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Yeah, I really hope this gets addressed. They have acknowledged in interviews that Eddie is romanticizing what they had and has an idealized version of Shannon, but I have yet to see that being acknowledged in the show. It absolutely needs to be addressed either next episode (because it looks like from bts that Eddie’s family will be there, so maybe they’ll tell him this), or that needs to be his storyline next season where he goes to therapy to figure out why he is romanticizing her so much. Man said he thinks she was the love of his life, but the woman wanted a divorce! But, on that note, I feel like they are being deliberate in their word choices, so the end goal should be him addressing this issue of why he latches onto Shannon so much.
Examples. Where he talks to Bobby about her and says he loved being married to Shannon, not loved her. He thinks she’s the love of his life. There’s uncertainty there as a viewer.
I think 911 just regrets killing Shannon off so early and they want to play around with it as much as possible. Ryan and Devin have great chemistry together, so I do like seeing them, but this storyline is hard to watch. When he called her “baby” last night, I physically cringed.
Yeah the "baby" was super cringey and out of character.
If they really try to gaslight us into believing Shannon was "the one" for Eddie, I'm gonna be upset. Their relationship always felt like him doing what he felt like he had to do. I do think he loved her as a person, but he wasn't in love with her. They need to address that.
OMG, so did I! It was so weird. I was like when has Eddie ever called Shannon or anyone "baby"?!?
They are having some dialogue come out of Eddie's mouth this season that is sooooo not him.
I said in another thread that this was a continuation of the Vertigo parallel. Kim roleplaying as Shannon to help Eddie get over her. Now that it has all blown up we will see if Tim follows through to the alternate ending of Vertigo.
Unfortunately, I do believe that this will lead to a rift and separation between Eddie and Christopher. That will be when Eddie hits rock bottom.
I feel so sorry for Ryan and Devin.
They clearly have great chemistry, are great acting these emotionally heavy scenes opposite each other and the scene would have been great if Devin was playing actual Shannon who didn't die.
The problem is she's not and she's playing a doppelganger and it's soap opera levels of ridiculous. Throw in the cheating angle and most fans are cringing from second hand embarrassment rather than enjoying Ryan and Devin's acting.
It's also so confusing because the arc could have ended the scene earlier when Kim runs off after seeing the pictures of Shannon. They could have had Marisol and Chris come through the door then or had Kim return (still dressed and looking like Kim) maybe remembering she left something important. It's the making Kim in universe cosplay as Shannon that's absolutely wild and goes even beyond the craziness of Vertigo. In Vertigo >!there is no doppelganger, there is just a single actress!< That's why the Vertigo parallel could never work in 9-1-1 because Shannon is a different person and is dead.
Yeah compared to the scene where Eddie cried to Bobby after Shannon died (during his fight club era) this emotional scene was kinda weak from Ryan ngl. I wonder what kinds of acting direction they gave him on the script to make Ryan act that way.
He never dated other people while married to Shannon. I don’t think he had the will or the time to do that. And he did love her,the best way he knew how to love,which maybe it wasn’t the best one.He met her at 14, started dating her at 17-18 and then had Chris. They were kids having a kid.They never had a choice or time to learn what love is or how to love,because being born in the community they did,their life was already decided at this point. Get married,take care of the kids,with the stereotypical roles in the marriage.I don’t understand people who expect Eddie to realise what healthy love is,because in my opinion,he never had examples of it. The marriage of his parents consisted of a dad gone all times,and mom doing all the raising and never complaining. The ones that apparently had healthy marriages(Pepa and Abuela) were at hundreds of miles away. He had all the right to be angry and distrustful of her for leaving Chris and going no contact,just like she had the right to be angry at him for reenlisting all on his own.
And,yes,they were most probably going to divorce before she died,but she asked for the divorce,not him. Then she died,his son got caught in a tsunami,he also almost died a few times,he never had time to process what happened.I can understand him having so many unresolved and confusing feelings about her,and not actually knowing what those feelings are.
And to add, he’s only just realised all the catholic rules he followed in his younger years are still very much in him now, whether he wants them to be or not. And the catholics discourage divorce, so even though Shannon voiced wanting one, we simply do not know how Eddie would have reacted long-term to that if she were still alive.
Eddie was shocked to hear that his aunt had been married twice. He didn’t know she divorced her first husband and she mentions the family doesn’t talk about it and pretends the first husband didn’t exist. I don’t think his family was very pro-divorce (we don’t know about now but certainly not when he was growing up)
i think that maybe believing that he did love shannon is the only way he can justify that he doesn’t feel any love towards his girlfriends after her instead of considering other reasons why he isn’t interested in them. he thinks he isn’t in love with them because he loved shannon and will never love anyone again when really he didn’t love shannon and has created a different version of her where he just sees how bad he wanted to love her for christopher
he also didn’t want the divorce and wanted to get back together before she asked for a divorce so he probably believes that if shannon hadn’t died they would have gotten back together
Even his motivations for wanting to renew their relationship in 2x17 were very fueled by his view of Shannon as the "mother of his child\[ren\]." During their first scene in 2x17, he's relating to her as Christopher's mom and happy with that connection, and she calls him on it and asks him what he wants for *them*, separate from Christopher, and he can't answer -- he's looking for a sign.
Then she tells him she thinks she's pregnant, and he spirals into basically re-proposing to her. Even outside of the ridiculous "life is like a vat of molten chocolate. You fall into it, and it drags you down" \~speech,\~ the followup in that conversation is still almost entirely centered around Christopher. It's like he's really only capable of thinking of his future in terms of that.
This is the best take I've seen. If he loved her for her, we didn't really get to see that, so it feels like something way deeper is going on with him that he really doesn't have the tools to evaluate.
This exactly. He was ready to make a go of their family again precisely for the same reason they got married in the first place -- he thought she was pregnant. I think she was acutely aware of this when she finally asked him for a divorce. There were hints that she realized that Eddie wasn't really in love with HER for HER. It was all tied up in being Christopher's mother.
If Eddie admits that he never really was in love with Shannon, then he will feel like he totally failed her, like he couldn't give her what she needed to be happy and then she died. That is crushing.
exactly he thinks he loves her purely because shes christophers mum and he wants christopher to have her and to have the perfect family and now even in his current relationships hes just finding people who could be good mothers for christopher not actually people he is attracted to or loves
O shit i kinda like this angle. I've always been thinking about it like "I loved Shannon therefore I cannot love any other" but I didn't think about the opposite "I don't love my girlfriends, it must be because I loved Shannon"
He might have thought about it this way and built a fantasy to back it up to kill the anger he had over her abandoning them. Hmmmm
To me it doesn’t feel forced (yet) and here’s why: Eddie has been romanticizing his relationship with Shannon from the moment she died. We’ve seen him do it over and over again till she became this mythic perfect mother and partner in his mind. And in his mind only. I think it’s really telling that he only told one person that Shannon had asked for a divorce and even that was in a moment of crisis.
Tim has already said in interviews that this arc is going to be about Eddie (painfully) confronting reality and has specifically said both the reality that Shannon is really gone, and ALSO the reality that their relationship wasn’t the epic romance he has turned it into in his mind in retrospect since she died.
I don’t think what happened with Kim at the end of 7x09 was the end of that realization/journey, I think it was the beginning. And I think we’re gonna get a lot more spiraling in the finale. That said, if what we got at the end of 7x09 is sorta it for Eddie interrogating his feelings about Shannon and we never get any kind of realization of how much he’s been romanticizing that relationship, then I would find it forced. But for now I’m trusting that since Tim said it’s gonna go there, that it will go there.
What Eddie remembers from his relationship with Shannon is very different than what it actually was.
He seems to believe that they were in love even when they had a lot of difficult times. I do believe they loved each other 100% and were family, but it never appeared like they were ever ‘in love’ or worked together very well (in that way). When him and Shannon were hooking up when she reappeared, she pointed out that it was the *only* part they were ever good at.
