One very queer post to remind my fellow buddie truthers that patience is virtue...
Never forget that the show clearly called us clowns and crows...
And neither of those is an insult.
If you haven't, I recommend you read up on the history of clowns. Do you know where they evolved from?
Fools... What are fools, in story-telling?
They have always been the breakers of taboos, the ones who dare speak up and illuminate the truth.
That's repeatedly been the role of the "fool" in literature and theatre.
And remember the scene with these modern versions of fools, clowns, in 4x06? Bobby tells Eddie and Buck to be professionals!
...Much like when he has to cut off Buck from flirting with the tapework guy... In season one. The tapeworm guy? It's basically a scene of Buck being blatantly bisexual, totally flirting with a man... And Bobby going: Be a professional Buck, finish this conversation later!
And then that clown scene later on... There's a clown trapped under some (obviously quite phallic) helium tanks, and Bobby yelling about needing to "release the pressure"?
It's a parallel. Go rewatch Eddie's and Buck's first emergency together. They need to release the pressure to save that patient.
And the name of that first episode Eddie appears in? Under pressure. That's also in the season 2 promo, the first season with Eddie. And the songs in those promos... Under pressure by the Queen and David Bowie. And a version of Nowhere to run by Martha Reeves and The Vandellas. It's a love song, about a persistent, devastating love. Fitting for a slow-burn.
Also...
Eddie: "You're a badass under pressure, brother.
Buck: Me?
Eddie: Hell yeah. You can have my back any day.
Buck: "Yeah. Or you know... You could... You could have mine.
....
Then that emergency with the grenade when they first meet...
Everyone originally assumes it's not live. Oh but turns out, it very much is a live grenade, isn't it? We see it exploding. What's a grenade, going off?
Well, it's basically deathly amounts of pressure. Grenades injure and kill from a distance, the blast, the pressure is so powerful.
So the clowns watch that scene, watch Bobby urging Buck and Eddie to release the pressure... They look at Buck and Eddie working together...
And the clowns make their opinion known.
A clown starts choking, and coughs up rainbow colored string. That's the unsaid truth which this fool says out loud to the audience.
"This story is queer. I'm telling you, there are rainbows. I'm choking on them here!"
The combination of clowns, pressure, grenades... Again... Makes me think of the Batman movie Dark Knight, especially the clever bank robbery heist which
Joker - A famous fool type character, also related to fools and clowns... plans.
Btw, some of you may have noticed that I keep rambling about the Joker, and Dark Knight. Why? Because THAT MOVIE IS A CAPRICORN OF QUEERNESS!!!
And there's that clown theme which obviously comes up in 9-1-1, too. The clowns are the queer audience, it's quite clear. That clown scene was written as commentary, to us, freaking out about the queerness of buddie.
In The Dark Knight... Remember that whole conflict of the two freaks, a Batman and a Joker?
It's a battle against conformity. Diverting from the norm. Joker spends the entire movie trying to make Batman see and own his freakiness.
Honestly I think that we queers should worship that movie, it's a tale of us, the outcasts, the freaks, us against the world.
Because we are the clowns, the fools, the freaks that people fear. Who are always told to shut up, and hide. The ones who have always been the outlaws running from the police, still are. Who nobody believes, when we see our kind.
That bank heist in that movie, which the ultimate clown, fool, Joker, organizes?
They enter the bank dressed up as clowns. The Joker is among them, a twofold fool, a jester wearing a clown mask, his true identity unknown to the other clowns.
The bank robbery heist btw includes lots of stuff which make me go "is this intertextuality?, was 9-1-1 inspired by this?", because they remind me of memorable buddie scenes. A failed phone-call ("I couldn't even call you to bail me out of jail!"),
the bank vault with electricity ("What more proof do you need, Eddie! We are trapped in a death box, thousands of volts of electricity...")
the clowns, the queers, hiding from detection, from the gunfire,
then clowns, destroying each other, one by one.
A clown getting hurt because he's an idiot who cannot really count (Buck, Eddie, the embarrassing struggle to get to "bi"?),
This one clown who thinks it's his time to spring out of the box and stop waiting. This shotgun has no ammo...
and the Joker nods, which convinces the dumb math challenged clown that the bank manager's shotgun has no more bullets...
Here's another deathly nod from our favorite fool...
This backfires quickly, the math challenged clown who thinks the gun wasn't "live"... Dies.
A fool just fooled a fool. A third fool cries out in dismay.
In the end... it's the patient fool here who ends up outsmarting the manager, and winning the battle.
Clowns are clever. We see under the surface, we voice the truth, but also, sometimes we lie to save ourself. That's what being an outlaw, an outcast is.
The Joker bides his time, is smart about it, and when the right moment arrives... he does not hesitate. He robs that bank, proves himself to be the smart one. The ultimate fool. The cleverest clown.
So remember the history of us clowns. We are silly, scary, strange, queer, the annoying ones who won't shut up.
And we are the fools. And fools are the truth seers. Tellers. We aren't dumb, we are clever.
That's how the story goes. Ultimately the fools always realise and tell the truth. We clowns, like the Joker... We saw the potential for "aggressive expansion" in buddie. We were there from the start, we looked at that lurking grenade, and thought... I'm seeing something here. And they will keep laughing at us clowns... But they'll learn when it goes off. I do think it's a live one, darlings.
So, how does the heist and the movie end?
Joker survives the danger, ducks the gunfire... And leaves the manager alive.
He also leaves an impression that will forever change that survivor. The Joker sticks a grenade in his mouth. It doesn't kill him, but that grenade is live, it releases a strange, queer gas.
The Joker gently tells the manager that whatever doesn't kill you... Makes you stranger.
Then... The way the Joker spends the entire movie urging Batman to hit him, to kill him... He challenges Batman to make him realise that they are really the same. That they are both freaks, outsiders... Birds of a feather. Batman needs to stop pretending that he isn't a freak.
It's like Buck and Eddie. Take a swing at me.
Wanna go for the title?
And in the end, they both survive this (really quite queer-coded) stand-off. They prove each other wrong.
Joker finds that he's wrong, that Batman cannot bear to kill him. And Batman admits defeat.
He becomes an outlaw, too. He takes the blame for the chaos, falls out of favor. The bat signal is smashed. Batman knows he'll be hunted... but he can take it.
"...Because sometimes... the truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded..."
And that's why Buck and Eddie, "Buddie" has really never been a tale of two buddies.
The "truth" is a lie. The fools have always seen it.
And so the Joker, the fool, the clown, actually... wins this battle. He is captured but creates another freak by turning Harvey Dent into the Two-Face.
He makes Batman realise who he really is, an outcast. Batman goes into hiding. But Batman creates another freak, Robin.
It's a lesson. Some of us freaks argue for chaos, some will argue for order. But to others we are still the strange ones. Outsiders, outlaws. Queers. Listen to the fool and realize it, own it. See that we are the same.
And they will hunt us, but the circus grows stronger. Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stranger.
Oh, and the crows I mentioned in the beginning? Well, they called the crows buddies, and told the audience that the crows always remember their tormentors, didn't they.
Do you think they're waiting for these boys to come out, the show asks?
Of course we were, are. And we've got one now. Waiting for another.
After all, sometimes the fool needs to wait and have patience to see the vision materialize. Doesn't mean the fool was wrong. In the end, the crows will feast.
Crows are smart. And the clowns see the hidden truth.
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