'9-1-1' EP Tim Minear talks Buck & Eddie's chemistry, queerbaiting and more
9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Lone Star's executive producer and head writer Tim Minear talks the emotional finales and answers the burning questions about Buck and Eddie.
♦ says he didn't kill off Eddie because Ryan Guzman is "too pretty to die";
♦ he's well aware of the Buck and Eddie ship and says "all the conversations that the fans have are conversations that happen in the writers’ room".
♦ recalls the moment it all started: "It’s interesting because we had Eddie’s character in Season 2 and from basically the moment that Buck laid eyes on him-and it’s mostly in the way that we introduced him, with a particular song and putting his clothes on in slow motion-that may have started it from jump street. But you can’t plan when actors have chemistry together, and I think that Ryan and Oliver have a ton of chemistry together"
the scene in question:
Click to view♦ says he doesn't want to define their chemistry because the show is not over yet: "Now, how you want to define that chemistry, I think, is its own kind of evolving thing, which is almost why I don’t want to define it because the show’s not over. ... I know that there’s a contingent of fans that would like a certain outcome and the [relationship] has a life of its own in fandom in that respect. But I do think that, look, at the very least, these are two guys who have a deep spiritual bond with each other. ... Hen (Aisha Hinds) and Chimney (Kenneth Choi) have it as well, so if there’s more than just that kind of chemistry between Buck and Eddie and a lot of people see that, I’m not gonna deny what they’re seeing"
♦ says the show is NOT deliberately queerbaiting the audience, but "what I also don’t want to do is to not keep writing these characters the way I see them, and whatever it is they’re taking out of the portrayals of these characters is being generated somehow on the page and the way that the scenes are being performed. ... it’s almost got a little bit of a life of its own, and I don’t want to strangle that because I think there’s something that’s kind of alive about it, and in a way, I don’t apologize for it either."
more on Bobby & Athena, Maddie, Tommy, Tarlos etc. at the source.
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