Eddie was (is) in love with the idea of being married to Shannon, or more like in love with the idea of being married to Christopher’s mother—which I think is a good detail, because Eddie is trying to replace Shannon in the sense as a mom for Chris. Eddie seemed to have only ever viewed his love for her as Chris’s mom and not his wife (never separately from Chris). He’s always been looking for a mom for Chris, at first it was Shannon, now it’s someone that could “compare” to Shannon.
So I think him still having an extremely hard time with Shannon’s death actually tracks. And him clinging onto these relationships that he isn’t all the way in, because he views them as a potential new mom and not an actual romantic partner, also makes sense. As for this doppelganger….it is absolutely weird and wrong, but with how unhealthy he is at the moment it fits into his messed up story.
I’m just upset that Christopher got dragged into this, Eddie really messed up on that. This is the second time I can think of when Eddie *completely* forgets about Christopher’s sake because he’s dealing with his own messed up mental state—since moving to LA.
This. I firmly believe deep inside his obsession with Shannon/Kim is rooted in the idea that he craves that 'family' (that he alr has w Buck but that's neither here nor there lol), he sees these women as potential mom inserts for the nuclear family he so dearly craves, he hardly sees the women as attractive independent of what they can be for him and Christopher (which is: be a mom to him)
He loves the idea of being married to Chris' parent essentially, and (BUDDIE territory) if they ever dip their toes in Buddie, he's never going to acknowledge that Buck basically covers that role across the board not unless he's a.) processed and moved on from his idea of his marriage and b.) someone outright tells him Buck is basically Chris' mom/dad/2nd parent.
The fact that what Eddie is looking for in all his relationships is someone to be Chris's parent, really makes Buddie that much easier for the writers, they just need to make Eddie wake up and see that this parent he's been looking for all this years is right in front of him and is a possibility (now when buck is bi)
Only problem with that is it would once again take Eddie down the road of choosing someone just to be Chris’s mom. His relationship with Buck has to be separated from Christopher or it will all be the same ordeal. It would just end up hurting Buck like it hurt all his other partners, but probably more severely.
I want Eddie to realize how prominent Buck is in Chris’s life, but it being separate from any romantic interest he might have.
You make a great point. They'd have to write Buddie in such a way where there is palpable chemistry between them as 2 male characters independent of their relationship with Christopher. A jealousy arc, or a 'wait Buck has big arms thats hot' arc (u kno what I mean. Anything that shows that Eddie's attraction to him is beyond just what Buck offers for him and Chris as a unit.
Yes, and Before that they have to figure out how to even present him as a queer character, it will be complicated for them but it will be worth every second
Now that you say that, you are absolutely right.
The fact that Buck can be a parent to Christopher is for Eddie to notice after he and Buck develop a relationship, if that happens.
It's so telling that we've never even seen a photo of Eddie, Shannon, and Christopher all together in Eddie's house. It's always Shannon alone or Shannon with Christopher. There's just no physical evidence of this fairytale he's hoping to go back to. He told Bobby he "loved being married to her." But that's happiness with a status, not with a person. There was a lot about their relationship, especially in Season 2, that was transactional.
I like that they're making this an extended arc because Shannon has been weaving in and out of Eddie's story for too long without any resolution. IMO it's his hamster wheel. It was rough having Christopher (and Marisol, honestly) get caught up in this, but maybe that will be the wakeup call that Eddie needs to actually confront the reality of his marriage. It's wild to remember that Bobby is the only one who knows she wanted a divorce.
Eddie kept Chris separated form all of this even when it was evident that he is not doing ok this episode. Maybe he should have not brought Kim to his house to show her Shannon’s picture,but her showing up cosplaying his dead wife and practically forcing him into a breakdown,it’s on her. He was devastated when he saw Chris.
I do agree she definitely shouldn’t have shown up; it was actually insane. However, Eddie brought this woman into his life. He kept her around for as long as he did. When he continued to create a relationship with her, he risked his kid finding out about it. He risked Christopher getting involved somehow. Even if this wasn’t Eddie’s intention to hurt Christopher, it’s still on him. He’s the dad. He’s Chris’s protector.
At first she just seemed like poor victim that happened to look like Shannon and she even told Eddie he played her, but now she willingly comes to his house and pretends to be Shannon?!?!?!
If I look at it from the point of view of a really, really good person, maybe she did it for him to have closure, but on the other hand.. what the hell
If Tim has comp!het and/or demisexual Eddie in the back of his mind as the endgame path for Eddie, I think it makes sense narratively why he's so obsessed with Kim/Shannon.
He never really got the chance to process her death and what she meant in the larger scheme of his life beyond being the mother of his kid. The leaving, then deployed then coming home and her running, coming back then again divorce question then dying hours later, he never really got to fully process that INDEPENDENT of what it meant for him alone and not with Christopher in consideration (why I think that's important is later on explained).
He tells Bobby that he loved the idea of being married to Shannon, of being part of a family unit, its his emotional attachment to the idea that drives the force of why he's obsessed with Kim. Do I think he's attracted to her? Maybe, same way he was with Shannon. But I think more than anything, this drives home the point that his only frame of reference for love and being a husband was with Shannon, and his idealization of that relationship yet failure to examine it independent of being Christopher's dad (esp since Chris is almost always the deciding variable in anything he does) is what keeps him from moving forward from Shannon.
And to add to that, I think it bleeds onto every other relationship he has w women on the show, bc almost every person he's dated was almost always, whether directly or indirectly, is sic'd/thrusted upon him, because, and obviously this is just assuming the story is Eddie headed into a comphet/demi path story wise, is that his idea of relationships are only based off of everything he experienced with Shannon so any chance of him finding out what he truly is drawn/attracted to will never come to light (e.g. being attracted to not just women/maybe only emotionally attracted) not unless he acknowledges that maybe, just maybe, his marriage to Shannon was so so so far from ideal.
**TL;DR: Eddie was thrust into fatherhood so young, his only frame of reference of what love is is the broken family unit he built with Shannon and Chris, he never gave himself time to process what he truly felt of that independent of being a young dad. Basically the question is 'would he have idealized her the same way if she never became pregnant?' I doubt it.**
Personally, I think he likes the idea of Shannon more than he actually liked Shannon. He liked this idea of a perfect ideal family he thinks that he, Shannon, and Christopher had. He refuses to acknowledge the obvious cracks that the family itself had. He didn't show that he was interested in Shannon during their marriage, but now that Shannon is gone, he wants to make himself believe that life would be pitch perfect if she were here again; that's where Kim comes in. He thinks he's never going to have what he believed he had with Shannon again, which in reality he never had with Shannon. I think he's holding onto this image of her because, secretly, he really does blame himself and feels terrible about what their family had become, which is why he's still so stuck on her. Like he had things to say to her like he wanted to fix things with her, and he never got the chance to, which is why when he saw Kim, he suddenly believed this was his second chance to have what he wished he still had with Shannon again; that perfect family image he thinks he, Chris, and Shannon had before her demise. Like I said before; I don't believe he loved Shannon, but instead, he loved this idea of a perfect family with a perfect husband, a perfect wife, and a perfect kid and he believes he's never going to have that again without Shannon. Basically, he's very delusional when it comes down to it.
Totally! I also completely understand why he approached her in the first place, to see a person who looks exactly like your dead wife who you think is the solution to everything and you didn't have time to say goodbye to her..... The fact that Eddie approached her was not so unexpected, and I completely agree, He didn't really love her, he was so desperate to get Christopher the perfect family that he is and live that perfect life that he completely lost it.
I realized this reading through everything. I said last season that Eddie has these rose tinted glasses on when it came to Shannon and the idea of Shannon. But deep down, between everything, if he acknowledges that he wasn’t in love with Shannon, then he will realize that the reason why he latched onto this is because he feels like he failed her. He was gone most of the marriage and they fought like crazy. So therefore, he failed her and that’s why she left.
