9-1-1 star confirms Buck is bisexual after same-sex kiss: ‘That’s the way I have it in my head’
Ryan Murphy’s 9-1-1 is no stranger to queer relationships, and to mark the show’s milestone 100th episode, they made history by finally showing Evan “Buck” Buckley (Oliver Stark) kissing another man.
Fans of the show have been begging the writers to explore Buck’s sexuality for years, particularly wanting Buck to get together with his best friend Eddie, as the pair’s emotional turmoil have led to some very heartwarming and intimate moments in the past.
The 100th episode saw the firefighters from 118 seek out a former member of the firehouse, Tommy Kinard (Lou Ferrigno Jr.) who offers to give Buck flying lessons. As the episode goes on, Tommy and Eddie become friends… well, more than friends, in fact.
In the final minutes of the episode, Tommy visits Buck’s apartment to clear the air and explains that he felt bad for previously excluding him. Buck told Tommy that he “wanted to get to know” him and that trying to get his attention was “kind of exhausting”.
After a bit of back-and-forth cuteness, Tommy kissed Buck and then asked him out, setting in motion an emotional journey for the character – who has been through so much, and deserves some queer happiness.
Is Buck from 9-1-1 gay or bisexual?
Buck was first introduced by the show as a womanising sex addict but later became more monogamous, but only towards women. Despite hints about his sexuality, it was never explored fully until now. The actor who portrays him, Oliver Stark, said the move had been “a long time coming”.
9-1-1 fans have long shipped Buck and Eddie together, the pairing is referred to as ‘Buddie’, and so this will definitely be seen by them as a step in the right direction.
Speaking to EW, Stark said: “I think it’s been seasons and seasons in the making, so it’s really nice to see it officially come to fruition. There was obviously something that wasn’t clicking in Buck’s personality and his openness with himself and his acceptance of himself. It felt to me like there was something beneath the surface, right?”
“Because we’ve seen him latch onto these different personalities, or different relationships over the years, and that, to me, is a sign of not being quite okay with yourself. So I think that was a big driving force in it for me,” he added.
When asked in an interview if Buck considers himself bisexual, Stark says, “That’s the way I have it in my head. We’ll see flashes of how he might look to label it in the next episode, but yeah, I think that would be the correct term.”
“I don’t think he knew what he was feeling throughout the whole episode. In fact, I don’t think he knows quite who is he jealous of, and what is he jealous of. I don’t think any of the feelings that he has throughout the entire episode are consciously being processed in his head,” he said.
The next episode of 9-1-1 is expected to be a “natural progression” from the aftermath of the kiss, according to Stark.
“Certainly for somebody finding this in their 30s, they’d be questioning, right? ‘What does this mean?’ ‘Who am I?’ ‘What about all these things that I thought to be true of myself?’ And so there’s some reckoning to deal with in the next episode, and then leaning on the people that are closest to him, and finding the right moments to open up and how much to share,” Stark explained.
Stark added that he feels “very proud” of the work and the “opportunity to delve into this storyline, to be involved in telling it”.
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