Enough with acting like Buck was bullied by the 118 during the lawsuit (or, ever, but that’s a different post).
They were angry with him after they got all their personal crap dragged out in that lawsuit. They were angry that there was even a lawsuit at all, because it’s not like Buck talked to any of them about this before jumping straight to a lawsuit. Like, a lawsuit is huge deal and should be a last resort and Buck doing it without trying to work things out first was completely an emotional reaction. He was frustrated and betrayed and he lashed out, and their reaction was understandable.
“Everyone else got a party but Buck didn’t because they didn’t care about him even though he was crushed by a ladder truck.” Nope. They did throw him a party. A big party, actually, when he passed his LAFD recertification test. Throwing him a party on his first day back wouldn’t have been to celebrate Buck’s recovery and his triumphant return, it would’ve been celebrating him coming back because the LAFD didn’t want to deal with a lawsuit. Kind of a different tone, and Bobby wasn’t there yet (he probably did throw him one once Bobby got past his reservations about Buck returning, but they didn’t think they needed to show that because this is a tv show not fanfiction and it’s also not the Buck show. They already showed him reconciling with both Eddie and Bobby, a party scene would’ve added absolutely nothing to that episode and just been fan-service).
“Everyone ignored Buck and made work miserable for him.” Again, nope. Hen and Chimney were actually incredibly chill about it. Hen got him a little cake and gave him a very sweet pep talk. Chimney was just welcoming and casual about it (we’ll get into his pep talk in a minute). Eddie did give Buck the cold shoulder, because they were in a fight but Buck tried to pretend like everything was back to normal and no hard feelings, right? And Eddie was like “Nope, there are hard feelings and me and my abandonment issues are going to mope about it until you apologize about it like an adult instead of acting like we’re eight and pretending we can just go back to being besties without a conversation.” For a day. A single shift. They were hugging it out in less than 24 hours. Buck was fully prepared to have to put in the time to earn Eddie’s forgiveness and trust and Eddie absolutely could have sulked for longer but instead he just forgave Buck right away because he’s actually not an asshole like so many of you like to pretend he is.
“Bobby was completely unprofessional and he never should have kept Buck from doing his job.” Not to beat a dead horse but… one shift. One. Singular. Yeah, maybe Bobby had a lapse in professionalism when he projected his past mistakes onto Buck and also was maybe letting his own personal paternal feelings get in the way. But Jesus. Sometimes that’s what mentors do. We’re not robots, especially not in a high-stakes job like that. Sometimes the personal creeps into work. My own boss is also my mentor and it’s little bit of a paternal relationship because of the age difference and sometimes I do feel like he does things to specifically teach me some kind of lesson because he thinks I’m too impatient (example: one time he held off on telling me about a promotion because he thought I was being too impatient and pushy about it, and that I needed to learn to “just trust” him). Is he always right? Nope. Does it annoy me sometimes? Yes. Does it make him a bad boss? No, not at all. He’s a great boss, because he cares about his employees and tries to help them and make us all better. Bobby isn’t a bad boss for incorrectly handling one situation, and he even admitted that he was wrong after (again, beating a dead horse) ONE SHIFT (and also, the fact that “man behind” is even a thing implies that usually there is someone who stays behind, Buck just isn’t used to it being him).
You know who was bullied at work?
Everything that you guys claim the 118 did to Buck actually happened to Hen and Chimney.
Chimney was given the cold shoulder by his new teammates. He was held back by his captain during a time when he was supposed to be learning. For months. You want a story about a team ignoring, belittling, and underappreciating the youngest member of the team? Chimney’s right there! You want to write about a captain letting his own personal prejudice and hubris get in the way of actually letting a good firefighter do his job and learn the way he was supposed to during his probationary period: I present to you, Captain Gerard, asshole extraordinaire. We even see a reminder of this in the (one, singular) episode where Buck goes back to work, when Chimney gives Buck advice on how to handle staying cooped up in the station which is very big of him especially considering that Chimney had to deal with that for months for literally no reason while Buck only had to deal with it for one solitary shift.
And speaking of Captain Gerard, what about Hen? The 118, particularly Captain Gerard, straight up harassed her. They made sexist comments, they treated her badly because of her race, they made her feel unwelcome because of her sexuality. That speech that y’all like to write for Buck about how no one appreciates him but they should because he’s a god’s gift to the earth? Yeah, Hen already did that but better and she fucking earned that speech. And even though what Hen went through was actually bullying, and actually abuse, she still went out of her way to make Buck feel welcome on his first day back because she knows what it’s like to feel unwanted and unwelcome at work and she’s too much of a sweetheart to let anyone else feel like that even for a minute, even though what she went through was far, far, far worse.
In conclusion: Buck was not bullied by the 118, he had one slightly uncomfortable day of work where Bobby was trying to teach him a lesson and Eddie was giving him the silent treatment because they were in a fight. Bobby and Eddie were not bullying Buck, and Hen and Chimney certainly were not, and in fact went out of their way to make sure Buck felt welcome because they knew how it felt to be unwanted at work and didn’t want him to think that was happening just because Bobby needed a minute to get over the lawsuit. Hen and Chimney were both legitimately harassed but y’all would rather villainize them because somehow it’s more interesting to write a story about everyone picking on the white boy than acknowledging the actual canon stories dealing with real, workplace issues that POC, women, and LBTQIA+ people actually deal with every day.
p.s. The Eddie mischaracterization pisses me off just as badly as Hen and Chimney, but so many other people have already made those points better so I’ll just redirect you to the best post I’ve seen on the topic, as well as this post with further reading about latinx and hispanic stereotypes in media. Enjoy.
