the closed bedroom door and, terrified, calls Buck.
Buck arrives at the Diaz home to find Eddie huddled in his bedroom, which he destroyed with both his fists and a baseball bat after learning that everyone he was previously in the army with — everyone he saved, earning him a silver star — is now deceased. Buck jumps into action for both Eddie and Chris, putting Chris to bed and reassuring him that everything will be fine, and talking with Eddie once he has started to calm down. Buck even calls in Bobby for additional help in Season 5, Episode 14, “Dumb Luck,” showing that Buck can both be there for Eddie and knows when Eddie needs someone else.
8. Buck Comes Out to Eddie
After kissing Tommy Kinard (Lou Ferrigno, Jr.) for the first time in Season 7, Episode 4, “Buck, Bothered and Bewildered,” Buck and Tommy went on their first date at an Italian restaurant in Season 7, Episode 5, “You Don’t Know Me.” Things seemed to be going well, at least until they were surprised by the appearance of Eddie and his girlfriend, Marisol. Buck panics and pretends that he and Tommy are just there as friends, leading Tommy to cancel the rest of their date because he doesn’t think Buck is ready.
After a conversation with his sister, Maddie, Buck finally decides to tell Eddie the truth over a beer while Eddie is working through his own relationship issues. Buck is nervous, but Eddie reacts positively, promising Buck that it doesn’t change anything between them. He even encourages Buck to try again with Tommy, which leads to Buck outing his new relationship at Maddie and Chimney’s hospital wedding in 9-1-1‘s Season 7, Episode 6, “There Goes the Groom.” It’s an important moment for their relationship — one that “Buddie” fans hope will be replicated in Season 8 when Eddie comes out.
7. Eddie Trusts Buck With Christopher… Again
The disaster that kicked off 9-1-1‘s third season was a tsunami that took out the Santa Monica Pier and put most of Los Angeles in danger, including Christopher and Buck. Buck manages to keep Christopher safe for a while, but at the end of Season 3, Episode 2, “Sink or Swim,” Christopher falls off the back of a firetruck and into the water. Buck spends most of Season 3, Episode 3, “The Searchers,” looking for Christopher. Just as he’s finally about to tell Eddie that Christopher is missing, the boy is brought to the triage center by a woman who was trying to help him find Buck.
Buck nearly collapses with relief — and because he’s on blood thinners and hasn’t been caring for himself while searching for Chris — but he also thinks he failed. He is certain Eddie will never want him near Christopher again, so he’s shocked when Eddie shows up with Christopher the next time he has a shift. For Eddie and Christopher, though, it’s simple. To Christopher, Buck saved him, which is what Eddie tells Buck, and Eddie knows that Buck will do everything he can to protect his son. The moment sets up several important moments in the future and shows how deeply Eddie and Buck care for each other and for Christopher.
6. Eddie Fights With Buck in a Grocery Store
Despite Buck’s experience in the Tsunami appearing to help him feel better about his delayed return to the 118, it takes just one conversation with Bobby in Season 3, Episode 4, “Triggers,” for Buck to decide that his only course of action is a lawsuit against the city, the LAFD, and Bobby himself. It means that in 9-1-1‘s Season 3, Episode 5, “Rage,” Bobby and the rest of the 118 have to attend arbitration that reveals that Buck has outed many of the team’s secrets in an attempt to get his job back.
After realizing that he may have crossed a line, Buck shows up at the 118’s regular grocery store to try and apologize. Eddie, who is still grieving the loss of his wife, Shannon, who died in Season 2, Episode 17, “Careful What You Wish For,” and is frustrated with Buck’s reaction to his injury, gets into an argument with Buck in the middle of the store. Their argument nearly reveals Eddie’s recent arrest for assault, which only Lena Bosko (Ronda Rousey) knows about as she bailed him out, and has Eddie telling Buck that he didn’t think the whole thing through — after all, Christopher misses him, which Eddie can’t do anything about since Eddie and Buck can’t talk. The fight is short-lived but emotional, and audiences see how much Buck’s absence affects Eddie, who needed him after Shannon’s death.
5. Buck and Eddie Throw a Bachelor Party
Despite Chimney’s many objections, Buck is insistent that Chim needs a bachelor party before marrying Maddie in 9-1-1‘s Season 7, Episode 6, “There Goes the Groom,” so Buck plans a karaoke party and invites Hen, Karen (Traci Thoms), Ravi, Eddie, and even Tommy. Unfortunately, Chimney never shows up, and eventually, everyone else departs, leaving Eddie and Buck behind with a room full of alcohol and appetizers. When a group of women stumbles into the wrong room, Buck and Eddie decide to have the bachelor party of their dreams.
Karaoke has somewhat of a storied history with the 118. In Season 2, Episode 12, “Chimney Begins,” 9-1-1 reveals that Chimney was inspired to become a firefighter when the karaoke bar he was working at caught on fire, and he helped people get to safety. In Season 2, Episode 8, “Buck, Actually,” Buck joins Chimney for a drink, only to discover that Chim has also invited Maddie. While they aren’t technically dating, it sure seems like Maddie and Chimney are on a date when they go up to sing “Islands in the Stream” on karaoke — a song that Jennifer Love Hewitt recorded a ballad version of for their wedding in “There Goes the Groom.”
