‘9-1-1’: Oliver Stark on Buck’s Struggle with Gerrard, Teases Episode ‘Helps Him Go Further as a Character’
[Warning: The following contains major spoilers for 9-1-1 Season 8’s premiere episode “Buzzkill.”]
One thing is clear from the 9-1-1 Season 8 premiere: Buck (Oliver Stark) really wants—and needs—Bobby (Peter Krause) back as captain of the 118.
To be fair, no one likes having Gerrard (Brian Thompson) in charge again; he’s just as bad as he was when he led Hen (Aisha Hinds) and Chimney (Kenneth Choi) back in their early days at the fire station. But the last time we saw the 118ers in the first episode, Buck was saving Gerrard from a potentially fatal accident with a chainsaw and construction workers.
Below, Stark discusses the first episode of Season 8, Buck’s conflict with Gerrard, and more. (Plus, executive producer Tim Minear answers our burning questions here, and gets the scoop on Buck and Tommy’s relationship and the possibility of Buck and Eddie from Stark here.)
The Bee-nado caught him, and he was the one who got to say it.
Oliver Stark: Yeah, I was the one who got to say it, you know. I appreciate the way you framed it as “got to” instead of “had to.” No, that was a joke, and I think it’s classic 9-1-1. We like to lean into the ridiculousness. Yeah, I remember when I first read that, I was like, yeah, actually, I think that’s really funny.
So to say that Buck doesn’t have it easy with Gerard as captain is an understatement. What exactly is it about Gerrard that makes Buck unable to not react the way the others do? I mean, it’s his understanding of the things that this guy says.
Yeah, I think going back to Season 1, we saw Buck as a character who definitely had the ability to struggle with authority or people in authority, and over time, he was able to find a healthy rhythm with Bobby as captain and obviously the lovely relationship that they were able to form. But if you take Bobby out of that equation, I think Buck starts to revert back to his old self, who, like I said, had issues with following boundaries and people in authority. So yeah, I think Bobby being taken out of the fire station really almost made Buck regress. And then Gerrard being himself just amplifies that and pushes it forward even further. So, yeah, Buck is definitely struggling with the regime change.
But then Buck saves Gerrard’s life. What’s that dynamic like moving forward? Because anyone else, I think this guy would be grateful, but this is Gerrard we’re talking about.
He’s going to have a little bit of a recovery period. I think we see in this episode that he’s hit pretty hard and there’s a lot of blood. Buck is going to struggle at first with the question of, “Did I try to save him or was I reacting?” And so there’s an interesting little internal conflict for Buck that comes up. I don’t think Gerrard would react the way you’d expect a normal person to react.
Now we have this storyline of this bee colliding with Athena’s (Angela Bassett) plane at the end of the premiere. What happens to 118 in these next two bee episodes?
We’re going to attach little bee wings to ourselves and fly into a plane. [Laughs] No, it’s fun because in a lot of ways, the bees are a setup for a much bigger and more epic emergency, and I really liked the bees in the first episode. I like when the show isn’t afraid to be a little bit ridiculous. We’re making entertaining television, and so I like to lean into that. And then it allows us to dive into something really epic and dramatic. I think this batch of episodes—obviously the cruise ship was great last year—are probably some of the best opening episodes we’ve had in a few seasons. So I’m really, really excited about it. And I know we say this every year, but I actually mean it this year: I think it’s bigger and better.
But then there’s the heartbreaking storyline of Eddie (Ryan Guzman) and Christopher (Gavin McHugh) and Buck watching that video call. How does Buck help Eddie there? Buck has his own relationship with Christopher, too.
Yeah, definitely. And I think you see in the scene where Eddie’s FaceTimed with Christopher and then with his mom that Buck is affected by that as well. Buck was very close and Christopher was a big figure in Buck’s life. So yeah, he misses him too, and it’s definitely affecting him. And obviously, Buck and Eddie are big rocks for each other and they can lean on each other, and I think you’ll see that in the episodes to come. But it’s a balance, because at the same time, Eddie, as we’ve seen, is a character who internalizes things, so he’s not necessarily open about how much he’s struggling with it, but there’s definitely a
