Finally Buck learns the painful Buckley family secret, he had an older brother who died of leukemia before Buck was born. Not only that but the only reason Buck was conceived was to be able to donate his bone marrow. This recontextualizes Buck’s whole childhood and why his parents never gave him any proper attention unless he was hurt.
Tropes featured in the episode:
- Calling the Old Man Out: After Maddie tells Buck the truth about Daniel’s leukemia and the reason Buck was born, she tears into their parents for making her hide their late brother’s existence from him his whole life.Mrs. Buckley: What Were You Thinking?
Maddie: That my brother felt unloved, and alone, and I didn’t want him to think it was his fault, so I told him.
Mrs. Buckley: Well, it wasn’t your place!
Maddie: I’m not a kid anymore, you can’t tell me my place.
Mr. Buckley: Watch the way you speak to your mother, this isn’t her fault.
Maddie: It’s not mine, either! You know, it wasn’t my decision to pack up my dead brother’s things, move to a new town and pretend like he never existed!
Mr. Buckley: We didn’t have a choice! You don’t remember what it was like! The way people looked at us, talked about us, judged us... for having Evan! And it only got worse after Daniel died. And your mother was in no state to deal with all that, so I thought… “Let’s move!” Fresh start, for everybody!
Mrs. Buckley: You’re not a mother yet. You don’t understand that kind of loss, what it does to you!
Maddie: You disappeared into your grief and left me and Evan to fend for ourselves!
Mr. Buckley: Maddie, that’s not fair. We tried…
Maddie: Not hard enough. - A Day in the Limelight: For Buck
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: If you look closely in each of the flashback scenes of Maddie in the hospital, she has a different bruise/injury each time, no doubtfully from Doug.
- What Were You Thinking?: Mrs. Buckley asks Maddie this after learning she told Buck the truth behind his birth. Maddie turns this around on them for trying to erase her other brother's existence and hiding the truth from Buck the whole time.
