9-1-1 season 8’s latest episode, “Invisible”, offered more emergencies, domestic antics and mild threat ahead of a new two-part disaster arc premiering next week. But though this week’s helping didn’t reach the scale of some of this season’s big hitters (sure, Hen was held at knife point, but we all knew she was going to be okay) it definitely wasn’t filler. Instead, it took its time over character development and nurturing interpersonal relationships, two things that have always been among the show’s greatest strengths. The first thing to get excited about this week was that our beloved lesbian firefighter Hen (Aisha Hinds) was once again in the spotlight. Aisha Hinds herself was the talk of the town a few weeks ago when she made her directorial debut with “Holy Mother of God” (one of season 8’s best episodes yet, imho). But despite that, season 8 has so far suffered from a severe lack of Hen Wilson.
So far, Hen’s major season 8 storylines have included she and Karen fighting for custody of their adopted daughter Mara in “No Place Like Home”, she and Karen arguing about Hen’s work-life balance in “Masks” (which depressingly concluded with her other kid, Denny, almost being killed in a freak trick-or-treating accident), and… no, wait, that’s literally it.
She’s been around, helping out her friends and doing her firefighter-paramedic thing, but there comes a point where you just want to march up to the 9-1-1 writer’s room, bang on the door, and beg, ‘Please, for the love of god, give our lesbian queen a storyline that doesn’t revolve around her losing her kids!’ And Hen fans passed that point long ago.
The metaphorical door-banging has instead been occurring on the internet, but it seemed like the show’s writers’ listened. And the result is a storyline in which Hen feels… invisible. Well, yes, she’s hardly had any screen time this season. However, Hen’s journey through “Invisible” is a treat from start to finish.
The episode kicks off with one of those silly calls we have all come to cherish. Archie, a random forgettable white man who has just been fired from his job, finds himself trapped under a bed while his girlfriend and his cousin unwittingly have sex on top of it. The 118 set him free, and then we continue to follow Archie as he gets into more depressing mishaps, gets rescued again, and even receives a pep talk from Hen, the only member of the 118 who remembered him from the whole bed incident. The story crescendos with Archie, feeling fully invisible and at his wit’s end, holding up a bus full of people with a kitchen knife. The person to talk him down is of course Hen, who knows what he’s feeling to some extent.
Hen’s storyline subtly but entertainingly runs parallel to Archie’s as it transpires that everyone but Athena (Angela Bassett) has forgotten her birthday. Including her own family! A Hen-centric episode usually means we also get to see Karen (Tracie Thoms), which is always extremely welcome, but, Karen, c’mon, babes! Don’t be treating Hen like this! Honestly, the whole situation playing out was pretty frustrating to watch, but the comedic beats from Hen and the rest of the gang make it all worth it. Occasionally, the story feels like it’s saying, ‘Hey! Hen’s great! She doesn’t deserve to be forgotten!’ But we the viewers are like, ‘Yeah, we know! Give her more screen time then!’ So, yeah. And there’s also something to be said about Hen, the only woman in a team full of men and a Black lesbian at that, being the one that’s being ignored, especially in this political climate. However, Hen shares her feelings and let her frustrations out in a healthy way. She doesn’t feel the need to turn a knife on a bus full of people about it, unlike Archie, which feels very wide-eyes emoji. Anyway, more Hen please. Three out of 10 episodes this season with Hen as the A-plot is verging on crumbs, especially considering that’s neck-and-neck with how many Brad Torrance has had, and he was a guest star.
The other main thread of “Invisible” follows Eddie (Ryan Guzman) in El Paso and, boy, did it deliver some gold nuggets. If you’ve been reading these recaps weekly, you will probably know that I absolutely one-hundred-percent believe that Eddie Diaz is a gay man and that Buck and Eddie are in love with each other, whether they know it yet or not. The evidence has been stacking itself for not weeks but years. All this to say that following everything that has transpired in season 8b so far, “Invisible” feels like it’s brought us closer to canonically gay Eddie Diaz than ever before.
