Buckle up because this is a long one. But I promise I have a good feeling!
If you think about it… Eddie and Chris’s arcs this season could be beautifully tied up with Buck’s by the finale. Like I feel decisions are being made…
Chris is growing up. That’s essentially the crux of the Diaz arc this season, and we’ve seen Eddie struggle to come to terms with that, whilst also enjoying all the milestones along the way.
Buck is battling his own desires of becoming a father. It’s something he’s always wanted, and suddenly an opportunity arose for him to essentially be one, even if he hasn’t fully comprehended what only being the donor means. But he’s been sucked into this Kameron and Connor situation because he likes to fix things and help people - no matter the cost to his own safety or mental well being.
Which is what 6x11 was all about. It was him realising that’s what he does. He uses situations where he can fix things as a way to prove his worth in the world.
As he started navigating his way through the coma dream he kept trying to figure out what he needed to fix in order to get back to real life. Like some afterlife business stuff, when, in reality, he just had to find his way back to himself. He had to be selfish and fix himself.
Fix you by Coldplay playing over the montage of him trying to get back to his body? Not a coincidence. Every person that got in his way as he tried to get back to his reality was offering up a situation that in real life Buck would try his damn hardest to fix. But in this instance, stopping to help that person, be it Chim with separating Doug and Maddie, Chris with finding Eddie, or Daniel with… wanting to exist, it would mean that he, Buck, would be the one to die. Fixing things would be the ultimate detriment to him making it back to his own reality.
Now how does this tie back in with Eddie and Chris? Because what if now, after this realisation, it makes him realise that he got sidetracked from spending time with his real family whilst he was working too damn hard to fix somebody else’s life? Notice, with everything going on in Buck’s life this season, he’s been noticeably distant from the Diaz family lately. Other than the Buckley-Diaz family dinner at the start of the season (which I’ll come back to shortly) there haven’t been many scenes with them together compared to previous seasons.
(I honestly do not think a showrunner would be so petty to purposely distance these characters out of spite to Buddie shippers. There must be an underlying reason as to why they’ve been so distant this season.)
Buck wasn’t there when Chris was lying about skipping science club, and when Eddie asked if Chris had spoken to him about it he was visibly distracted. Then he wasn’t there when Chris was trying on a suit for his first school dance. He briefly discussed Chris’s first crush with Eddie, but it was amongst the rest of the 118 and he still missed the milestone.
He keeps missing the milestones.
Chris is growing up, but Buck has been too distracted with the donor arc to notice.
Maybe this is another reason why Eddie was missing from Buck’s coma dream as well, because it was his subconscious telling him that something’s missing. Eddie isn’t as much of a presence in his life as he usually is, and his mind noticeably picked up on the absence, as well as how he fits into the Diaz dynamic. I.e Chris being taken away from Eddie because, ultimately, he never met Buck.
Maybe when Chris was asking Buck to help him find his Dad...he wasn’t referring to Eddie.
Now, moving forward, I honestly thing we’ll start to get more scenes with them together again. I have a feeling Eddie will be there to help him through his PTSD, and rightfully, so will Chris in one way or another. He isn’t going to miss anymore milestones.
I have no idea how the donor arc will play out. I’m making a guess in that Connor will find out that he’s actually the biological father, and not Buck. Then when everybody expects to see Buck spiral he just… doesn’t. Because he has Chris. And he’s done trying to fix everybody else’s problems, and is now focused on just fixing himself.
There’s a reason they opened the season with the three of them having dinner together. There was a reason they had the Diaz family, specifically, bring up the couch metaphor.
Like their arcs coming together wouldn’t necessarily tie into Buddie, but 100% ties into their relationship, whether it be platonic or romantic. The crucial element is the relationship between Buck and Chris.