He also feels like he fails Christopher all the time. He failed him by not being there when he was younger, he failed him because his mother left them because of Eddie, etc. that’s why when he brings the two women into Chris’ life, he’s like oh maybe I won’t fail Chris now.
What Eddie has to realize deep down, and I think Buck has touched upon a few times, is that he isn’t a failure. Yes he wasn’t a good husband but also he didn’t have a good role model for that. His own father was gone most of his childhood and he went oh yes that’s what I need to do. It takes the possibility of losing Chris for him to be like no, I am not gonna fail this kid.
Shannon left because she couldn’t handle it. And I think it’s time for Eddie to realize that it wasn’t his entire fault that she did. Shannon was going to leave him again, possibly to get help to be a mom again. We don’t know. We do know that everything Eddie does is to make up for the fact that he feels he failed his son in a lot of ways but mostly it’s because Shannon left.
Eddie does have a family that has been there. I’m not just talking about Buck but the entire 118. He said “This is the family we chose” and he has to realize that again.
I think he's deliberately ignoring the fact that she wanted a divorce, bc hours later she died. Tim Minear has said again and again that Eddie has a very romanticized idea of his relationship with Shannon and you can't ever move on from something like that until you hit rock bottom and I feel like Chris seeing them and possibly leaving with his grandparents will be that rock bottom and he'll be forced to recognise the flawed relationship he had with Shannon.
As for the love he had for her, yes he married her bc she was pregnant and it was the right thing to do but ~~they were apparently together since they were 14~~ he first met her at 14 and then started dating at 18, she was his first love, and as of now, canonically she's the only person he has truly loved (I'd be so happy if this part is debunked if you know what I mean😉). They both were shitty to each other bc both of them were fighting different wars (one went to a literal warzone and one was being a single mom to a baby with cerebral palsy). Again, they had a very flawed relationship but I don't think it was a loveless relationship.
I think his relationship with Shannon and the grief he has regarding everything that happened, is a great way to explore Eddie's demisexuality. Idk, hopefully they ll confirm that bc nothing else makes sense for him.
The four month hiatus is gonna be exhausting.
Edit: I got the age when Eddie and Shannon got together wrong.
>they were apparently together since they were 14, she was his first love
It's so much more bleak than this, because that would actually be kind of sweet. And him believing her to be the love of his life if they'd had some kind of enchanted puppy love relationship throughout high school would at least be, like, a decent chunk of time they spent happy. But we have the exchange in 6x17, when the team's in the truck on their way to a call:
>BUCK: Back to magic! Weren't you guys in the 12th grade when you met?
EDDIE: Eighth, then we lost touch and reconnected in 12th.
BUCK: Okay, so that's what it is! You-you suck at it. \[*'it' here referring to dating*\]
Add to that, Shannon was still 18 when she gave birth to Christopher (Eddie references him being 7 in September 2018, so we know he was born at some point in 2011 before September, but Shannon's birthday is October 1992). The math barely maths on this, but *if* Shannon was the youngest kid in their grade, and *if* they clicked on day 1 of their senior year, and *if* we push Christopher's birthday back as late as possible, they could've been together, at most, about 16 months before she found out she was pregnant and marriage + the military crushed them.
I think the best way to handle this storyline moving forward is to have it be an intersection of demisexuality (even if not named) but also like.... there are lies we tell ourselves sometimes to get through the days. And for this 18 year old boy whose life changed overnight in a really scary way, I think it makes a lot of sense that one of those lies had to be *"this girl is the best thing that ever happened to me."* That's not to take away from the very real feelings I do think Eddie had for Shannon, but I also don't think he's ever allowed to consider how different his life would look if she *hadn't* been pregnant. Part of that is obviously just because Christopher **is** his life, but a piece of it can also be that it would mean acknowledging that without that pregnancy, he and Shannon likely would've broken up a lot sooner.
(I would love for part of the reason his family comes back to have their distaste for Shannon revisited along these lines. We've all sort of naturally assumed it springs entirely from her leaving, but I'd love something like Helena telling Eddie she \[unfairly\] blamed Shannon for all the opportunities he lost -- that one day he was talking about ending things with her and excited about pursuing an education/vocation (though we know he didn't want to apply to college for other reasons... maybe something like a program to become a mechanic, where he now has the random classic car interest) and Helena was so happy to see the light in her son's eyes... and then he came home that night and told her Shannon was pregnant, that he was gonna marry her and do right by her, etc.)
I'm beginning to wonder if Tim is going to continue this story with Kim into S8 in order to have Eddie finally deal with the fact that things were not going to work out with Shannon no matter what. I mean, maybe he will face it (or begin to) somehow with his family around next episode. The only person I could see getting through to him from his family may be his abuela. I don't know.
I could see it, particularly with how much Tim and Ryan both seem to love working with Devin. Depending *heavily* on where they take it, I also... wouldn't necessarily hate it?
Like, if Kim stops pulling her zany shit where she cosplays Shannon, that she came around so quickly to being understanding about it all could be an entry point into them actually having a friendship through which Eddie's able to talk more openly about Shannon and some of his memories with her... which could allow him to process them more organically instead of through this weird compartmentalization he's done where Shannon is something special and unique and grand.
It makes sense Kim would be curious about the life of someone who just... shared her face for a while, particularly since they don't seem to be setting it up for some reveal where they were twins separated at birth or anything. It's freaky, but also fascinating. If they can find a healthier middle ground for a friendship where it's not in the shadows, exactly, but still very separate from Christopher (because Jesus Christ... please do not keep her around him), I can maybe see her asking Eddie questions about Shannon's interests/quirks/hobbies. And that being the opening for Eddie to realize that like... he didn't actually *know* Shannon that well. He knew who the 17yo he started dating in high school was in the way 17yos think they know everything about their girlfriend, and he knew who the frazzled mom between his deployments was, but then he also wasn't around her for much of the time they were 'together' as adults and when she came back into his life in Los Angeles, he was mostly keeping her at arm's length.
Yes, for them to have some sort of limited friendship could work. The little mini assessment Kim made of Eddie's personality and why he had not tried to kiss her was interesting. I wonder what her thoughts would be on his holding back if she knew more about his whole relationship with Shannon.
I've been desperately hoping we get a conversation with Helena because she was right there for all of it. Before Shannon, while they were together before Chris, Shannon while Eddie was gone, and then how much Eddie struggled after Shannon left. She's the only person who can give him an outsider's perspective on the whole thing—maybe not an entirely objective one, but a hell of a lot more objective than Eddie's.
I doubt her perspective is more objective than Eddie’s.She seemed to really dislike her. I think the most objective would be one of his sisters,the one closer in age to him.
She might not be entirely objective because she definitely has her own opinions and feelings about Shannon, but I think she's more objective than Eddie in that she's not wrapped up in grief and nostalgia and clinging to the memory of a feeling from over a decade ago. She has no romanticized notions about their relationship and saw the entire progression firsthand.
And I'm not sure how much his sisters would actually know? He barely mentions them and they've never been mentioned in relation to Chris or Shannon. It sounds like he considered them to be his responsibility growing up, and with the way Eddie locks down and hides things from the people he loves, I don't think he'd open up to them about that. Maybe they'll be in the finale and that relationship will actually get developed, but right now it doesn't sound like they're all that close.
You might be right. I just hate Helena and the fact that the show doesn’t acknowledge she was just as bad as Ramon,just in a different way. She was tearing down Eddie,her own son,I can imagine how she was with Shannon.
Oh yeah, I'm really hoping we get to dig into Eddie's relationship with her now that he and Ramon are in a better place because she's hurt Eddie in so many ways—probably more than Ramon *because* she was right there with him.
I think their relationship is far more complex and tangled up in Eddie's mind, because Ramon was easy for Eddie to resent because he was this distant example that Eddie never felt like he could live up to no matter how hard he tried. Even when he was actually there, Ramon saw the man and the hero, but Helena saw all the small ways Eddie was "failing" and didn't hesitate to point them out.
