Dishing The Dirt On Trinity's Sheriff

DISHING THE DIRT ON TRINITY'S SHERIFF

No one could dispute that Lucas Buck is American Gothic's, and Trinity's pivotal character. Our first encounter with him in the pilot episode shows him murdering Merlyn after she has been attacked by her abusive, drunken father. Merlyn's death is portrayed as an evil act, yet once we've learned a little more about Buck we realise that he regarded Merlyn's murder as a mercy killing. Buck tells Ben Healy, "Isn't it possible that your idea of grey and my idea of grey might differ? It all depends on your perception." Viewers come to accept Buck as a necessary evil, maintaining the status quo in Trinity at the expense of a little begrudged respect and payback. Merlyn's murder is an example of the many, often contradictory, aspects to Lucas Buck's personality that make him the series most complex and interesting character. It's a delicate balance between good and evil, illustrated perfectly in Requiem, when, following Buck's demise, Ben is besieged by townsfolk wanting to know if the deals that they had with Buck will be honoured. (It isn't clear whether they're afraid that they will be, or afraid that they won't!)

BROUGHT TO ACCOUNT

Lucas' influence over the town, a position of power that he has occupied for many years (he pulls Christine Emory over in a flashback sequence set in the seventies in Damned if you Don't; the fire at the Trinity Guardian offices, in Ring Of Fire occurred in 1976) quickly becomes apparent. "Lucas is interested in everybody," warns the nurse in the pilot.

Lucas has used his tenure as Sheriff to concoct various schemes, some of which have been nurtured over many years, crediting him with great patience and a flair for long term strategy. In Eye Of The Beholder, we discover that Lucas is Godfather to half the town's children, no doubt hoping to foster another generation of compliant subjects. Buck waits for seventeen years before asking scrap yard owner Carter Bowen to return a favour in Damned If You Don't, allowing the wrongly convicted Wash Sutpen plenty of time to dwell on the injustice that Bowen had dealt him.

Buck is obviously very popular with the town's womenfolk, and seems to exude enormous sexual magnetism. The 1985 relationship with Holly Gallagher, in Dead to The World, reveals a sentimental side to Lucas that is almost completely absent from later relationships with Selena and Gail (in fairness, he does give Gail flowers in Meet The Beetles). It's possible that Buck had genuine affection for Holly; he sent her love letters, and continued to visit her every week for ten years after causing the accident that put her in a mental hospital. Buck's later relationships with women are rather cynical and border on the abusive.

The affair with Judith Temple (which must have taken place around the same time as Buck dated Holly), revealed by Gail's investigation in Echo Of Your Last Goodbye, seems typical. She was obsessed with Buck, although it's not clear if he was manipulating events, or that she was mentally unbalanced. We meet another woman in Buck's life in Doctor Death Takes A Holiday: Mrs. Smith, the mysterious woman claiming to be Lucas' mother. She turns out to be another old flame snuffed out by Lucas. He describes their relationship as being 'soul mates'.

It initially seemed unlikely that Gail would become involved with Lucas on anything more than a professional level, but even she succumbs eventually. A scene planned for the end of the pilot would have shown an old portrait of Gail and Lucas, hinting that they were lovers in an earlier incarnation, but it was cut before the episode was completed. It would have added an unusual twist to their relationship (some of the animosity between Gail and Lucas was to stem from Lucas' fear that Gail had reappeared to take revenge on some unspecified long past injustice), but might have tipped the balance of the show further into the realms of Fantasy.

SMOULDERING

After a series of episodes where the attraction between Gail and Lucas smoudlers, he finally manages to convince her that he wasn't responsible for the deaths of her parents in the Trinity Guardian fire, and her defences crumble. Their brief relationship ends when Gail confronts Lucas with the accusation that he raped Judith Temple. Buck denies that Judith was an unwilling partner, but Gail finds too many similarities to her own involvement with Lucas to be entirely convinced, and starts breaking free from their relationship, not realising that she’s pregnant with his child. Buck treats her rather badly after she tries to leave him (in Triangle), and doesn't even intercede when she tries to commit suicide, yet when Caleb causes her to lose the baby in Requiem all Hell breaks loose, and it seems as though Buck is closer to Gail than ever. If nothing else, Gail’s pregnancy causes Buck to re-assess his relationship with Gail, Caleb and Selena.

TEMPESTUOS

Buck’s tempestuous relationship with Selena is the series most complex, often adding much needed zest to episodes lacking sparkle. It's a symbiotic bond that borders on the Sado - Masochistic, and aspect exposed when Buck visits Selena to relieve his pent up anger in Inhumantitas. Selena provides a solution: 'If you're going to scream, why don't you come into the bedroom?" Buck warns "I want to hurt somebody for this feeling. I wanna hurt you." Selena relents, teasing "As long as I get to hurt you back..."
Inhumanitas also suggests that Lucas has a string of sexual partners. He spitefully tells Selena "You think you're the only woman I have to service tonight?" Selena's more than a match for him though, retorting with "I certainly hope not. I'd hate to think you weren't constantly reminded of how special I am." If Lucas' snide comment is accepted as being true, and it is not just meant as a stab at Selena's fragile pride, it's a wonder that there aren't dozens of little Buck Juniors scattered throughout South Carolina!! Perhaps being 'godfather' to the town's children is a thinly veiled euphemism?