Later in the evening, Eddie and Buck decide to rent an Uber and take it to the hotel where Chimney is supposed to be. When they don’t find him in the main room, they assume he’s asleep in the bedroom and opts to leave him alone, though their party continues. If they weren’t as drunk as they were, they might have noticed that all their noise didn’t wake Chimney up, but instead, they party into the night and wake up very hungover and still in their Miami Vice-inspired suits, though they still can’t agree on which one of them is Crockett and which one is Tubbs. The episode is a fun look at the antics that Buck and Eddie can get up to, though fans do wish that Tim Minear would release the scene where Buck and Eddie sing karaoke together.
4. Eddie Gets Shot
The series of events that lead to Eddie getting shot in Season 4, Episode 13, “Suspicion,” are complicated and unexpected. A woman falls through her balcony. Her son calls 9-1-1. When the 118 arrives, they learn her son, Charlie (Christian Ganiere), is immunocompromised and can’t go to the hospital with her, so Eddie stays. Charlie spills a cup, so Eddie opens a cabinet to get paper towels. After Charlie’s mother returns and Eddie goes home, he discovers that Charlie’s mother might actually be making him sick with the eye drops Eddie spotted in their cabinet. Before Eddie can do anything, Charlie calls Eddie to tell him that his mother is sick because Charlie wanted to see what would happen if she took the eye drops she had been putting in his food for years.
Eddie, Buck, Chimney, and Station 133, who they call in for support, arrive at Charlie’s home in time to save his mother. As they get ready to leave, having loaded Charlie and his mother into separate ambulances, a shot pierces through Eddie’s shoulder, spraying blood all over Buck’s face. The remainder of “Suspicion” moves in slow motion as Eddie hits the ground and Buck is pulled behind a truck by another firefighter. It isn’t until the beginning of Season 4, Episode 14, “Survivors,” that Buck is able to get to Eddie, hauling him under the firetruck and then into the truck’s cab. Buck is desperate to keep Eddie with him until they get to the hospital, and Eddie’s only question is to ask Buck if he’s hurt. It’s one of the most iconic moments in “Buddie” history, setting the stage for the future of their relationship.
3. Buck Gets Hit By Lightning
After spending most of Season 6, Episode 10, “In a Flash,” dealing with a dry thunderstorm, the 118 is finally doused in rain when they arrive at a large apartment building fire. After first telling Chimney that it’s his turn, Buck makes his way up the ladder, rope wrapped around his waist. In a split second, everything changes. The lightning comes so quickly that the team takes a second to realize that Buck has been hit. Eddie is thrown off the ladder truck, but he’s still somehow the first one to start back up the ladder to get to Buck, who is now hanging from the rope around his waist off the end of the ladder.
Eddie yelling for Buck and racing up the ladder is a powerful juxtaposition with Buck yelling for Eddie and crawling under the truck to get to him in Season 4, Episode 14, “Survivors.” Eddie is also the one who lowers Buck down to the gurney, just as Buck hauled Eddie into the cab of the truck. When they finally get Buck to the hospital, and the doctors promise to do everything they can, Eddie tells them to “do more.” Though Buck seems to express his feelings more loudly, it’s clear from Eddie’s reaction to Buck’s injury that he cares for Buck just as much as Buck cares for him.
2. Buck Thinks He’s Lost Eddie
In each of 9-1-1‘s “Begins” episodes, audiences get a look at how each of the main characters got to where they are in the show’s present time. Some, like Season 3, Episode 15, “Eddie Begins,” switch between the past and the present, ensuring that viewers see how the character’s past and present intertwine. In “Eddie Begins,” Eddie heads down into a hole the team has dug nearly 40 feet in the ground to rescue a little boy stuck in a well. He cuts his line so he can have more time to get to the boy, and though he manages to get the boy to Chimney, his cut line is ultimately his downfall.
In “Eddie Begins,” Eddie’s parents try to convince him to give them custody of Chris instead of taking him to Los Angeles. They also try to gain custody in Season 2, Episode 18, “This Life We Choose,” at Shannon’s funeral. Eddie fights them both times, but when Christopher calls them in Season 7, Episode 10, “All Fall Down,” Eddie can do nothing to make Christopher stay, making it all the more devastating.
Just when the team is about to send a line back down to Eddie, the tunnel collapses, burying Eddie. He’s left in an air pocket and has to dig himself out, which is tough enough for viewers to watch, but what is happening up top is truly gut-wrenching. When Buck discovers that the tunnel has collapsed, he dives for the mud and begins trying to dig with his hands. It’s raining, Buck is yelling Eddie’s name, and he finally has to be pulled back by Bobby, the two men collapsing to the ground as Buck continues to yell for Eddie. The moment is almost painful, and fans feel just as distraught as Buck seems- and as elated when Eddie eventually gets himself out of the tunnel.
1. Eddie Tells Buck About His Will
Season 4, Episode 14, “Survivors,” is a big finale for several characters, but it is the biggest for Buck and Eddie. Not only does the audience see Buck haul Eddie into the cab of the fire truck, but Buck takes care of Christopher while Eddie is in the hospital. At the end of the episode, when Eddie is finally released from the hospital, Buck tells him that he thinks it might have been better if he had been shot instead of Eddie.
That’s when Eddie spills the beans. After the events of Season 3, Episode 15, “Eddie Begins,” Eddie decided he needed to make sure his son would always be taken care of, so he changed his will. In his will, Buck is listed as Christopher’s legal guardian if Eddie dies. “No one will ever fight for my son as hard as you,” Eddie tells Buck, who has a few questions but otherwise is on board. All he wants to know is why Eddie is finally telling him. “Because, Evan,” Eddie says. “You act like you’re expendable. But you’re not.” It’s clear to fans that Buck and Eddie are family and always will be, no matter what their relationship ends up looking like.
