9-1-1 team unpacks Buck's emotional coma dream episode: 'We're going to see a new side of him'
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Things got Buck wild on 9-1-1 this week.
After getting struck by lightning and going without a pulse for three minutes before the 118 was able to start compressions, Buck (Oliver Stark) was placed in a medically induced coma at the start of season 4, episode 11 on Monday. From there, he experienced an "alternate-reality fever dream" where his brother, Daniel (Mad Men actor Aaron Staton), never died; Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) never left her abusive husband, Doug (Hewitt's real-life husband, Brian Hallisay); and Buck never became a firefighter, kicking off a series of events that results in Bobby (Peter Krause) losing his battle with substance abuse.
The trippy, unconventional episode was a risk for the Fox first responder series, and both Stark and showrunner Kristen Reidel were feeling the weight of the task.
"I felt very vulnerable heading into it. I felt there was a lot of pressure to really bring it — which is exciting, but also quite humbling to just give myself over to the experimental side of it. I had to just trust," Stark tells EW. "Ultimately, it was this really collaborative experience — all these different minds from all different departments coming together to really try and bring this to life."
FOX Oliver Stark on '9-1-1'
"I was nervous about the episode because it is such a departure from anything we've really done before," adds Reidel. "But I think we're all super proud of it, and Oliver is phenomenal in it. Honestly, everybody is. Everybody just really showed up to play. There's some really fun, crazy stuff that happens, but there's also a lot of emotion. I found myself getting emotional in places I didn't expect to."
We asked Stark and Reidel to dig into those emotional moments, what it was like filming the alternate-reality scenes, and what's next for Buck and the 118.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What made you decide to do this coma episode?
KRISTEN REIDEL: We knew that we needed to do some kind of an episode after Buck died. We couldn't just be like, "Oh, he's fine," or whatever. We had to figure out what the journey of Buck having been hit by lightning would be. And ultimately we felt like it was the moment to finally do a dream episode.
How quickly did the story details come together from there?
REIDEL: We had talked about different shapes to it, and we just came up with this idea of this idealized world in which Buck's brother never died. From there we decided it would be like It's a Wonderful Life — partially because we wanted you to be able to make the joke [that Kenneth Choi's Chimney makes in the episode] but also to let Buck spend time with this dream family that he'd always wished he had. Buck actually gets to meet his brother and see a different side of his parents, and have this relationship with them. I mean, Buck's sitting on a couch with his dad sipping a beer, watching the game. That's a thing that never happened in Buck's real life. So there was a bit of wish fulfillment to the dream, at least at the start.
OLIVER STARK: He's had a very fractured relationship with his parents, but I think by delving into that relationship in this coma dream, he starts to see them as just people who also went through a really traumatic experience, and that altered the trajectory of their lives. It's not that they're bad people, it's just that they too were victims of a horrible circumstance and they didn't have the tools to deal with it properly. If things hadn't panned out in such a dark way, maybe they would've had a better relationship. I think it's a chance to see them as more than just his parents that didn't love him right, and really start to understand them as individuals. So then, when he comes out of that dream, I think there's opportunity for them to start to heal that relationship and move into a much healthier dynamic.
We also see Maddie's ex-husband back in the picture...
REIDEL: The dream couldn't just be all perfect, you needed some sense of danger. This is an ideal world until it's not — and Doug is sort of the first fly in the ointment. Part of it is that, in a world in which Daniel never died, Maddie is a slightly different person. She's not a completely different Maddie, but she's lived a different life. This Maddie is not at the place yet where she's going to leave Doug. That place is maybe a couple years off for her. It was really interesting exploring the butterfly effects: What are the ways in which these characters would've been impacted by the world in which Daniel didn't die?
Jack Zeman/FOX Buck (Oliver Stark) visited by Christopher (Gavin McHugh) on '9-1-1'
It was also startling to see that Bobby died. What was it like filming those scenes with Peter?
STARK: It was a really great time, more than anything. I know he was very excited to embrace this kind of weird, kooky version of himself.
REIDEL: It's season six, and all these actors are very familiar with their characters, so the opportunity to play a different version of that character, to do something a little different, I think was a lot of fun for everybody.
STARK: We've developed a great working relationship over the years where we have trust in each other and we feel really safe with each other, so we can push the envelope a little bit and try different things. It felt like a very safe collaborative environment where we could make some silly mistakes and also, hopefully, find some moments that really worked.
At the end of the episode, Buck is on the road to recovery. Will we actually see that recovery or will we jump forward in time?
STARK: This isn't a two-episode arc that we then never hear of again. This really brought Buck right to the edge of death, and that's not something easy to get over. And I think we're going to see a new side of him. Even though the lightning strike was nobody's fault, Buck is going to feel like he doesn't quite know how to do his job. It's going to take him some time to really get back on his own two feet, and he's going to lean on those around him for that. That said, he's also going to get a bit tired of always needing to lean on others, and he has to balance that with finding that strength from within.
REIDEL: And, physically, we'll see him taking it a little bit easy — but not too much, because it's 9-1-1. We want to get our people back out there. So he'll have to take a little time off, but not too much because it's always better when all of our people out there in the field together. He won't be on a couch for the rest of the season, I promise.
FOX Oliver Stark on '9-1-1'
Speaking of couches, sounds like Buck is finally going to get one?!
REIDEL: There will be a new couch. And spoiler alert, the new couch might be in some danger before the season is over.
STARK: I love that the fans have picked up on the symbolism of the couch. Buck is attached to this symbolism of couches being related to relationships, and that's not something that's actually going away anytime soon. Up until Buck's very last scene of the season, we'll see that symbolism at play.
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