Talking to Fox: Bones

by Kelly Bedard

In our 4-part series "Talking to Fox" we're sharing the scoop from the sets of Allen Gregory, Raising Hope, New Girl and Bones.

Last, but certainly not least, is the incredibly funny combo of Bones showrunners Hart Hanson and Stephen Nathan. The bantering duo made for the most entertaining call of the lot and the longest installment in our series by far.

So without further ado, here they are:

Bones 2.0

by Rachael Nisenkier

I stopped writing about Bones about two years ago. It had stopped being fun. The show seemed to stop being the kind of show that really benefits from tons of analysis. Instead, it seemed to fall strongly into a procedural crime drama where the characters weren't as engaging, and the plots seemed designed just to create overly cutesy moments that Fox could use in its promos.

Then, at the end of season five, the show decided to try something a little bit risky. After pushing its central relationship, Booth and Brennan, to the breaking point, the show sent them each off to their respective safety places (amusingly, Afghanistan and a third world island). Then, for season six, it brought them both back a year later, allowing a large amount of character development to happen off screen. It also allowed the supporting characters to mature, although maybe not as much as I would have really liked. I was a little wary of this when it happened, but it turned out great. It was a development that allowed the *spoiler alert* season-ending romantic conclusion to feel truly earned. The show’s decision to effectively fast forward the Booth/Brennan romantic relationship by having Brennan get pregnant may have been motivated by Emily Deschanel’s real life pregnancy, but it felt an unbelievably appropriate way for us to avoid awkward first dates and pretend “will they break up” drama. 

Happy Halloween from the Cast of Bones

Catch the season premiere of Bones, Thursday November 3rd at 9pm on FOX.

The Case of the Character-Based Procedural

There's a stigma to any show that can be called "procedural". The TV landscape has become so saturated with CSIs and Law & Orders and versions of NCIS that it seems like there's not a lot left. The genre of crime/patient/case-of-the-week plotting and very basic character development is really for casual viewers. For true procedurals it's important that someone be able to turn on their TV and watch a random episode in the middle of the season and not be confused. So for real TV people, the sort who watch from the pilot to the finale in order and without skipping- critics, devotees, industry folks-, procedurals can be really tedious.

The heavily-serialized have become a rarity on primetime network TV, there's really no arguing with that. With Lost gone and none of its replacements really taking off, serialization really just belongs to family dramas (Brothers & Sisters, Parenthood, Life Unexpected), teen shows (Gossip Girl, Vampire Diaries) and primetime soaps (Desperate Housewives, One Tree Hill). But that doesn't mean that all we're left with is pure procedurals.

So much about House makes it a procedural. Case-of-the-week, repetitive format, etc... but then there's actual House. The famous curmudgeon has a host of problems-psychological, emotional, physical- that make him the sarcastic genius that he is. You don't know that, unless you actually watch the show. The whole show. Same thing with Castle, Bones and Psych. Those shows are still very formulaic, predictable, the characters do, comparatively speaking, take a back seat. But they're not Dragnet. The Good Wife strikes a balance, about half the show is heavily serialized and the other half is procedural law drama. Same with Boston Legal, Drop Dead Diva, and pretty much everything else about lawyers. Grey's Anatomy's the same way. So is Private Practice. As was ER. You could tune into a random episode of Buffy and follow the monster-of-the-week, you'd miss the season-wide big bad and the full-series character arcs, but you could follow the episode. The same can be said of many West Wing episodes.

My point is, the line is blurrier than it seems to be. Some of the most interesting characters on TV exist in what many critics would label a "procedural"- Jack Hodgins, Shawn Spencer, Kalinda Sharma, oh and Gregory House (considered one of TV greatest characters of all-time). I think the secret is layering. Lost quickly grew tedious in its perpetual lack of closure but Law & Order seems to re-set its world at the end of each episode. Self-contained stories are important to give the audience some sense of accomplishment or resolution, but it's the over-arching themes and developments that really pull the characters forward, give the series growth and depth. I think Buffy had it down with its mix of single-episode, season-long and series-wide stories. Their plots worked on 3 levels and their characters got the best of both worlds.

What I'm saying is that Jack Hodgins couldn't live in a true procedural. They just never would have written him. Maybe long arcs aren't the focus, but "non-serial" and "weak on character" are not mutually inclusive concepts (neither are, for the record, "heavily serialized" and "strong on character"). Maybe not every week, but character-based non-serial shows belong in the critical eye. Hodgins deserves at least that much.

