‘911’: Oliver Stark Talks That Shocking Relationship and the “Unexpected, Delicious Way” He’s Moving Forward
[This story contains spoilers from episode six of season eight of 911]
Buck (Oliver Stark) is back on the market after Thursday night’s episode of 911.
Early in episode six of season eight, “Confessions,” Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr.) made a revealing revelation when he casually shared that he was once engaged to 9-1-1 dispatcher Abby Clark (Connie Britton). At the time, he didn’t know Abby was also Buck’s ex.
But surprisingly, it wasn’t their shared past that caused their relationship to fall apart. Notably, after only a brief session in which Tommy admitted that he broke Abby’s heart by making her date a “guy” half her age after they broke up—he was a male bimbo—Buck asked Tommy to move in with him at the end of the episode. What should have been a lighthearted moment quickly turned sour, however, when Tommy told Buck that he believed he was his first male relationship after coming out as bisexual midway through season seven, but likely not his last.
“I think it was a completely understandable decision, even though Buck ended up being kind of collateral damage,” Stark told The Hollywood Reporter.
Below, the veteran 911 star talks to THR about Buck’s departure and the audience’s reaction to his character’s newfound sexual identity, as well as how he sees the reformed playboy approaching his love life going forward.
Back at the end of last season, as viewers, we didn’t know if Captain Nash (Peter Krause) would initially continue to be a firefighter and then if he would survive the house fire that left him hospitalized. Were you all kept in the dark about his fate?
Early on, when the first scripts started coming out to us, there was a little bit of uncertainty because we had just had a big episode, the eighth episode, centered around Pete and Malcolm-Jamal Warner. And sometimes when you do such a dedicated episode, it can be the beginning of a goodbye for a character. So there was some fear, and Pete Krause, who plays Bobby, is also an off-screen leader for us—he’s actually our captain, so it would have been disastrous if it had gone that way. But luckily, we weren’t kept in the dark for too long.
Going into season eight, when did you know that there was going to be a surprise twist that Tommy was also dating Abby?
In typical 911 fashion, it wasn’t long before I read the script. We shot this season out of order, so we shot [episode six] as episode four, and in episode three, Tim [Minear] called and said we’ve come across this amazing coincidence because back in season one, we gave Abby a fiancé named Tommy. The character of Lou wasn’t introduced to the show until season two, and they also happened to call him Tommy, and Tim was like, it’s silly not to use that, so it was a creative coincidence, if you believe in coincidences like that, that led to a really interesting reveal, I think, between the characters.
I think Buck might call Abby to talk about things while he’s processing the news, and we might have another Connie Britton cameo. Is that talked about?
I don’t know. She came back in season three and I feel like she was like, I’ve run out of time at 911. Of course, it would always be a pleasure to see her again and work with her. But I don’t think that was necessarily in the plan this time. We’re working within the constraints of 42-minute TV episodes, so initially there were some scenes of Buck thinking about this and talking a little bit about it and talking to Bobby about it at one point that didn’t quite make it into the episode. But I think you get everything you need from the scene with Maddie [Jennifer Love Hewitt] and Josh [Bryan Safi].
Josh’s speech about the world before Glee for gay men and the choices they have to make is a standout moment in the episode. Why was that important for Buck to hear?
I think it was a pretty smart move on the part of the show because while it might apply to the story that we’re seeing on screen, I think it has a much broader message. And it’s said in a pretty subtle way by using Glee as a metaphor. I think if you’re too heavy-handed in trying to convey these messages, you can really lose your audience and then people will turn off. But by introducing it through Glee and having a little humor around it, I think you’re more likely to impact people.