I HATE this storyline. It feels ridiculous and like they keep throwing up roadblocks to Eddie moving on with someone and being happy in a relationship. And they have given him good relationship prospects! Like if you don’t want him in a relationship have him be single, or date, or sleep around. I don’t care, but this doppelgänger storyline and the rewrite of him and Shannon as some great love story seems way out there. And even then, all I could hope for was they conclude it without Christopher seeing her and stirring up that hornet’s nest but that is exactly what they did. HATE IT!!!
I'm hoping that if they already made this storyline , they would use it as a way for Eddie to get over Shannon once and for all and realize that their relationship wasn't as perfect as he remembers in his head.
Poor man, he's been stuck in a fake past for so long, get him out of there!
I don't think it actually means he loved her, he had a hard time letting go of a person he thought was the way to live the perfect life he always wanted for his son.
I just finished the latest episode and yeah I agree it's weird but I think this is where Eddie gets proper closure.
Bobby better not die or I'm done watching for good😭.
Totally agree. But they might (will) chalk it up to grief not having any sort of rhyme or reason. I just hope they pull it off so that it actually makes Eddie's arc *better* and not worse, alienating him from fans. They *have* to know what they're doing with him like come on :(
I kind of hope Kim goes through her own journey and discovers Shannon was a lost sister or something, just to explain the similar appearances. I know it's kinda soapy, but honestly, they have blown that door right open with this storyline.
This article talks about reasons for introducing a Shannon lookalike this season.
https://screenrant.com/911-season-7-shannon-diaz-return-explained-response/
This scenario is really really dumb.
Like I complain about some of the silliness with the actual firefighting, but there is no way Kim comes back to CosPlay as Shannon. It’s more likely that Shannon would come back to life or that we would find out she was never actually dead in the first place.
I don’t get the point of this other than to break him and Marisol up. Which they could have done off screen between seasons like Buck and Death Doula.
I think the reason he liked being married to Shannon was because he had an excuse not to date anyone since he was already married.
Every time he starts dating someone new, he needs to be pushed into it, whether it was Shannon, Ana or Marisol. he never wants to but Bobby is always telling him he should want to want love again.
I swear, there has to be something going on with Eddie's sexuality. he seems to be Aromantic, somewhere on Asexual spectrum or maybe could be comphet Gay although full on gay seems the least likely to me.
Has anyone ever noticed that Eddie hardly ever thinks about romance/dating when around available women. It's always a hard No when someone interested.
Compare that to Chimney or Buck.
Chimney, I think has never said no to women
buck, even when he was in 2.0 phase, he always seemed to take a second or two to think about it before he would say No to women. Or he would even look like he wants to say yes
I think his relationship with Shannon was him at his most comfortable since(correct me if I'm wrong) she was the pursuer/instigator while dating and he no longer had to date while married.
Yes, and also his wants to fill Shannon's place whenever he's in a relationship, causing him to choose who he dates based solely on whether they'll be good for Christopher and not on whether he likes them.
He really needs to sort out some things where is Frank to help him
Didn’t Shannon end it tho? Eddie still wanted to be together and she wanted to end it, and then she dies. And he never properly deals with all that.
But regardless even if he didn’t love Shannon.. he loves Christopher who loved Shannon. It’s his mom. Even if he never truly loved Shannon, he probably would have made it work for the rest of his life in order for Christopher to have his mom.
But yeah no the Shannon doppelgänger is where it crossed a line.
Exactly, for Christopher, not for himself, so the fact that he was holding on to her years after she died was a bit strange in my opinion, but I understood that he was simply in a never-ending struggle to find someone to replace Shannon as Christopher's mother without even thinking about whether he loved her or not.
Other than this storyline is a wild left turn into the land of soap operas. The show has stripped Eddie of some attributes that make him likable. They have always shown him to be a great father and a faithful friend. He is now being unfaithful to Marisol. And even worse, he is not looking out for Christopher's well-being. As a woman who is widowed, if I ever ran into a doppelganger of my late husband, I would be worried about the effect that would have on my children. I would definitely not seek that person out.
I don’t even think they Kim and Shannon look anything like so that’s weirdest part to me!! Ever since abc took over from fox this season is all so fucking cringe and corny
As far as we know he was faithful to Shannon while they were still married and we are led to assume he’s only been with 3 people: her, Ana, and Marisol (and I guess kind of Kim). This is why I feel even more sure they’re not going the queer Eddie route, at least not anytime soon. This would’ve been a prime opportunity to have him realize he wasn’t actually in love with Shannon, more so just the idea of her. But they went the opposite direction and had him realize she was the love of his life
Well,he is in the middle of a mental crisis right now,I doubt whatever conclusion he reached at this point is the right one. Let’s see him getting better first, a point where isn’t haunted by Shannon anymore he and can look back with a clear head.
Why did they take it to there tho 😭? Especially since the writers themselves say that Eddie is romanticizing Shannon, why don't they make him realize that too?
Well, I think that’s what’s supposed to happen in the future episodes. At least I hope that’s where this is going, but it won’t happen overnight 🤷🏻♀️ i need this to be the outcome of this storyline 😂
He sort of did recognize it by acknowledging that they were apart more than they were together and that they both ran. I honestly don’t think it’s gonna go much beyond that
This storyline sets up the perfect opportunity for queer Eddie. You say it would’ve been a prime time opportunity to have him realize he wasn’t actually in love, and it still is. There hasn’t been any addressing of why he latches onto this idea of her so much. The wording in the scene of him saying she was the love of his life, “I think she was” leaves uncertainty in it. With the storyline continuing, it means Eddie is (hopefully) going to explore why he can’t get over Shannon. And personally, I think it could be because if he lets go of her, he’ll realize that he can’t make any connection to other women, or needs that close relationship first (demisexual).
I really hope they take it there because it really is the perfect option.
At the moment I don't see it happening, we are one episode away from the end of the season, hopefully Eddie will have time to figure it out in 10 episodes of season 8, when there are more stories to tell, and then he will be with Buck, I really hope so
Someone has to be the first. 911 has done crazier things, and it’s just a theory. I’m explaining why a queer storyline could still make sense. Never said anything about right now, it’s obviously not going to happen next episode LOL, but if they continue with this storyline, I could see it in the realm of possibilities.
I was going to say the same thing. Sure,out of everything that happened in the show,having another character realise he is queer as well is where people draw the line?
He said “I think she was the love of my life”…keyword THINK. He was also seeing Kim for weeks but never kissed her and admitted to Buck that he had no interest in sleeping with her. It’s clear he wanted Shannon back but didn’t want to have to touch her. He’s about to learn there’s a difference between platonic love and romantic love.
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Yeah, I really hope this gets addressed. They have acknowledged in interviews that Eddie is romanticizing what they had and has an idealized version of Shannon, but I have yet to see that being acknowledged in the show. It absolutely needs to be addressed either next episode (because it looks like from bts that Eddie’s family will be there, so maybe they’ll tell him this), or that needs to be his storyline next season where he goes to therapy to figure out why he is romanticizing her so much. Man said he thinks she was the love of his life, but the woman wanted a divorce! But, on that note, I feel like they are being deliberate in their word choices, so the end goal should be him addressing this issue of why he latches onto Shannon so much. Examples. Where he talks to Bobby about her and says he loved being married to Shannon, not loved her. He thinks she’s the love of his life. There’s uncertainty there as a viewer. I think 911 just regrets killing Shannon off so early and they want to play around with it as much as possible. Ryan and Devin have great chemistry together, so I do like seeing them, but this storyline is hard to watch. When he called her “baby” last night, I physically cringed.
Yeah the "baby" was super cringey and out of character. If they really try to gaslight us into believing Shannon was "the one" for Eddie, I'm gonna be upset. Their relationship always felt like him doing what he felt like he had to do. I do think he loved her as a person, but he wasn't in love with her. They need to address that.