The Twist in Bones

*SPOILER ALERT*

For years now Bones has been high on my "eventually I really must watch that show" list. So finally I did. I've been working on it for a couple weeks. It's unfailingly repetitive and I've quickly gotten to a point where I can spot the murder by the end of Act 1. That said, though Brennan annoys me at times, the characters are generally fun and the dialogue quick-witted.

Tonight I pursued an epic marathon in order to get to the ending of season 3, the conclusion of the Gorgomon arc. Now, I will grant you that much like season 5 of Buffy if you know the deal with Dawn, season 3 of Bones suffered from my basic working knowledge of the series. What I knew going into the series was which actors appear in which seasons, that Angela and Hodgins eventually get married and that one of the team members was in some way entangled with a serial killer. From there I quickly figured out that Zack would be going down. But come on, you know Anakin will eventually be Darth Vader, isn't the interesting bit finding out how he gets there? (This is a hypothetical based on the non-factual principal that the prequel films are awesome). So anyway, I know I wasn't necessarily watching the way the show was meant to be watched, but I still think they could have done SO much better.

I've read a lot about this arc on various review sites. It seems, thankfully, that most viewers weren't buying one bit of what the writers were feeding them about Gormogon being Hodgins. As the season developed, hint after hint about Hodgins was thrown out and I (and, I'm assuming, everyone else who has any understanding of character at all) simply laughed and said "oh please, he's lovely, he wouldn't hurt a fly". Which is not to say that terrible writers might not have him be the killer anyway. But by the time I got to the finale and saw Cam was jumping in her seat at his sight and TJ Thyne's gigantic blue eyes being lit as creepily as possible, I knew we were in parody territory (unfortunately, it seems, not on purpose). Whether they knew basic actor contract information going in or not, anyone who thought a FOX show would sacrifice such a high-polling character and a major love interest in one fell swoop was simply off their rocker (not to mention the fact that every single thing we'd ever learned about Hodgins suggested empathy- he's not killer material).

The much more popular suggestion that the killer was Dr. Sweets was similarly ill-conceived, though a tad more understandable. For starters, the hints at him were at least a tiny bit more subtle (tiny being the operative word), he was a new and therefore slightly more ambiguous character (his newness also kept issues of audience loyalty and character interconnectivity off the table) and his timing seemed suspicious. But basic character simply wouldn't allow it. Sweets is, well, sweet. He brought with him exactly the kind of heart and humour the show was lacking and his presence gave Booth and Brennan interesting places to go. But most importantly, Sweets' entire existence is based on human connection, trust, understanding, kindness- he reads people for a living. You don't read people the way he does unless you fundamentally care about people; not the blood and bones conception of a person but what's important to Sweets- the subconscious, the soul, the beating figurative heart. One more for the "last person I would ever EVER put on the serial-killer-possibility list".

So then there's Zack, the absolute first person I would have picked. Objectively (which is how Zack would want it), he's the perfect fit. He's un-emotional, logical, systematic, almost robotic most of the time- makes total sense. Except that it doesn't. Because they didn't do it right. I watched the season knowing where Zack would end up and I'm here to tell you that that did not make sense. The Gorgomon was presented as heavily ritualistic, something Zack never showed any signs of. He lacked opportunity and motive. I'm sorry, but someone as loyal to Dr. Brennan as Zack would never actively work against her. Someone who challenges Hodgins the way Zack did in his contests to be "King of the Lab" would never blindly follow a master. Someone who worked with murder every day, the way Zack did, couldn't see logic in it. Oh, and the guy leaping out of the closet in the shot showing the murder that Zack supposedly perpetrated, sooo not Eric Millegan. None of it was set up, not a single thing. I watched Zack carefully all season. I stared intently at his face as he worked on the Gorgomon case... nothing. I looked for a change in him around the time that the killer was choosing a new apprentice... nothing. I paused the frame on that shot of the apprentice's face... simply not him. It wasn't him. I'm mean, I know it was him, at least that's the reality that the writers have given us. But in my fictional version of the fictional world of Bones, it's not true. The weak-ass "logical reasoning" for his actions is, well, weak-ass (he's weak-willed, impressionable, in need of guidance? Um, I'm fairly certain Zack was never persuaded into ANYTHING, that doesn't stand). And his thought process of "greater good" wasn't logical enough to suit the character (though I appreciate the poetry of the moment when Brennan points out Zack's own illogically humane action in saving Hodgins).

