‘9-1-1’: Eddie’s Worried About Buck — Why He’s Right to Be

No one would be OK after what Buck (Oliver Stark) went through when he was kidnapped as his and Eddie’s (Ryan Guzman) road trip home from Nashville took a hellish turn. But he insists he has it handled in the Thursday, March 19, episode of 9-1-1.

Elsewhere in the episode, Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) gets a shock at work that means a major change to her career, and May (Corinne Massiah) begins to figure out her future. Warning: Spoilers for 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 14 ahead!

First of all, way too much of this episode is spent with a couple — one of whom is Tia (Bayley Corman), who was on the plane Athena (Angela Bassett) landed in Season 8 — who buys a rundown house and decides to fix it up together. Any home improvement project that can go wrong does go wrong as they plan for their wedding. Sure, Eddie uses their issues to try to get through to Buck at one point, but still, we really wish they’d burned down their house a lot sooner than they do; after another electrical short, the 118 arrives on scene to find the by-then broken-up couple sitting on the lawn, drinking champagne and requesting they just let it burn.

The storyline that deserves to have more time in this episode, though, at least we know there’s more to come, and this is just the beginning, is Buck’s, with Eddie worried about his best friend. He first clocks something’s off when he learns that Buck skipped a therapy session. Buck insists he rescheduled — or rather, will reschedule — and tries to walk away from the conversation, but Eddie follows, pushing him about talking to a professional about what happened. Buck tries to brush it off like it’s not a big deal and that it’s not worth talking about. He argues that he can’t heal if he never moves on and wants to do it his way.

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Eddie and his son Christopher (Gavin McHugh) stop at Buck’s with pizza, but he doesn’t answer the door. He is, however, there, and Eddie looks back as he’s getting back in his car in time to see him move the blinds. He knows Buck saw them. During one of the (many) visits to the couple’s house and paralleling them, Eddie and Buck get into an argument about asking for help when you need it versus needing to do something alone to do it right.

When Eddie and Chris return to Buck’s near the end of the episode, he does let them in and has dessert. Eddie apologizes for second-guessing him and judging his way of handling things. Buck acknowledges that he got testy and knows that Eddie was just looking out for him. He does admit that things were “weird” out there but insists he’s good and feels like himself again. But when Eddie remarks that he was worried the man he knew didn’t make it out of New Mexico, Buck looks like he wants to say something before Chris interrupts. And after Eddie and Chris leave, with plans for next week in place, Buck goes back inside, takes a bottle of pills out of his jacket, and takes one before sitting down, alone, in the dark. But what did he take? He had three different bottles, and we couldn’t see the label, so is it a painkiller, and we’re going down the road of addiction? Is it for his anxiety, and he’s just hiding how bad that is?

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Elsewhere, after Sue (Debra Christofferson) has a stroke in the middle of the call center, she asks Maddie to take over for her. Josh (Bryan Safi) thought it would be him — Maddie did, too — and quits. Her first day as boss isn’t the smoothest, but as Sue later explains, she chose her because Josh cares too much and doesn’t want to be a burden on anyone or disappoint Sue, whereas she knows how to rely on others, ask for help when she needs it, and delegate. And so Maddie begins to do just that — and Josh returns to work.

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Oh, and May interviews with one of Athena’s (Angela Bassett) college friends for a law internship, gets herself thrown into jail for interfering during a fight over a blood sample in a hospital (the patrol officers want to determine if a driver was drunk), and seems to find a new career path by the end of the episode: nursing. (We’re just going to point out that back after the Season 3 finale, we asked showrunner Tim Minear if May wanted to talk to Maddie about being a nurse.)

What did you think of the latest episode? Let us know in the comments section below.

9-1-1, Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC

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