‘9-1-1’s Latest Buck and Eddie Storyline Is Definitely Breaking My Heart in the Best Way

Here’s the thing: when Eddie (Ryan Guzman) told Buck (Oliver Stark) in the mid-Season 8 finale of 9-1-1 that he was planning to move to Texas to join Christopher (Gavin McHugh), I never thought for a second that it would actually happen. I figured that, faced with the possibility of losing each other, Buck and Eddie would be forced to confront some long-buried feelings. And I’m more confident now than ever that that is, in fact, what 9-1-1 is doing with the second half of Season 8. However, unfortunately for me (and for Buck), this move is no longer hypothetical anymore.

While Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) has spent the first two episodes back from the hiatus dealing with unimaginable horrors, Buck and Eddie have been dancing around their feelings about Eddie leaving. I enjoyed every bit of last week’s “Buddie” storyline, from Buck pettily trying to replace Eddie with a dog, to Eddie looking at Buck with an interesting expression on his face when he learned that Buck was going to be subletting his house in his absence. Now, though, the other shoe has dropped, and 9-1-1 is in fact delivering on the angst and devastation that was promised by Eddie’s move. This Buck and Eddie storyline is already breaking my heart – and I’m having the time of my life dancing among the pieces.

‘9-1-1’ Continues to Address Buck’s Issue With Eddie Leaving in This Episode

In this week’s episode, when Chimney (Kenneth Choi) realizes that Maddie is missing, Buck and Hen (Aisha Hinds) show up to his and Maddie’s house to help. Buck calls Eddie, and when Eddie gets there, Buck insists on being the one who answers the door for him (there are certainly more pressing issues in that scene, but I still found this detail to be noteworthy). Later, Eddie and Buck go out driving to look for Maddie. While they are in the car together, Buck reflects on how things have finally gotten good again after Bobby (Peter Krause) came back and replaced Gerrard (Brian Thompson). He sites the moments when everything started falling apart, bringing up Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr.) dumping him, Maddie disappearing, and Eddie leaving.

This conversation is the perfect segue into the anger and abandonment that Buck is still feeling, even after he decided to put this aside to help Eddie. Buck says that Eddie is just moving “like it’s nothing, it doesn’t affect anybody else,” and he tells Eddie that it does affect him. Eddie points out then that it is not nothing to him, and it’s clear that he is holding back, but this is still a big thing for him to admit. I love this scene, because it brings up the issue of Eddie’s move very naturally, and it also calls back to the events from earlier in the season.

Eddie easily could have fought back with Buck here like last week, but he doesn’t. Buck makes it clear right away that he didn’t mean for it to come off that way, but Eddie lets it go because they’ve been up all night looking for Maddie. They are on good terms the ending of last episode, and they are still attached at the hip throughout this episode. This storyline is still not resolved, though, and it won’t be until Eddie returns – and even then, until they finally address their feelings for each other.

‘9-1-1’ Broke My Heart With Buck and Eddie’s Goodbye Scene

After Maddie’s storyline has been resolved, 9-1-1 gives us the scene that I have been dreading for a while now. Buck and Eddie take the last of Eddie’s boxes to the U-Haul, and then they say their goodbyes. Eddie thanks Buck for helping him get back to Chris, then he acknowledges the issues that have been going on between him and Buck lately, and how they both could have handled it better. This feels so loaded to me, because 9-1-1 often resolves fights between characters in one episode, and then typically doesn’t bring them up again. Showing how the fight still lingers between the two of them is very deliberate, and it allows Buck and Eddie to acknowledge their negative feelings about saying goodbye, even though they can’t yet address it to the full extent.

In a beautiful gut punch of a moment, Eddie then says, “I hope you know… you do matter to me.” It’s an incredibly sweet line, and it’s exactly what Buck needs to hear. Buck tells Eddie that he knows, which feels like the perfect response. Buck doesn’t need to repeat Eddie’s words back to him, because Eddie already knows that he matters to Buck. It’s much more meaningful for Buck to tell Eddie that, even though Eddie is leaving to go be with Christopher, Buck knows what he means to Eddie. It releases Eddie, to some degree, from the pressure of his admission last week that he felt like Buck was asking him to choose between him and Christopher.

A small detail that I like in this scene is that Buck is still channeling his emotions into baking, and he gives Eddie a batch of protein cookies that he baked for him. Buck and Eddie both say that they are going to miss each other, and then, at last, Eddie leaves. As if the goodbye weren’t heartbreaking enough, the scene then lingers on an utterly devastated Buck, who’s left standing by himself as Eddie drives off. I was expecting this scene to wreck me, and it did a little, but it also left me feeling very hopeful for the next chapter of what is to come for Buck and Eddie.

‘9-1-1’s Latest “Buddie” Storyline is a Necessary Gut Punch

I still don’t think that 9-1-1 will ever get rid of Eddie, and that has never been my concern with this storyline. My biggest worry about Eddie leaving was that he and Buck would grow apart and stop talking for a while. After all, we’ve been through versions of that before. There was the lawsuit and subsequent fight in Season 3, and then the more amicable but still devastating distance between them when Eddie started working at dispatch in Season 5. I don’t feel ready to go through those storylines again.

After this week’s episode, though, I actually think that the move is going to bring Eddie and Buck closer to each other. I can see this storyline playing out in a way where they cling to each other more than ever before, and where they constantly call and text each other until Eddie and Chris return to LA. This storyline could very well continue for the rest of the season. While it’s going to be painful and angsty, I believe that this is the necessary path towards getting Eddie and Buck to realize how they feel about each other – and I absolutely cannot wait for what is to come.