9-1-1 season 8 episode 11 recap: ‘We’re now entering into explicit pining territory’

9-1-1’s latest episode saw star Aisha Hinds take to the director’s chair for the first time, and let this recap immediately show that it was jaw-dropping to say the least.

After an extremely heavy episode last week, we’ve been given a little bit of a break from immediate threat and life-and-death situations for our favourite first responders. If “Voices” left stomachs turning, “Holy Mother of God” leaves mouths agape all round.

As far as we’re concerned, season 8 has delivered almost back-to-back bangers so far, and Hinds’ addition to the season is one of the best. The episode combines outlandish emergencies with the 118 interpersonal drama we love and crave, and masterfully balances hijinks, shocking lore drops and comedic beats that make it feel as fun and involved as classics like “Oceans 9-1-1” (season 2) and “Jinx” (season 4) but with much greater consequences on the overarching storyline.

Just for this, I want to kiss Aisha Hinds on the mouth. Aisha Hinds, if you’re reading this, know that I want to kiss you on the mouth. 

The ‘Holy Mother of God’ in question is Bobby’s (Peter Krause) mom Ann Hutchinson, a celebrity faith healer – played wonderfully by Broadway icon Lesley Ann Warren – who walks back into his life after decades of no contact, alongside Bobby’s brother Charlie (Sean O’Bryan), who I am choosing to read as gay for no particular reason. 

But ‘holy mother of God’, along with perhaps some more colourful language, also perfectly describes many viewers’ feelings around the absolutely unprecedented scenes that occurred throughout Buck’s (Oliver Stark) storyline. We’re honing in on the gay stuff again, and boy, was there a lot of it. 

There is something to be said about the fact that ‘Holy Mother of God’ feels like the most definitive Buddie episode ever, and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) isn’t even in it. This week, the on-screen gay stuff comes in the form of Buck and Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr), who makes his first appearance since he broke things off with Buck in episode 6, ‘Confessions’. The off-screen gay stuff, however, is all Buck and Eddie.

We enter the episode in Buck’s POV as he finishes moving into Eddie’s house, sans Eddie, and he can’t bring himself to empty his boxes, nor sleep there. Instead, he shows up on Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Chim’s (Kenneth Choi) doorstep – with a cheeky visual callback to Eddie peeking at Buck through the peephole in ‘Confessions’ – and ends up crashing with them for a few nights. There’s already a lot to unpack here, both literally and figuratively, and we haven’t even got to the explicitly gay stuff yet. 

A chat with Maddie about him needing to make new friends leads to Buck rather embarrassingly attempting to do just that. Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody) is his first victim. At the bar, Ravi reluctantly participates in drinking games and Buck is physically unable to stop talking about Eddie (best line: “Eddie would never do something illegal, Eddie has a silver star.” Um, hello?). But then in walks Tommy. Ravi makes a quick and relieved exit, and the two remaining men begin to catch up. 

The first quiet revelation comes in the form of Tommy sharing that Eddie – who was Tommy’s friend first, in fact – stopped speaking to him after Buck and Tommy broke up. Interesting. Tommy then confesses that, like Buck, he too has been fighting the urge to call. Sad, lonely and probably a little horny, Buck invites him back to his new place. They burst through the door, furiously making out, before Tommy pauses – mid tongues down each other’s throats – when he realises Buck’s new place is Eddie’s old one… Oh well! The morning after the post-breakup-hookup leads to Tommy cooking Buck a cute breakfast, some harmless flirting and Tommy showing an interest in striking something back up between the pair of them. And then comes the second revelation. 

To fully appreciate the gravitas of the situation we have to go back to ‘Confessions’ (again!), when Tommy left Buck high and dry in his apartment after claiming: “I’m not your last, I’m your first.” Fast-forward to breakfast, Buck asks Tommy if he’s no longer scared of him breaking his heart. Tommy’s response? ‘Not as much… now that the competition’s out of the way.’ 

What the actual hell?  

It all unravels from there, so let’s break it down. 

Buck: “What do you mean competition?” This poor man has no clue. 

Tommy: “I’m mostly kidding…” He’s twigged that Buck has no clue. Back-peddle, back-peddle! 

Buck: “Mostly kidding about what?” Eyes bugging out, it’s slowly dawning on him… 

Tommy: “Never mind…” Tommy’s realising he’s made a grave error here. 

Buck: “Hey, I want to know, competition with who?” This is serious now. 

Tommy: “Come on, Evan, don’t make me say it.” He’s pointing at the elephant with both hands. 

I actually don’t know what’s more hilariously incriminating: the fact that Buck’s response to Tommy pointing out that he’s living in Eddie’s house is: “This is not his house, he was a renter, and he’s straight,” or the fact that Tommy scoffs and says, ‘Okay,’ to the notion of Eddie being a heterosexual. To me, that’s proof right there that Eddie’s about to embark on some kind of dramatic awakening of his own. 

Then Buck says something so cutting yet so revealing that he seems to not even catch it himself. “I don’t have to want to sleep with everyone I have feelings for, and I don’t have to have feelings for everyone I sleep with.”

It’s the nail in the proverbial bisexual coffin. There’s no coming back from that. 9-1-1 has been known to make little nods and sly winks at Buddie in the past, but this feels like it’s grabbing Buddie’s shoulders and making prolonged and intense eye contact. The show has just stage-whispered, “Buddie imminent,” and we are listening. 

Eddie’s been in the middle of Buck and Tommy’s relationship from the start – from the basketball pickup game, to Eddie catching them on their first date, to Eddie being the one to tend to Buck’s boils, to Buck making his way to Eddie’s couch after the breakup – and he’s continuing to do it all the way from El Paso. There’s something haunting the narrative here, and it’s a repressed Texan firefighter named Eddie Diaz. 

Buck continues to spiral about the whole thing in Maddie’s kitchen, where the pair share one of their infamous Buckley siblings Deep Meaningful Chats. ‘What’s that even supposed to mean? I’m living in Eddie’s old house, therefore I must be in love with him?’ Buck, babes, you’re oversimplifying it! This is not an isolated incident! You’re forgetting the years of history, how you dragged him under a fire truck in an active shooter situation, and how he put you in his will! 

Maddie knows what’s up though – she also questions the notion (‘It wouldn’t be so crazy…’) and shoots her brother long-suffering looks as he continues spiralling. This from the same woman who had to listen to Buck obsessing over Eddie striking up a friendship with another man in “Buck, Bothered and Bewildered”, and then fretting over lying to Eddie about how he went and kissed that other man in “You Don’t Know Me”. Maddie is tired. Please let her rest. 

Despite Buck’s insistence that there’s nothing romantic between him and Eddie, I beg you not to close the book on the Buddie dream just yet. In the history of TV romances, very few have been introduced to the concept of more-than-friends and then immediately accepted it. Frankly, that would be boring. 

This feels like planting the seeds of Buddie for the general audience. We need a longer pining period. Sure, so might say there’s been pining going on in the background for up to seven seasons, but that was subtextual pining. We’re now entering into explicit pining territory. “Holy Mother of God” feels like we’ve finally been welcomed into the beginnings of the Buddie garden, and it’s going to be so beautiful when it blooms. 

Season eight of 9-1-1 airs on Thursdays on ABC in the US, and from 21 March on Disney+ in the UK.