Going into season 10, ABC’s 911 has seen so much growth and change from the various characters fans have come to love. With such a big cast and only a certain amount of airtime, some storylines seem to fall to the wayside. This is true for multiple members of the 118 crew, but we’re focusing on Ryan Guzman’s Eddie Diaz.
Eddie has been with the show since season 2 and has had storylines that center on his son, Christopher Diaz, and trying to figure out who he is as a person while raising his son as a single father. In season 9, Eddie had some moments where he got to shine, but for the most part, he seemed to be on the back burner.
911 season 10 needs to allow room for character growth, especially for Eddie Diaz
Other than mourning the loss of his grandmother, dealing with New Mexico police thinking he killed his best friend Evan “Buck” Buckley after a car accident, trying to help a young girl who got a little too emotionally attached to him, and spending half of the season finale in an elevator with a stab wound, Eddie wasn’t showcased as much as most of the cast. It almost seems like with Eddie, his storylines have a start but don’t always have an ending.
One of the things the show seemed to be setting up was a new love interest in Alex Doyle, who Eddie met through work and had a few scenes with, but that didn’t work out. Guzman joked recently that fan reaction is usually the reason. Whether or not audience reaction has a say in how Eddie’s love stories go, it does ring true. Every single love interest Eddie has had has been met with backlash, and at this point, even Guzman seems to expect it
But in reality, the showrunners shouldn’t allow negative reactions from fans to stop a storyline that is happening if the only reason is that they don’t want Eddie with anyone except one person, his best friend, Buck. A recent interview with showrunner Tim Minear seemed to confirm that he knew he couldn’t make anyone happy no matter who the love interest was.
Could a lack of chemistry be part of it? Sure, but even a former actress, Arielle Kebbel, confirmed recently that she didn’t think fans even liked her character, who had a kissing scene with Buck while he was in a relationship.
While she was involved in Buck’s storyline, Buck is also a character whose stories often seem to end in fan backlash, and it is usually solely because of who he is dating. His last relationship with Tommy Kinard caused a lot of discourse, mainly due to Tommy’s past when he wasn’t a great person.
Despite two decades having passed since he had met his former 118 coworkers and having been shown to be better than he used to be, Tommy was also a character who fans did not like because he got in the way of a fan-favorite ship.
It isn’t fair to the characters to keep them stagnant to appease some, while others want to see more for all of the characters in the show.
Situations like this prevent the characters on the show from being able to move forward. If it begins to show in how the actors begin to expect their storylines to flounder, then it doesn’t allow for authentic storytelling.
However the storyline for Eddie is written, it shouldn’t be at the expense of his character growth. Eddie has dealt with losing his wife, Shannon, and trying to move on. Season 8 saw him dealing with the aftermath of having pushed his son away after he had an affair with a woman who looked like his deceased wife. There hasn’t been any proper closure for him when it comes to moving on from his loss.
Season 10 could explore how Eddie feels about dating and whether he can build something new for himself without worrying about any outside factors. As his son is now a teenager, we could see him figure out who he is outside of just being Christopher’s dad. We don’t know how long the show will air, but we do know we want to see growth for Eddie as the show goes further down the line.
However season 10 turns out, we hope that Eddie and all of the characters on 911 are given a chance to flourish, as they are also working to save lives.
911 airs on ABC and is available for streaming on Hulu.
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