The Kiss That Stopped the Fandom: Let’s Talk About Buck and Tommy on ‘911’

There are some kisses in television history that fans have just been waiting for. Sometimes, we will them into existence. With a show like 911, there is one couple in particular that fans have been waiting to see smooch and they finally got to see it in episode 4!

Fans have been shipping Evan “Buck” Buckley (Oliver Stark) with Eddie Diaz (Ryan Guzman) for multiple seasons at this point. We’ve picked up on what the show was hinting at so when Buck ended up kissing Tommy Kinard (Louis Ferrigno Jr.) in season 7 episode 4, it felt like fans were right all along. Well, they at least knew that Buck probably wanted to kiss Eddie.

How we got here was an interesting journey for Buck. In the episode, he is clearly upset that Tommy and Eddie are spending so much time together. He continues to worry about his best friend, Eddie, and what Tommy is planning. While Buck was hiding his feelings as “concern” for his friend, Buck quickly realized his mistake: Tommy had feelings for him.

The two kiss when they are finally alone together and it was a gift to fans who had been waiting to see Buck explore this side of him. For Oliver Stark, he knew that there were crumbs laid for his character and he even went as far as to tell fans that they were right for wanting this for Buck. Even if Tommy isn’t who they maybe originally had in mind.

“You were right,” he told fans in an interview with TVLine. “I honestly believe that … and I’ve probably believed for a long time that we should end up in this place. I withdrew myself a lot from social media because you would see these things [about Buck] and I would agree … but I couldn’t agree, right? It was such a fine line, because if things didn’t happen, then I’d have been quote-unquote queerbaiting. So thank you [to those fans] for sticking with the story, and I hope there’s an element of it that feels right. I also hope you continue to stay on board and enjoy the story as we tell it.”

Are Tommy and Buck endgame?

While we know that Tommy kissed Buck and Buck very clearly seemed to like it, that doesn’t mean that this is the end all be all. Or at least, Buck needs to figure out if his anger toward Tommy was because he was worried about Eddie or because he actually had feelings for Tommy.

It is just exciting that this has finally happened on 911, a show that already celebrates queer relationships between other characters. To see Buck now get added to that catalog of characters is gratifying for fans of the show who have been rooting for this to happen. So now we just have to wait and see what 911 has in store for Buck and Tommy.

(featured image: ABC)