[This story contains spoilers from episode six, season eight of 911]
Buck (Oliver Stark) is back on the market following Thursday night’s episode of 911.
Early into episode six of season eight, “Confessions,” Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr.) makes a startling revelation when he casually shares that he used to be engaged to 9-1-1 dispatcher Abby Clark (Connie Britton). At the time, he doesn’t know Abby is also Buck’s ex.
But, surprisingly, it’s not their shared past that is the undoing of their relationship. After notably only having a mini-spiral session about Tommy admitting that he broke Abby’s heart, leading her to date a “himbo” half her age after they called it quits — him being the male Bimbo — Buck asks Tommy to move in with him toward the end of the episode. What should be a happy moment quickly turns sour, however, when Tommy tells Buck he believes he’s his first male relationship after coming into his bisexuality mid-season seven, but most likely not his last.
“I think it’s a totally understandable decision, even though Buck ends up as kind of collateral damage,” Stark tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Below, the veteran 911 star talks to THR about Buck’s breakup and audiences’ reaction to his character’s newly discovered sexual identity, as well as how he sees the reformed playboy approaching his love life going forward.
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Going back to the end of last season, as viewers we didn’t know if Captain Nash (Peter Krause) would remain a firefighter initially and then if he would survive the house fire that left him hospitalized. Were you all kept in the dark about his fate?
Very early on, when the script first started to come out to us, there was a little bit of uncertainty because we had just had this big episode, episode eight, that was all based around Pete’s character and Malcolm-Jamal Warner. And sometimes when you do such a dedicated episode, it can be the beginning of a goodbye for a character. So there was some fear and, Pete Krause, who plays Bobby, is such a leader off the screen as well for us — he really is our captain, so it would have been disastrous had it gone that way. But, thankfully, we weren’t kept in the dark for too long.
Coming into season eight, when did you learn that there was going to be this surprise twist that Tommy had also dated Abby?
In typical 911 fashion, not too long before I was reading the script. We shot this season out of order, so we shot [episode six] as episode four and during episode three Tim [Minear] called and said we’ve walked into this wonderful coincidence because back in season one, we gave Abby a fiancé called Tommy. Lou’s character not yet having been introduced into the show until season two, by coincidence they called him Tommy as well, and Tim was like, it would be silly to not use this, so it was kind of creative coincidence, if you believe in such coincidences, that led to a really fun revelation, I think, between the characters.
I thought Buck might call Abby to talk about things while he was processing the news and we might get another Connie Britton cameo. Was that talked about at all?
I don’t know. She came back in season three and I feel like she’s like, I’ve done my time on 911. It would always be a pleasure, of course, to see and work with her again. But I don’t think it was in the cards necessarily this time around. We’re working under the constraints of 42-minute episodes on TV, so there were some more scenes, originally, of Buck spiraling and spinning out a little bit about this and talking to Bobby about it at one point that didn’t quite end up making it into the episode. But I think you get everything you need out of the scene with Maddie [Jennifer Love Hewitt] and Josh [Bryan Safi].
Josh’s speech about the pre-Glee world for gay men and the choices they had to make was a standout moment in this episode. Why was that important for Buck to hear?
I think it was quite a clever move by the show because as much as it is applicable to the story we’re watching onscreen, I think it has a much broader message. And it’s said in quite a subtle way using Glee as this kind of metaphor. I think if you’re ever too heavy-handed with trying to deliver these messages, you can actually lose your audience and then people tune out. But by introducing it via Glee and having a bit of humor around it, I think you’re much more likely to affect people and make people stop and think. We are living in a world now that, while still a long way from being perfect, has seen some progression from what people would have experienced in times gone by. It’s important to remember that battles have been fought on behalf of those who are able to enjoy some freedoms now.
Tommy and Buck have such an amicable split. Do you feel Tommy’s reasoning is solid for wanting to end things?
Oof! You know, it’s difficult because it’s almost that horrible breakup line of “it’s not you, it’s me,” right? He’s worrying about himself and the situation, which I totally understand. There’s a really great line in the scene, “I’m your first, I’m not your last,” and I believe that Buck’s response is, “they can be the same thing,” and Tommy says, “they usually aren’t.” So they can be the same thing, but more often than not, there is some exploration and there is some necessary understanding still to be gained so I think it is the right decision. Tommy has every right to be scared of being hurt. The way the scene plays out for me feels like he has been hurt before. So he’s coming from a place of trauma and worrying about being put in a situation again, and at the end of the day, we have to make decisions that protect ourselves so that we can freely love.
Buck has had these two big loves now. Abby allowed him to see the benefits of true intimacy. How do you think the relationship with Tommy will change him?