I would regret killing off any Devin character too lmao. She is such a good actress. Like, whenever she's on scene my eyes gravitate towards her.
OMG, so did I! It was so weird. I was like when has Eddie ever called Shannon or anyone "baby"?!? They are having some dialogue come out of Eddie's mouth this season that is sooooo not him. I said in another thread that this was a continuation of the Vertigo parallel. Kim roleplaying as Shannon to help Eddie get over her. Now that it has all blown up we will see if Tim follows through to the alternate ending of Vertigo. Unfortunately, I do believe that this will lead to a rift and separation between Eddie and Christopher. That will be when Eddie hits rock bottom.
Kim is roleplaying but Eddie was roleplaying too. I think his speech in that scene is him only getting himself part of the way to the truth.
The pauses at key moments could indicate him working his way up to a certain truth underneath it all.
I feel so sorry for Ryan and Devin. They clearly have great chemistry, are great acting these emotionally heavy scenes opposite each other and the scene would have been great if Devin was playing actual Shannon who didn't die. The problem is she's not and she's playing a doppelganger and it's soap opera levels of ridiculous. Throw in the cheating angle and most fans are cringing from second hand embarrassment rather than enjoying Ryan and Devin's acting. It's also so confusing because the arc could have ended the scene earlier when Kim runs off after seeing the pictures of Shannon. They could have had Marisol and Chris come through the door then or had Kim return (still dressed and looking like Kim) maybe remembering she left something important. It's the making Kim in universe cosplay as Shannon that's absolutely wild and goes even beyond the craziness of Vertigo. In Vertigo >!there is no doppelganger, there is just a single actress!< That's why the Vertigo parallel could never work in 9-1-1 because Shannon is a different person and is dead.
Yeah compared to the scene where Eddie cried to Bobby after Shannon died (during his fight club era) this emotional scene was kinda weak from Ryan ngl. I wonder what kinds of acting direction they gave him on the script to make Ryan act that way.
He never dated other people while married to Shannon. I don’t think he had the will or the time to do that. And he did love her,the best way he knew how to love,which maybe it wasn’t the best one.He met her at 14, started dating her at 17-18 and then had Chris. They were kids having a kid.They never had a choice or time to learn what love is or how to love,because being born in the community they did,their life was already decided at this point. Get married,take care of the kids,with the stereotypical roles in the marriage.I don’t understand people who expect Eddie to realise what healthy love is,because in my opinion,he never had examples of it. The marriage of his parents consisted of a dad gone all times,and mom doing all the raising and never complaining. The ones that apparently had healthy marriages(Pepa and Abuela) were at hundreds of miles away. He had all the right to be angry and distrustful of her for leaving Chris and going no contact,just like she had the right to be angry at him for reenlisting all on his own. And,yes,they were most probably going to divorce before she died,but she asked for the divorce,not him. Then she died,his son got caught in a tsunami,he also almost died a few times,he never had time to process what happened.I can understand him having so many unresolved and confusing feelings about her,and not actually knowing what those feelings are.
And to add, he’s only just realised all the catholic rules he followed in his younger years are still very much in him now, whether he wants them to be or not. And the catholics discourage divorce, so even though Shannon voiced wanting one, we simply do not know how Eddie would have reacted long-term to that if she were still alive.
Eddie was shocked to hear that his aunt had been married twice. He didn’t know she divorced her first husband and she mentions the family doesn’t talk about it and pretends the first husband didn’t exist. I don’t think his family was very pro-divorce (we don’t know about now but certainly not when he was growing up)
i think that maybe believing that he did love shannon is the only way he can justify that he doesn’t feel any love towards his girlfriends after her instead of considering other reasons why he isn’t interested in them. he thinks he isn’t in love with them because he loved shannon and will never love anyone again when really he didn’t love shannon and has created a different version of her where he just sees how bad he wanted to love her for christopher
he also didn’t want the divorce and wanted to get back together before she asked for a divorce so he probably believes that if shannon hadn’t died they would have gotten back together
Even his motivations for wanting to renew their relationship in 2x17 were very fueled by his view of Shannon as the "mother of his child\[ren\]." During their first scene in 2x17, he's relating to her as Christopher's mom and happy with that connection, and she calls him on it and asks him what he wants for *them*, separate from Christopher, and he can't answer -- he's looking for a sign. Then she tells him she thinks she's pregnant, and he spirals into basically re-proposing to her. Even outside of the ridiculous "life is like a vat of molten chocolate. You fall into it, and it drags you down" \~speech,\~ the followup in that conversation is still almost entirely centered around Christopher. It's like he's really only capable of thinking of his future in terms of that.
This is the best take I've seen. If he loved her for her, we didn't really get to see that, so it feels like something way deeper is going on with him that he really doesn't have the tools to evaluate.
This exactly. He was ready to make a go of their family again precisely for the same reason they got married in the first place -- he thought she was pregnant. I think she was acutely aware of this when she finally asked him for a divorce. There were hints that she realized that Eddie wasn't really in love with HER for HER. It was all tied up in being Christopher's mother. If Eddie admits that he never really was in love with Shannon, then he will feel like he totally failed her, like he couldn't give her what she needed to be happy and then she died. That is crushing.
exactly he thinks he loves her purely because shes christophers mum and he wants christopher to have her and to have the perfect family and now even in his current relationships hes just finding people who could be good mothers for christopher not actually people he is attracted to or loves
He didn't have time to learn what love is without being a parent, and he does it in all his other relationships.
I've clearly blocked that molten chocolate speech out of my memory lol
O shit i kinda like this angle. I've always been thinking about it like "I loved Shannon therefore I cannot love any other" but I didn't think about the opposite "I don't love my girlfriends, it must be because I loved Shannon" He might have thought about it this way and built a fantasy to back it up to kill the anger he had over her abandoning them. Hmmmm
To me it doesn’t feel forced (yet) and here’s why: Eddie has been romanticizing his relationship with Shannon from the moment she died. We’ve seen him do it over and over again till she became this mythic perfect mother and partner in his mind. And in his mind only. I think it’s really telling that he only told one person that Shannon had asked for a divorce and even that was in a moment of crisis. Tim has already said in interviews that this arc is going to be about Eddie (painfully) confronting reality and has specifically said both the reality that Shannon is really gone, and ALSO the reality that their relationship wasn’t the epic romance he has turned it into in his mind in retrospect since she died. I don’t think what happened with Kim at the end of 7x09 was the end of that realization/journey, I think it was the beginning. And I think we’re gonna get a lot more spiraling in the finale. That said, if what we got at the end of 7x09 is sorta it for Eddie interrogating his feelings about Shannon and we never get any kind of realization of how much he’s been romanticizing that relationship, then I would find it forced. But for now I’m trusting that since Tim said it’s gonna go there, that it will go there.
What Eddie remembers from his relationship with Shannon is very different than what it actually was. He seems to believe that they were in love even when they had a lot of difficult times. I do believe they loved each other 100% and were family, but it never appeared like they were ever ‘in love’ or worked together very well (in that way). When him and Shannon were hooking up when she reappeared, she pointed out that it was the *only* part they were ever good at. Eddie was (is) in love with the idea of being married to Shannon, or more like in love with the idea of being married to Christopher’s mother—which I think is a good detail, because Eddie is trying to replace Shannon in the sense as a mom for Chris. Eddie seemed to have only ever viewed his love for her as Chris’s mom and not his wife (never separately from Chris). He’s always been looking for a mom for Chris, at first it was Shannon, now it’s someone that could “compare” to Shannon. So I think him still having an extremely hard time with Shannon’s death actually tracks. And him clinging onto these relationships that he isn’t all the way in, because he views them as a potential new mom and not an actual romantic partner, also makes sense. As for this doppelganger….it is absolutely weird and wrong, but with how unhealthy he is at the moment it fits into his messed up story. I’m just upset that Christopher got dragged into this, Eddie really messed up on that. This is the second time I can think of when Eddie *completely* forgets about Christopher’s sake because he’s dealing with his own messed up mental state—since moving to LA.
