Pinned
It’s just crazy to me that Buck spent his twenties by himself, alone, wandering the entire western hemisphere from Montana to Peru and Maddie Han, who has been single maybe a year and a half of her adult life, wants Buck to “learn how to be alone.” If this show was more clever I think there would be a reckoning between the two of them over how Maddie seems to actively dislike that Buck may have found someone more important to him than her. Especially since it seems like she knows she holds the cards for him calling Tommy (and can feel them slipping with the way he said “I should call him” instead of “do you think I should call him”)
And I don’t want anyone thinking I dislike Maddie or anything, I say this because it’s very clear that the writing staff has designated Maddie to be the voice of Buck’s inner doubts. The show consistently uses her to suggest alternatives to reconciling with Tommy so that Buck can say he doesn’t want to do that. In 8.07 she suggests getting back out there so that Buck can say he isn’t ready for that. She suggests that he wait for someone special so he can have the open question of it that someone special was Tommy or not. She accidentally implies that the playdate with Jeeyun is a blind date so that Buck can once again say “I’m not ready to meet anyone.” In 8.11 she asks Buddie question to so that Buck can answer for the audience and she can ask “well did you tell Tommy that?” And Buck can respond with remorse over snapping and express that he did it because he was angry and didn’t really mean it. She assumes Buck means he’s going to call Eddie so that Buck can say no he means Tommy.
So all of that considered I Know that she only suggests Buck stay alone because the writers need her to, but in-universe it does come off as hypocritical and oddly unsupportive of Tommy, which comes with its own baggage when she is also saddled with the responsibility of asking if Buck is in love with Eddie and the two together seem to imply that Maddie is just straight up a Buddie shipper in a way that I don’t think was intentional on the part of the writers. My intent in making this post is to explore the possibility of further expanding this tendency for having Maddie suggest alternatives to Tommy into an actual conflict between to siblings.
It’s come to my attention that some parts of this come off like I’m belittling or making light of the isolation felt by abuse victims (many of Maddie’s years “not alone” are when she was purposefully isolated from a support network by Doug) and that was not my intent. I understand now that Maddie was very much alone in those times, and while I still believe it was strange for her to recommend Buck be alone, I don’t want to imply that she has never been alone herself. I am sorry for that.
I will leave this post up but if it’s reblogged again, I would like people to reblog this version with my apology.
