Will 9-1-1's Buck Find Love?

I keep thinking about the extremely bad and awkward date Evan "Buck" Buckley had with Veronica in the 9-1-1 fourth season 7th episode There Goes the Neighborhood which aired on Monday. Buck is usually a confident guy but for some reason he was the opposite and couldn't connect with his date. No matter what he said, Veronica continued to be cold, standoffish and easily offended which had him trying too hard to create a connection between them. I found this to be interesting because Buck never had to try too hard to capture a woman's attention. Back in the first season and early part of the second season, Buck was a total flirt and could naturally charm women. But it does seem like after experiencing two different break ups: Abigail "Abby" Clark in the first season and Ali Martin in the second season has sort of drained some of his confidence.

Throughout the series, Buck has been trying to improve himself. He's gone from Buck 1.0 which is nothing more than being a slimy frat boy who hooked up with plenty of women until he started dating 911 operator Abby. Then he had become Buck 2.0 where he became a more understanding and slightly mature version of himself. However, after his relationship with Abby was over he sort of resorted back to Buck 1.0 for a short while resulting in him hooking up with TV news reporter Taylor Kelly. The funny thing is Taylor treated Buck as nothing more than a hook up which is how he used to treat women back when he was in his 1.0 phase. I think it surprised him because although he may have dipped a toe back into being Buck 1.0 he didn't want to be that guy any more. And being treated like nothing more than a piece of meat made him realize that he wanted more than that.

Buck eventually started dating interior designer Ali who he met when he helped rescue her from a hotel following an earthquake in the second season episodes 7.1 and Help is Not Coming and everything seemed to be going great for the couple. Until, Buck got severely injured in the second season finale The Life We Choose. I guess after seeing Buck get hurt she couldn't deal with the reality of his job as a firefighter and all the danger and risks that it entailed. Since then Buck has been single in the third and fourth seasons, where he has continued to work on improving himself including getting non-mandatory therapy which is helping him sort out a few issues which includes dealing with his parents who as his older sister Maddie liked to state "were good people but bad parents". All this improvement led to his latest upgrade, Buck 3.0 which probably had him thinking he should get back into dating again in the fourth season episode There Goes the Neighborhood. But his date with Veronica turned out to be absolutely horrible. They had met through a dating app and there is no way they were matched from compatibility because they didn't have any at all. This was a terrible and extremely uncomfortable date which had Buck wanting to delete all the dating apps from his phone.

I do wonder if Buck going on bad dates is going to be a reoccurring thing for him throughout the fourth season until he finds the right person. I noticed that some fans have speculated that Buck will end up with his best friend and fellow firefighter Edmundo "Eddie" Diaz. However, this has been a long running fan theory that started the moment Eddie appeared in the second season first episode Under Pressure where Buck took an immediate dislike to Eddie because he was jealous of the new firefighter. The funny thing is, they quickly became friends after dealing with a bomb that was embedded in an old man's leg. Since then, their chemistry has grown making it seem as if there could be a potentially for a future romance between the two. Whether that happens or not, Buck seems to be searching for love. Despite having his sister Maddie and his co-workers/friends (who are more like family), he does seem lonely and I think after meeting and befriending Red, a retired firefighter in the third season episode The One That Got Away, Buck didn't want to end up alone and left behind like Red was.

(Eddie Diaz and Evan Buckley    9-1-1 season 2 episode 15 "Ocean's 9-1-1")