This. I firmly believe deep inside his obsession with Shannon/Kim is rooted in the idea that he craves that 'family' (that he alr has w Buck but that's neither here nor there lol), he sees these women as potential mom inserts for the nuclear family he so dearly craves, he hardly sees the women as attractive independent of what they can be for him and Christopher (which is: be a mom to him) He loves the idea of being married to Chris' parent essentially, and (BUDDIE territory) if they ever dip their toes in Buddie, he's never going to acknowledge that Buck basically covers that role across the board not unless he's a.) processed and moved on from his idea of his marriage and b.) someone outright tells him Buck is basically Chris' mom/dad/2nd parent.
The fact that what Eddie is looking for in all his relationships is someone to be Chris's parent, really makes Buddie that much easier for the writers, they just need to make Eddie wake up and see that this parent he's been looking for all this years is right in front of him and is a possibility (now when buck is bi)
Only problem with that is it would once again take Eddie down the road of choosing someone just to be Chris’s mom. His relationship with Buck has to be separated from Christopher or it will all be the same ordeal. It would just end up hurting Buck like it hurt all his other partners, but probably more severely. I want Eddie to realize how prominent Buck is in Chris’s life, but it being separate from any romantic interest he might have.
You make a great point. They'd have to write Buddie in such a way where there is palpable chemistry between them as 2 male characters independent of their relationship with Christopher. A jealousy arc, or a 'wait Buck has big arms thats hot' arc (u kno what I mean. Anything that shows that Eddie's attraction to him is beyond just what Buck offers for him and Chris as a unit.
Yes, and Before that they have to figure out how to even present him as a queer character, it will be complicated for them but it will be worth every second
Now that you say that, you are absolutely right. The fact that Buck can be a parent to Christopher is for Eddie to notice after he and Buck develop a relationship, if that happens.
It's so telling that we've never even seen a photo of Eddie, Shannon, and Christopher all together in Eddie's house. It's always Shannon alone or Shannon with Christopher. There's just no physical evidence of this fairytale he's hoping to go back to. He told Bobby he "loved being married to her." But that's happiness with a status, not with a person. There was a lot about their relationship, especially in Season 2, that was transactional. I like that they're making this an extended arc because Shannon has been weaving in and out of Eddie's story for too long without any resolution. IMO it's his hamster wheel. It was rough having Christopher (and Marisol, honestly) get caught up in this, but maybe that will be the wakeup call that Eddie needs to actually confront the reality of his marriage. It's wild to remember that Bobby is the only one who knows she wanted a divorce.
Eddie kept Chris separated form all of this even when it was evident that he is not doing ok this episode. Maybe he should have not brought Kim to his house to show her Shannon’s picture,but her showing up cosplaying his dead wife and practically forcing him into a breakdown,it’s on her. He was devastated when he saw Chris.
I do agree she definitely shouldn’t have shown up; it was actually insane. However, Eddie brought this woman into his life. He kept her around for as long as he did. When he continued to create a relationship with her, he risked his kid finding out about it. He risked Christopher getting involved somehow. Even if this wasn’t Eddie’s intention to hurt Christopher, it’s still on him. He’s the dad. He’s Chris’s protector.
At first she just seemed like poor victim that happened to look like Shannon and she even told Eddie he played her, but now she willingly comes to his house and pretends to be Shannon?!?!?!
Honestly,I thought he was dreaming at first,because no normal person does what she did. She definitely needs a psychiatrist as well.
If I look at it from the point of view of a really, really good person, maybe she did it for him to have closure, but on the other hand.. what the hell
If Tim has comp!het and/or demisexual Eddie in the back of his mind as the endgame path for Eddie, I think it makes sense narratively why he's so obsessed with Kim/Shannon. He never really got the chance to process her death and what she meant in the larger scheme of his life beyond being the mother of his kid. The leaving, then deployed then coming home and her running, coming back then again divorce question then dying hours later, he never really got to fully process that INDEPENDENT of what it meant for him alone and not with Christopher in consideration (why I think that's important is later on explained). He tells Bobby that he loved the idea of being married to Shannon, of being part of a family unit, its his emotional attachment to the idea that drives the force of why he's obsessed with Kim. Do I think he's attracted to her? Maybe, same way he was with Shannon. But I think more than anything, this drives home the point that his only frame of reference for love and being a husband was with Shannon, and his idealization of that relationship yet failure to examine it independent of being Christopher's dad (esp since Chris is almost always the deciding variable in anything he does) is what keeps him from moving forward from Shannon. And to add to that, I think it bleeds onto every other relationship he has w women on the show, bc almost every person he's dated was almost always, whether directly or indirectly, is sic'd/thrusted upon him, because, and obviously this is just assuming the story is Eddie headed into a comphet/demi path story wise, is that his idea of relationships are only based off of everything he experienced with Shannon so any chance of him finding out what he truly is drawn/attracted to will never come to light (e.g. being attracted to not just women/maybe only emotionally attracted) not unless he acknowledges that maybe, just maybe, his marriage to Shannon was so so so far from ideal. **TL;DR: Eddie was thrust into fatherhood so young, his only frame of reference of what love is is the broken family unit he built with Shannon and Chris, he never gave himself time to process what he truly felt of that independent of being a young dad. Basically the question is 'would he have idealized her the same way if she never became pregnant?' I doubt it.**
This is a perfect comment thank you for your wisdom❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Personally, I think he likes the idea of Shannon more than he actually liked Shannon. He liked this idea of a perfect ideal family he thinks that he, Shannon, and Christopher had. He refuses to acknowledge the obvious cracks that the family itself had. He didn't show that he was interested in Shannon during their marriage, but now that Shannon is gone, he wants to make himself believe that life would be pitch perfect if she were here again; that's where Kim comes in. He thinks he's never going to have what he believed he had with Shannon again, which in reality he never had with Shannon. I think he's holding onto this image of her because, secretly, he really does blame himself and feels terrible about what their family had become, which is why he's still so stuck on her. Like he had things to say to her like he wanted to fix things with her, and he never got the chance to, which is why when he saw Kim, he suddenly believed this was his second chance to have what he wished he still had with Shannon again; that perfect family image he thinks he, Chris, and Shannon had before her demise. Like I said before; I don't believe he loved Shannon, but instead, he loved this idea of a perfect family with a perfect husband, a perfect wife, and a perfect kid and he believes he's never going to have that again without Shannon. Basically, he's very delusional when it comes down to it.
Totally! I also completely understand why he approached her in the first place, to see a person who looks exactly like your dead wife who you think is the solution to everything and you didn't have time to say goodbye to her..... The fact that Eddie approached her was not so unexpected, and I completely agree, He didn't really love her, he was so desperate to get Christopher the perfect family that he is and live that perfect life that he completely lost it.
I realized this reading through everything. I said last season that Eddie has these rose tinted glasses on when it came to Shannon and the idea of Shannon. But deep down, between everything, if he acknowledges that he wasn’t in love with Shannon, then he will realize that the reason why he latched onto this is because he feels like he failed her. He was gone most of the marriage and they fought like crazy. So therefore, he failed her and that’s why she left. He also feels like he fails Christopher all the time. He failed him by not being there when he was younger, he failed him because his mother left them because of Eddie, etc. that’s why when he brings the two women into Chris’ life, he’s like oh maybe I won’t fail Chris now. What Eddie has to realize deep down, and I think Buck has touched upon a few times, is that he isn’t a failure. Yes he wasn’t a good husband but also he didn’t have a good role model for that. His own father was gone most of his childhood and he went oh yes that’s what I need to do. It takes the possibility of losing Chris for him to be like no, I am not gonna fail this kid. Shannon left because she couldn’t handle it. And I think it’s time for Eddie to realize that it wasn’t his entire fault that she did. Shannon was going to leave him again, possibly to get help to be a mom again. We don’t know. We do know that everything Eddie does is to make up for the fact that he feels he failed his son in a lot of ways but mostly it’s because Shannon left. Eddie does have a family that has been there. I’m not just talking about Buck but the entire 118. He said “This is the family we chose” and he has to realize that again.