I’m really excited to see the next step because Buck is a character that we’ve seen time and time again refuses to stay knocked down. So I don’t think he’s gonna stop believing in love or stop wanting love, but this is now the first time, once he’s ready to enter back into a dating pool, that he’ll be doing that as a person who understands his bisexuality. And we are actually gonna get to explore some of the uncertainties that come with that for him. Like, how do I go about this? What do I look for? I don’t think he’s gonna be knocked down for too long and I think it’s actually going to present some fun and interesting questions that he gets to ask about himself.
Co-creator and executive producer Tim Minear told THR earlier this year that this aspect of Buck’s identity had been baked into his character as early as season two. When did he first talk to you about this direction and why did it take until season seven to manifest?
Early in last season, I think it was episode four that the story really came to a head with the first kiss between Buck and Tommy, and it was only in episode two or three that he brought the storyline to me. I think it’s always been in the back of our minds and truthfully influenced somewhat by what the fans have been seeing and interpreting. It’s always a fine line; you don’t want to do something just because it’s fan service. You want it to be true to the story, but also, it’s hard to not be influenced. So I think it’s a balance that you have to strike as a creator of making sure that it is authentic to the story, and I think that’s probably why it took so long because it had to come at the right time and not just feel like we were doing it because some people on Twitter or wherever wanted to see it go that way. Buck had some ups and downs to go through before arriving at this point, and Tommy obviously was a huge instrument in moving the story in this direction. Everything just needed to line up.
Fans have been incredibly passionate about the bromance between Buck and Eddie, what response have you gotten to the actual romance between Tommy and Buck?
It’s been really beautiful and really surprising. I’m very aware that there are two audiences for the show. There’s the audience that responds and interacts on social media, and then there’s a huge part of the audience that doesn’t and lives in middle America and has a completely different relationship with the show. And I was cautious and somewhat skeptical to see how the response to this storyline would be in a kind of more macro way. And, honestly, it’s been overwhelmingly positive, and I think that’s in part due to what we said about waiting for the right time and things feeling right. It didn’t feel like we jumped the shark and just shoved it in there. It was something that felt deserved and earned, and we’ve had years of Buck feeling like something was missing, and that being very evident. So I think that when we finally did make that step, it made sense to the audience as a whole. It’s been really beautiful to see people feel reflected and represented in the character because people can discover their sexuality at any age, and we see less of people in their 30s or 40s discovering that about themselves than we do younger people on television discovering it about themselves. So it’s been a nice thing to have people see themselves; it’s really a huge part of why we do this.
Your character, arguably, has had the biggest story arc over the past eight years. What’s it been like growing with this character for that amount of time?
It’s very much been a journey that we’ve been on together. I was 26 when I walked into this part and very much the least experienced of the other cast members, much as Buck was the least experienced in the firefighting team. So we really have grown together and the relationships that we’ve seen on the show get stronger and stronger are mirrored by the relationships that I have with my castmates that have only got stronger and stronger over the years. It’s been such a blessing as an actor because, as you say, there’s been a big arc for Buck where he was, in the pilot episode, this self-diagnosed sex addict and had a real issue with authority to where he is now. It’s a huge journey and to have had the opportunity to play that out through many different genres. We have such funny episodes and then such dark and serious episodes, but they’re all part of the bigger journey. It’s been so much fun and an opportunity to test myself and try out different things and have a safe space to do that in a safe environment. It’s a joy from start to finish.
There’s been a lot of conversation recently about how many shows Ryan Murphy has on the air. What’s it like being on this side of the Murphy universe?
It’s really quite surreal to be honest with you because there are so many of his shows, even way back before 911, that I was a fan of. That name in itself — Ryan Murphy — almost didn’t feel like a real person to me because it was somebody who is such a big deal in Hollywood. So it’s pretty surreal now to work under that banner and get to be on these shows and you feel the Ryan Murphy touch on every show of his. There’s always something that makes you go, “oh yeah, this is a Ryan Murphy show,” and it’s so cool to get to be a part of that. He and Tim and all the people that he has around him, they understand what they’re doing, and that, as an actor, is really nice because you can just put your trust in the creatives and know that there’s an end goal and we’re going to be delivering something that at the end of the day, at the very least, is extremely entertaining.
Murphy often recasts actors from his series in other shows, at least on the horror side. If there was another of his series that you could star in what would it be?
Oh, for sure, American Horror Story. When the audition email for 911 popped up, I was sitting on my bed in my studio apartment in Hollywood watching The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and I remember saying, “This is a sign, I’m watching a Ryan Murphy show and my first audition for a Ryan Murphy show just came into my inbox.” So one of those crime stories would be cool as well. But American Horror Story from way back, I’ve always been a huge fan of. I’d love to do something in that genre.
Coming back to 911, what else can tease about how the rest of season eight shapes up for Buck?
Definitely more uncle duties coming. And Buck dealing with this breakup in a maybe unexpected way, but a delicious way. I’ll leave you with that.
That’s a great word.
It will make sense, I promise.
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911 releases new episodes Thursdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.