POSSESSIVE

When Selena begins to stray towards Billy Peele in The Plague Sower, Buck becomes very possessive, even though he's also involved with Gail. The relationship between Selena and Buck is certainly unusual, but it was nowhere near as deviant as it might have been. Gary Cole and Brenda Bakke put forward the suggestion that Selena and Lucas might be brother and sister, which certainly adds a new spin in their relationship. Sadly the idea wasn't realised (it's very unlikely that the notoriously conservative network censors would have passed it anyway.)
Throughout the series we see that Lucas has a very flexible attitude toward lawlessness, and is often prepared to overlook a crime if he will personally gain from it. He allows Carter Bowen to escape justice in Damned If You Don't, and actively encourages Chester Langston to drive home whilst inebriated in To Hell And Back, for example. We rarely see him actually kill (exceptions include Merlyn Temple and the four "pig men" in Strong Arm Of The Law), but he is certainly involved in the deaths of many others. Sometimes his physical involvement is implied, such as the death of Gage Temple in the Pilot, but more often Buck merely supplies the psychological pressure to make his victims take their own lives. Foremost in this category is the death of Judith Temple, (assuming that we are to believe the version of events that Merlyn shows Ben in Echo of Your Last Goodbye), but those of Mrs. Smith (Dr Death Takes a Holiday), and Doctor Les Nerone (Requiem) could also be included.

POWER CORRUPTS

It's certainly a desire for power that motivates Lucas, and not material greed. He tells Mel Kirby that he's "not interested in money" in Ressurector, and only takes back what was his originally when he sells Bryan Hudson's house in Inhumanitas. He's obviously wealthy though, and is able to give Caleb $30,000 in Meet The Beetles (although the money eventually goes to compensate Hack Weller and Fred Bender's widows).
Buck is fairly indiscriminate when it comes to screwing people over. Many of his victims were people that had crossed him (Mel Kirby and Bryan Hudson for example), but some were simply those that had turned down an offer of help that he'd made, or refused him a favour (Judge Streeter in Doctor Death Takes a Holiday and Dan Trulane in Eye Of The Beholder).

FIGHTING SPIRIT

Lucas seems to prefer his opponents to put up more of a fight (as long as he's likely to win eventually) Discounting Merlyn, who is combating Buck on a spiritual level, only Matt Crower and Billy Peele manage to give Lucas a rough time and they each take different approaches. Crower sees through Bucks veneer or respectability and tackles him head on, for the good of the community. He is placed in the role of guardian - if not surrogate father - to Caleb after the boy's home is destroyed. This role, which naturally makes him a target for Buck, is emphasised further in Eye Of The Beholder, when the Doctor moves into the boarding house. Matt is poorly equipped to tackle Buck, and his disintegration into insanity (The Plague Sower and Dr Death Takes A Holiday) seems inevitable. Buck is almost disappointed, "I'm gonna miss you, Harvard."
Peele is more self centered, and treats Buck as a little more than a rival for Selena's bounteous affections. Peele and Buck's initial melodramatic confrontation at the hospital (The Plague Sower), allows Billy quickly to assess Lucas' character without the preconceptions of someone brought up in Trinity.

FALLEN ANGEL

Lucas' origins are never explained in the series, leaving viewers to develop their own theories. Fans have speculated that he is the Devil Incarnate (with 'Lucas' a linguistic corruption of 'Lucifer'?) or perhaps a fallen angel. The extent of Buck's supernatural powers seems to vary from episode to episode. Throughout the series he often appears unexpectedly. He has some telekinetic ability, (he causes Etta Bowen's electrocution in Damned If You Don't) but it is no match for Merlyn's power. He obviously has some command over what might be classed as magic. In Triangle, he casts a fever on the unfaithful Selena and is able to summon the spirit of Albert DeSalvo from beyond the grave in Strangler. He obviously can't be physically harmed in the same way as ordinary mortals. In Doctor Death... he tells a gun wielding Matt "You can't kill me with that thing" The trocar wound inflicted in The Buck Stops Here seems fatal, but, with Merlyn's help, Lucas survives. (The wound is probably more significant than it superficially appears to be. A hole punched in the skull has for a thousand years been a widely practiced way of curing demonic possession. The area of the skull selected, where Selena says Buck's vulnerable 'third eye' is located, is the prefrontal lobe of the brain, where corrective surgery is often performed. The 'third eye' reference is more usually used to refer to the little understood pineal gland, which is located behind the bridge of the nose.)
It's difficult not to like Buck. He's certainly a firm favourite with the shows female fans. He can't simply be dismissed as the bad boy of Trinity; his paternal instincts for Caleb, and his work for the community balance out a lot of the negative aspects of his personality. He loses battles as often as he wins them. You could agree that he only once made a serious error of judgment, in letting Albert DeSalvo loose, unsupervised. In creating such a finely drawn character Shaun Cassidy has unleashed quite a monster. Buck certainly deserves his Sheriff of the Year plaque.