Like Hen, Eddie too feels invisible through much of the episode. No one forgets his birthday (Buck, at least, would never) but his parents seemed to have forgotten that they’re not actually Christopher’s parents, Eddie is. Slowly, Eddie tries to step closer and closer to asking Chris to move in with him in his new place in El Paso. After more passive-aggressive exchanges with Helena and Ramon, a chess tournament, and Chris projectile vomiting on a chess board, Eddie gets his moment.
A heart-to-heart with his son ends up becoming easily their best chat of the season, rivalling Chris’ ‘I’m always proud of you’ from last week, and Eddie realises that he doesn’t need to keep tiptoeing around this whole parenting business. He’s Chris’s dad and they love each other. He can tell him he’s moving in with him and that’s the end of that. There’s also a big reveal in the scene in that Chris – gasp! – doesn’t actually like chess and he’s just been playing it to keep his Grandpa happy, just as Eddie’s been tiptoeing around to keep Chris happy when Chris is going to love him no matter what. Ahh, progress.
The chat with Chris leads to a huge moment for Eddie, one that’s been a full season in the making: he finally stands up to his parents. He does it kindly and lovingly, with just a dash of his signature bitchiness that’s allowed to come out every once in a while, but he does it. It’s a weight off his shoulders and another hurdle he’s finally been able to jump on his road to happiness and finding himself.
But what’s all this got to do with Eddie Diaz being gay? Well, let me explain. The show obviously hasn’t said it outright (yet…) but it’s been scattering little details around that could very much point us to it. It’s those pesky gay breadcrumbs again, but this time they feel like they’re leading us somewhere.
With Eddie settled in El Paso with a job and his son living under his roof once again, what’s next? Perhaps something concerning his extremely intimate relationship with his best friend Buck (Oliver Stark), with whom he has FaceTimed not once, not twice, not even thrice, but four times over the last two episodes. And this isn’t the kind of show that throws FaceTimes around willy nilly. In the words of Buck himself, speaking to his then-love interest Abby Clark in season 1: ‘People don’t use those phones to make calls anymore. We text or we Snap or we Marco Polo, or if it’s really serious then we FaceTime.’ And it really is that serious.
There’s more to unpack with the content of the FaceTimes themselves. In the first call, Eddie and Buck chat with each other while they both cook (I’m sure I’ve read this fanfic before…), with Buck seemingly talking Eddie through a slow cooker recipe for barbacoa as he tries not to spiral about his first Diaz family dinner at his new place.
Eddie also shares his plan to spend more time with Christopher, revealing the tickets for a Mavericks game that he scored for the two of them. I swear basketball had hardly been mentioned on this show before Buck’s bi arc kickstarted in season 7 and the infamous first responders’ pick-up game, and now it’s all these guys can talk about season… Basketball tickets as an anniversary present from Tommy, basketball mention with Ravi when Buck was trying to find a common interest (though Buck hates basketball, why even mention it at all?), and now yet another basketball mention with the Mavericks game. There’s a metaphor at play here, but I’m not sure what it is yet…
‘Mavericks? That’s Dallas, right?’ asks Buck. Eddie loves basketball. Buck hates it. How does he 1) know about the Mavericks, and 2) know they’re based in Dallas? Has he been brushing up on his B-ball knowledge to have something to talk to Eddie about, or was he exposed to this fact in the six months that he was pretending to like basketball while dating Tommy so Tommy wouldn’t realise Buck crashed the pick-up game because he was jealous of his friendship with Eddie? Whichever way you look at it, it’s gay as hell. The second call is even more subtextually charged, starting with the picture Eddie has saved to Buck’s contact in his phone: Buck smiling while wearing an apron and brandishing a measuring cup in Maddie’s kitchen. It’s a cute photo, but then there’s the audience’s knowledge of where the picture is from. And that’s the ‘Holy Mother of God’ scene in which Maddie directly asks Buck if he’s in love with Eddie and Buck denies it. Buddies, we prayed for times like these.