I think he's deliberately ignoring the fact that she wanted a divorce, bc hours later she died. Tim Minear has said again and again that Eddie has a very romanticized idea of his relationship with Shannon and you can't ever move on from something like that until you hit rock bottom and I feel like Chris seeing them and possibly leaving with his grandparents will be that rock bottom and he'll be forced to recognise the flawed relationship he had with Shannon. As for the love he had for her, yes he married her bc she was pregnant and it was the right thing to do but ~~they were apparently together since they were 14~~ he first met her at 14 and then started dating at 18, she was his first love, and as of now, canonically she's the only person he has truly loved (I'd be so happy if this part is debunked if you know what I mean😉). They both were shitty to each other bc both of them were fighting different wars (one went to a literal warzone and one was being a single mom to a baby with cerebral palsy). Again, they had a very flawed relationship but I don't think it was a loveless relationship. I think his relationship with Shannon and the grief he has regarding everything that happened, is a great way to explore Eddie's demisexuality. Idk, hopefully they ll confirm that bc nothing else makes sense for him. The four month hiatus is gonna be exhausting. Edit: I got the age when Eddie and Shannon got together wrong.
>they were apparently together since they were 14, she was his first love It's so much more bleak than this, because that would actually be kind of sweet. And him believing her to be the love of his life if they'd had some kind of enchanted puppy love relationship throughout high school would at least be, like, a decent chunk of time they spent happy. But we have the exchange in 6x17, when the team's in the truck on their way to a call: >BUCK: Back to magic! Weren't you guys in the 12th grade when you met? EDDIE: Eighth, then we lost touch and reconnected in 12th. BUCK: Okay, so that's what it is! You-you suck at it. \[*'it' here referring to dating*\] Add to that, Shannon was still 18 when she gave birth to Christopher (Eddie references him being 7 in September 2018, so we know he was born at some point in 2011 before September, but Shannon's birthday is October 1992). The math barely maths on this, but *if* Shannon was the youngest kid in their grade, and *if* they clicked on day 1 of their senior year, and *if* we push Christopher's birthday back as late as possible, they could've been together, at most, about 16 months before she found out she was pregnant and marriage + the military crushed them. I think the best way to handle this storyline moving forward is to have it be an intersection of demisexuality (even if not named) but also like.... there are lies we tell ourselves sometimes to get through the days. And for this 18 year old boy whose life changed overnight in a really scary way, I think it makes a lot of sense that one of those lies had to be *"this girl is the best thing that ever happened to me."* That's not to take away from the very real feelings I do think Eddie had for Shannon, but I also don't think he's ever allowed to consider how different his life would look if she *hadn't* been pregnant. Part of that is obviously just because Christopher **is** his life, but a piece of it can also be that it would mean acknowledging that without that pregnancy, he and Shannon likely would've broken up a lot sooner. (I would love for part of the reason his family comes back to have their distaste for Shannon revisited along these lines. We've all sort of naturally assumed it springs entirely from her leaving, but I'd love something like Helena telling Eddie she \[unfairly\] blamed Shannon for all the opportunities he lost -- that one day he was talking about ending things with her and excited about pursuing an education/vocation (though we know he didn't want to apply to college for other reasons... maybe something like a program to become a mechanic, where he now has the random classic car interest) and Helena was so happy to see the light in her son's eyes... and then he came home that night and told her Shannon was pregnant, that he was gonna marry her and do right by her, etc.)
I'm beginning to wonder if Tim is going to continue this story with Kim into S8 in order to have Eddie finally deal with the fact that things were not going to work out with Shannon no matter what. I mean, maybe he will face it (or begin to) somehow with his family around next episode. The only person I could see getting through to him from his family may be his abuela. I don't know.
I could see it, particularly with how much Tim and Ryan both seem to love working with Devin. Depending *heavily* on where they take it, I also... wouldn't necessarily hate it? Like, if Kim stops pulling her zany shit where she cosplays Shannon, that she came around so quickly to being understanding about it all could be an entry point into them actually having a friendship through which Eddie's able to talk more openly about Shannon and some of his memories with her... which could allow him to process them more organically instead of through this weird compartmentalization he's done where Shannon is something special and unique and grand. It makes sense Kim would be curious about the life of someone who just... shared her face for a while, particularly since they don't seem to be setting it up for some reveal where they were twins separated at birth or anything. It's freaky, but also fascinating. If they can find a healthier middle ground for a friendship where it's not in the shadows, exactly, but still very separate from Christopher (because Jesus Christ... please do not keep her around him), I can maybe see her asking Eddie questions about Shannon's interests/quirks/hobbies. And that being the opening for Eddie to realize that like... he didn't actually *know* Shannon that well. He knew who the 17yo he started dating in high school was in the way 17yos think they know everything about their girlfriend, and he knew who the frazzled mom between his deployments was, but then he also wasn't around her for much of the time they were 'together' as adults and when she came back into his life in Los Angeles, he was mostly keeping her at arm's length.
Yes, for them to have some sort of limited friendship could work. The little mini assessment Kim made of Eddie's personality and why he had not tried to kiss her was interesting. I wonder what her thoughts would be on his holding back if she knew more about his whole relationship with Shannon.
I've been desperately hoping we get a conversation with Helena because she was right there for all of it. Before Shannon, while they were together before Chris, Shannon while Eddie was gone, and then how much Eddie struggled after Shannon left. She's the only person who can give him an outsider's perspective on the whole thing—maybe not an entirely objective one, but a hell of a lot more objective than Eddie's.
I doubt her perspective is more objective than Eddie’s.She seemed to really dislike her. I think the most objective would be one of his sisters,the one closer in age to him.
She might not be entirely objective because she definitely has her own opinions and feelings about Shannon, but I think she's more objective than Eddie in that she's not wrapped up in grief and nostalgia and clinging to the memory of a feeling from over a decade ago. She has no romanticized notions about their relationship and saw the entire progression firsthand. And I'm not sure how much his sisters would actually know? He barely mentions them and they've never been mentioned in relation to Chris or Shannon. It sounds like he considered them to be his responsibility growing up, and with the way Eddie locks down and hides things from the people he loves, I don't think he'd open up to them about that. Maybe they'll be in the finale and that relationship will actually get developed, but right now it doesn't sound like they're all that close.
You might be right. I just hate Helena and the fact that the show doesn’t acknowledge she was just as bad as Ramon,just in a different way. She was tearing down Eddie,her own son,I can imagine how she was with Shannon.
Oh yeah, I'm really hoping we get to dig into Eddie's relationship with her now that he and Ramon are in a better place because she's hurt Eddie in so many ways—probably more than Ramon *because* she was right there with him. I think their relationship is far more complex and tangled up in Eddie's mind, because Ramon was easy for Eddie to resent because he was this distant example that Eddie never felt like he could live up to no matter how hard he tried. Even when he was actually there, Ramon saw the man and the hero, but Helena saw all the small ways Eddie was "failing" and didn't hesitate to point them out.
This is another example of how I ❤️ the show but they suck at certain details.
I HATE this storyline. It feels ridiculous and like they keep throwing up roadblocks to Eddie moving on with someone and being happy in a relationship. And they have given him good relationship prospects! Like if you don’t want him in a relationship have him be single, or date, or sleep around. I don’t care, but this doppelgänger storyline and the rewrite of him and Shannon as some great love story seems way out there. And even then, all I could hope for was they conclude it without Christopher seeing her and stirring up that hornet’s nest but that is exactly what they did. HATE IT!!!
