9-1-1 just aired its season six finale, and fans are not thrilled. What felt like a season-long buildup for characters Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) wound up taking a left turn at the last second, and was resolved in ways that the 9-1-1 faithful are not happy about.
Now, to be fair, unexpected outcomes are nothing new for network television. Showrunners and writers are supposed to keep fans off balance, and frankly, predictable outcomes can be just as disappointing. It’s not the element of surprise that made the finale of the Fox drama feel like such a betrayal; it was the decision to swerve into conclusions that felt tired and forced. Beware of spoilers ahead.
Let’s start with Buck. The character was forced to deliver his own donor baby when Kameron (Chelsea Kane) went into labor, and he wound up being the first person to hold the newborn. It was an impactful moment, certainly, but it did little to suggest where Buck’s heart would ultimately end up.
That ending point was not with Eddie, despite what longtime shippers of the show have theorized and hoped for, but with Natalia (Annelise Cepero). It made sense on a certain level, given everything the two had been through, but it once again failed to point a new direction forward for the Buck character.
Conversely, Eddie spent the whole episode trying to recreate the “magic” that brought him and Shannon together. He wandered around Los Angeles, seemingly hoping to stumble into a meet-cute. It felt like the character was underutilized, even though he bumps into Marisol (Edy Ganem) and has a hint of hope as to his romantic future in season 7.
Then there’s Buck’s couch. The couch had served as a perfect symbol and metaphor for the state of Buck’s life up to this point, and the character decided to toss it out and go shopping for a new one at the tail end of the episode. It was yet another instance of the show taking something that fans had spent time speculating over and analyzing in various episodes, only to have it taken away and supplanted with another couch.
There’s the argument to be made for “rebirth” and all that, but coming on the heels of what felt like unsatisfactory resolutions for the main characters, and underwhelming set ups for future seasons (which will be airing on ABC from now on), it felt a bit like a slap in the face.
“Maybe ABC has a different couch budget,” Stark joked during an interview with TV Line. “It’s been a long-running metaphor of sorts, ever since that episode where Buck realized that his other couches came with girlfriends. He presented that symbolism himself, and I think it’s nice to see it come full circle.”
Now that’s not to write off 9-1-1 as a show. It’s given fans beloved characters and lots of pulse-pounding moments. There’s plenty of room for the show to change and move away from the decisions that have rubbed fans the wrong way. At least, we can hope. In the meantime, we will have to stew, on our own respective couches, and watch reruns until it’s back on the air.