"I can't help that I'm that girl, they be talkin', I don't care / Beefin' with yourself because you do not exist in my world"

Han, Cil, and Rachel are saddling up for a Nashville crossover that somehow manages to be both firefighter games chaos and a surprisingly important chapter in Buck’s emotional arc. 9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 12, “Dads and Cads,” and 9-1-1: Nashville Season 1 Episode 12, “Spirit of the Games” deliver competitive nonsense, father wounds, and Bobby Nash continuing to fujo from beyond the grave.

Buck’s parents show up to announce their divorce and create one of the most emotionally effective Buck scenes the show has given us in years when Philip Buckley asks him to talk about Bobby. Meanwhile in Nashville, Buck copes with absolutely none of this by becoming a clipboard-wielding menace at the firefighter games, running the competition like it’s the Navy while Eddie would simply like to eat hot chicken, visit a honky-tonk, and maybe experience the city like a normal person.

We get into Buck’s competitive spiral at the firefighter games and why the episode frames it as something much deeper than a personality quirk. The harder Buck pushes himself to win, the clearer it becomes that the games are the one thing he can control right now, which makes the entire rivalry with the Nashville crew land as both hilarious and completely in character.

We also dig into the reveal that Bobby signed Buck and Eddie up for the firefighter games before he died. Once you place that detail in the timeline — with Eddie still in El Paso — the crossover starts to feel less like a random competition episode and more like something Bobby set in motion because he believed those two would find their way back to each other.

And then we break down the Buddie of it all, which ends up doing some serious narrative heavy lifting across the two episodes. We talk about Eddie clocking Buck’s spiral almost immediately after finding out about the divorce, the way he tries to encourage him to open up, and then the lengths he goes to try and get Buck to let loose and have a good time. From Eddie trying to get Buck to relax in Spirit of the Games to the moment that immediately went triple platinum in fandom — Eddie absolutely flooring it at Blue the second he puts hands on Buck — the crossover makes it very clear that Eddie is the one person in the room who understands exactly what Buck is doing when he starts spinning out. We also get into the way Buck subconsciously echoes Eddie’s words across the two episodes and how those beats reinforce just how locked-in the Buckley-Diaz family dynamic has become.

Buck’s conversation with Maddie in Dads and Cads, where he says that families find their way home — even if they have to fight like hell to get there — ends up laying the thematic groundwork that carries into the Nashville crossover (and probably 9x13). The Buckley divorce storyline runs an interesting parallel to everything Buck and Eddie still aren’t saying to each other this season after their fight in season 8, and once you start pulling on those threads the firefighter games stop feeling like a one-off detour and start looking like another stop in a much longer Buddie Road Trip™️.

"Three things I don't play about, myself, my money, or my man / Mention one of them and best believe I'm gon' be at your head"

Episode title inspired by “Neva Play” by Megan Thee Stallion

📔 Articles & References From This Episode 📔

🫂 Check out this week’s Patreon-exclusive Best Buddies Mini-Segment here!

📰 Interview: ‘9-1-1’ Star Ryan Guzman on the ‘9-1-1: Nashville’ Crossover and Eddie’s Driving Force, Awards Radar

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Chapters

(00:00:00) Previously on 9-1-1…

(00:01:06) Welcome to Dispatch 🚨

(00:02:13) Our 9x12 “Dads and Cads” Review

(00:08:04) What Could Have Worked Better? Honestly…Not Much

(00:15:35) Nashville Crossover Review – 1x12 “Spirit of the Games”

(00:25:38) How the Crossover Episodes Actually Work Together

(00:28:39) Um, Actually… Eddie Wasn’t Out of Character

(00:32:18) Um, Actually… Buck Was Being Very Buck

(00:38:45) Were They “Shutting Down Buddie”?

(00:47:08) Athena – Serving Comedy and Pie

(00:50:09) Harry Witnesses the Horrors & May Has Zero Regrets

(00:52:23) Ravi vs Harry (and the Innudendo War)

(00:54:06) Chimney – Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys

(01:00:16) Maddie – Vodka Lemonade Truth Serum

(01:03:39) Bobby – Matchmaking From Beyond the Grave

(01:07:37) Buck – Competitive Spiral Analysis

(01:13:04) Eddie – Vacation Mode vs Protective Mode

(01:16:03) Queer Eddiemaxxing

(01:22:59) Buddiemaxxing

(01:25:00) Married Behavior

(01:35:15) Buddie Parallels

(01:41:54) Buckley-Diaz Family Reunited

(01:44:52) Buck Compares His Parents to Him and Eddie

(01:48:28) Fighting for the Family Buck & Eddie Chose

(01:55:33) Is the Ravi & Harry Awkwardness a Buddie Preview?

(01:58:01) Eddie Wanting to Go Out Reversal to 9x07

(02:00:26) Eddie Protects & Eddie Attacks

(02:05:08) Into the Looking Glass – Season Parallels

(02:07:15) 9x13 Inspired by “Psycho”? – Theories & Foreshadowing

(02:22:58) What’s Next & Sick Buck Theory

(02:33:45) Our Season 9 Wi$h Li$t

(02:37:13) Outro & Take a Buddie With You!