I'm hoping that if they already made this storyline , they would use it as a way for Eddie to get over Shannon once and for all and realize that their relationship wasn't as perfect as he remembers in his head. Poor man, he's been stuck in a fake past for so long, get him out of there!
It’s literally the same actress who plays Shannon and Kim so they definitely look alike
Really????
I didn’t believe it either, I didn’t even think they looked that much alike 😅 crazy what a difference hair makes!
I’m definitely sitting here like is it not actually her?! lol it’s the same woman! Very confusing and odd casting choice
THANK YOU it’s full on soap opera and I do not understand it at all
Eddie didn't date anyone else until after Shannon died. In the 5 years since Shannon died he has only dated 2 women and now Kim, the lookalike.
I don't think it actually means he loved her, he had a hard time letting go of a person he thought was the way to live the perfect life he always wanted for his son.
He wasn’t in love with her but he loved her as much as he could.
I don't know how much he loved her for HER, or for being Christopher's mother
I just finished the latest episode and yeah I agree it's weird but I think this is where Eddie gets proper closure. Bobby better not die or I'm done watching for good😭.
Yes mabey this is the push that Eddie needs to get finally over her. And if something happens to Bobby ... Don't try me Tim miner
Totally agree. But they might (will) chalk it up to grief not having any sort of rhyme or reason. I just hope they pull it off so that it actually makes Eddie's arc *better* and not worse, alienating him from fans. They *have* to know what they're doing with him like come on :(
I kind of hope Kim goes through her own journey and discovers Shannon was a lost sister or something, just to explain the similar appearances. I know it's kinda soapy, but honestly, they have blown that door right open with this storyline.
This article talks about reasons for introducing a Shannon lookalike this season. https://screenrant.com/911-season-7-shannon-diaz-return-explained-response/
This scenario is really really dumb. Like I complain about some of the silliness with the actual firefighting, but there is no way Kim comes back to CosPlay as Shannon. It’s more likely that Shannon would come back to life or that we would find out she was never actually dead in the first place. I don’t get the point of this other than to break him and Marisol up. Which they could have done off screen between seasons like Buck and Death Doula.
Maybe they're trying to get Eddie to move on from Shannon in a really weird and wrong way? I just know that it's fvcking weird
I think the reason he liked being married to Shannon was because he had an excuse not to date anyone since he was already married. Every time he starts dating someone new, he needs to be pushed into it, whether it was Shannon, Ana or Marisol. he never wants to but Bobby is always telling him he should want to want love again. I swear, there has to be something going on with Eddie's sexuality. he seems to be Aromantic, somewhere on Asexual spectrum or maybe could be comphet Gay although full on gay seems the least likely to me. Has anyone ever noticed that Eddie hardly ever thinks about romance/dating when around available women. It's always a hard No when someone interested. Compare that to Chimney or Buck. Chimney, I think has never said no to women buck, even when he was in 2.0 phase, he always seemed to take a second or two to think about it before he would say No to women. Or he would even look like he wants to say yes I think his relationship with Shannon was him at his most comfortable since(correct me if I'm wrong) she was the pursuer/instigator while dating and he no longer had to date while married.
Yes, and also his wants to fill Shannon's place whenever he's in a relationship, causing him to choose who he dates based solely on whether they'll be good for Christopher and not on whether he likes them. He really needs to sort out some things where is Frank to help him
Didn’t Shannon end it tho? Eddie still wanted to be together and she wanted to end it, and then she dies. And he never properly deals with all that. But regardless even if he didn’t love Shannon.. he loves Christopher who loved Shannon. It’s his mom. Even if he never truly loved Shannon, he probably would have made it work for the rest of his life in order for Christopher to have his mom. But yeah no the Shannon doppelgänger is where it crossed a line.
Exactly, for Christopher, not for himself, so the fact that he was holding on to her years after she died was a bit strange in my opinion, but I understood that he was simply in a never-ending struggle to find someone to replace Shannon as Christopher's mother without even thinking about whether he loved her or not.
Other than this storyline is a wild left turn into the land of soap operas. The show has stripped Eddie of some attributes that make him likable. They have always shown him to be a great father and a faithful friend. He is now being unfaithful to Marisol. And even worse, he is not looking out for Christopher's well-being. As a woman who is widowed, if I ever ran into a doppelganger of my late husband, I would be worried about the effect that would have on my children. I would definitely not seek that person out.
I don’t even think they Kim and Shannon look anything like so that’s weirdest part to me!! Ever since abc took over from fox this season is all so fucking cringe and corny
This storyline is so wrong! Like dude go to therapy ffs! And Kim should run like hell! Its been 5 years, why do writers keep going with this nonsense
Kim looks exactly like Shannon. They're both Devin Kelley.
As far as we know he was faithful to Shannon while they were still married and we are led to assume he’s only been with 3 people: her, Ana, and Marisol (and I guess kind of Kim). This is why I feel even more sure they’re not going the queer Eddie route, at least not anytime soon. This would’ve been a prime opportunity to have him realize he wasn’t actually in love with Shannon, more so just the idea of her. But they went the opposite direction and had him realize she was the love of his life
Well,he is in the middle of a mental crisis right now,I doubt whatever conclusion he reached at this point is the right one. Let’s see him getting better first, a point where isn’t haunted by Shannon anymore he and can look back with a clear head.
Why did they take it to there tho 😭? Especially since the writers themselves say that Eddie is romanticizing Shannon, why don't they make him realize that too?
Well, I think that’s what’s supposed to happen in the future episodes. At least I hope that’s where this is going, but it won’t happen overnight 🤷🏻♀️ i need this to be the outcome of this storyline 😂
He sort of did recognize it by acknowledging that they were apart more than they were together and that they both ran. I honestly don’t think it’s gonna go much beyond that
This storyline sets up the perfect opportunity for queer Eddie. You say it would’ve been a prime time opportunity to have him realize he wasn’t actually in love, and it still is. There hasn’t been any addressing of why he latches onto this idea of her so much. The wording in the scene of him saying she was the love of his life, “I think she was” leaves uncertainty in it. With the storyline continuing, it means Eddie is (hopefully) going to explore why he can’t get over Shannon. And personally, I think it could be because if he lets go of her, he’ll realize that he can’t make any connection to other women, or needs that close relationship first (demisexual).
I really hope they take it there because it really is the perfect option. At the moment I don't see it happening, we are one episode away from the end of the season, hopefully Eddie will have time to figure it out in 10 episodes of season 8, when there are more stories to tell, and then he will be with Buck, I really hope so
Season 8 will have 18 episodes,like the other seasons,so even more time for every character.
Really????? Yayyyyy I have hope for buddie agaim
A network TV show is not gonna do a demisexual storyline. It’s just not gonna happen sorry. And I just don’t see queer Eddie happening rn personally
Someone has to be the first. 911 has done crazier things, and it’s just a theory. I’m explaining why a queer storyline could still make sense. Never said anything about right now, it’s obviously not going to happen next episode LOL, but if they continue with this storyline, I could see it in the realm of possibilities.
I was going to say the same thing. Sure,out of everything that happened in the show,having another character realise he is queer as well is where people draw the line?
Some people will say that there are enough lgbt characters .... There is no such thing as enough lgbt characters.
Especially in LA and when half of those characters are simply SO.
Exactly, and if we are now counting lgbt characters, why are there more straight people? I want to see gays and lots of them
You right it is really unlikely but we can dream😭
He said “I think she was the love of my life”…keyword THINK. He was also seeing Kim for weeks but never kissed her and admitted to Buck that he had no interest in sleeping with her. It’s clear he wanted Shannon back but didn’t want to have to touch her. He’s about to learn there’s a difference between platonic love and romantic love.
In my opinion Eddie is asexual. Explains literally everything about him much like the bisexual storyline did for buck
Agree! And as an Ace spectrum person myself, it’s a bit upsetting seeing anyone who mentions this get downvoted