“Buck, Bothered and Bewildered” may have officially revealed Buck’s bisexuality to the world, but if you ask Oliver Stark, the show laid plenty of groundwork for the revelation well before the episode dropped. “There have been crumbs for years and years,” the actor told TV Line. “If you look back, and I don’t know if it was even intentional from anybody in the moment, I think that the thread is there throughout. So coming to this moment now is really exciting and deserved and earned.”
Superficially, Buck’s path from his ultra-masculine ladies’ man image at the show’s beginning to his characterization in Season 7 might seem like a pretty big leap, but as far as Stark is concerned, Buck has been bisexual for quite a while. As luck would have it, the actor was ready to explore that side of the character before showrunner Tim Minear told him about the kiss plotline. “What’s kind of crazy is that this season I did decide ‘If there’s an opportunity, I think I want to start leaning more heavily into that,'” Stark told Entertainment Weekly.
It remains to be seen where Buck’s story arc takes him going forward, but the truth of “9-1-1” is that it has no shortage of well-told, critically-appreciated stories. In a show where even Buck’s armchair has unexpected meaning, there’s no reason to believe that the show will fumble what just might turn out to be the character’s most pivotal storyline — at least if Stark has any say in it.