I know, I know, it was the 2007 TV season- strike season; the fraught writers were charged with telling 22 episodes of story in only 15. I still say it's no excuse. When you set up the serial killer in episode 1, you had freaking better know who your serial killer is, especially if it's going to be a series regular! This felt like they didn't decide it was Zack until they were writing the finale. And if it really was a matter of story-telling time, explain to me why the penultimate episode was about an ex-American Idol contestant. The whole thing sort of felt like what shows do when they realize an actress is pregnant and they need to get rid of her in a hurry (see ya Cordelia!) or the makeshift plotting that happens when a castmember dies suddenly (I actually believe that if John Spencer hadn't died in The West Wing's final season ,Vinnick would have won the election, not Santos). It was panic plotting; and if it wasn't, it was just bad writing. Those are the options.

That said, let's hear it for that moment in the hospital when Hodgins ups Zack's meds. I think it was supposed to look creepy, like he was trying to hurt him. But if you as the audience had it figured out, you knew that Hodgins was the only person at the time who could 100% have it figured out too (because of the explosion it had to be him or his best friend, it broke his heart that he knew it wasn't him). TJ Thyne absolutely nailed the possibly-ambiguous, wholly brilliant scene in which the truth quietly crashed down on him. It was a truly exceptional moment- in what was otherwise not a lot more than bollocks.

I was really hoping to like this show. And I do, sometimes. But not right now. Here's hoping (somewhat unrealistically I think, since I'm not a Booth/Brennan fan) for a better season 4.

PS: Hoping I'd missed something, I read quite a bit about the first 3 seasons tonight. It seems nobody likes Cam. Why wouldn't you like Cam? I love Cam! I would just like to put it out there, I think she's fun. And Angela's overrated, we hear more about her being a free spirit than we see of her being one. That said, my beloved Hodge Podge loves her so so do I. But seriously, Cam and Sweets, they're awesome- love them. That's an order.

My Week in TV

The Bachelorette: She picked the right guy. They rode off into the sunset. I got simultaneously jealous and then ashamed of myself. It was pretty standard. Except that she let the other guy go before the last day, causing the producers to have to scramble for a new dramatic ending. I kinda liked that, it was both humane and inconvenient- right on. I fear that The Bachelorette may have made me like Ali. Well, something new every day I guess.

Big Brother: I don't know who to cheer for. Rachel is a lunatic but Kristen is a bitch. The brigade is a bumbling alliance but Brendan has terrible taste in women. Kathy is a nothing player. Britney and Ragan aren't bad but I usually don't approve of low key players. I suppose my loyalties still lie with the smartest brigade member, Matt (who's supposed mishandled HOH last week actually took the target 100% off his back) and the so-called "floaters" Britney and Ragan whom I think are playing pretty well, just subtly (and are also each good for some solid quotables each episode). See the comments section on Tim's post from earlier this week for more of my thoughts.

Drop Dead Diva: a good episode this week proclaimed that Jane and Grayson need to grow into their soulmate-ness. It was a great scene, brilliantly acted by Brooke Elliott and well written. It's a sweet concept but exists entirely in TV land, somewhere I always credited Diva for not living.

Project Runway: It's back! That is good. That is all.

My Boys: Another solid episode this week gave us some brilliant quotes as Mike planned his own birthday celebration.

Top Chef: A decent lot of chefs completely pales in comparison to last season's. Kenny keeps proclaiming that he's the man but has yet to truly prove it. Angelo is a decently strong chef but the producers are trying too hard to frame him as a villain when he's not dynamic enough to warrrant it. Alex is kind of an interestingly sketchy character and Amanda is maddening but overall these people are blandly talented and boring. Once you go Volt you never go back. Though even without the brilliant brothers, last season still had lots of great going ons like the great characters and food of Kevin and Eli, the controversy of Robin and the tough gal persona of Jennifer. This season's got none of it. It's also the kitschiest yet, and that's saying something considering last season was set in Vegas.

Life Unexpected: I'm catching up through summer re-runs. Me like.

The Good Wife: ditto.

The Last Comic Standing: Still loving my first experience with the show. Go Tommy Go!

So You Think You Can Dance: Kent's got this. That's been obvious since the second Alex went down. However, Lauren did have a spectacular week this week and Robert's grown on me. But Travis (LOVE) choreographed one of the most upsettingly moving pieces of the series thus far and gave it to Kent to dance with all-star Neil (also, LOVE) so he's got this, there's no doubt about it. And deservingly so. I mean, it should have been Alex but he's hurt. It could have been Anthony but the producers didn't like him enough to put him in the finals. It could have been Billy, but America didn't get him (though he REALLY should have made it past Adechike). So it's Kent. He's sweet, he's charming and boy can DANCE! He can take the prize, I'm cool with that.

Bones and True Blood: My current DVD projects. I'm still in season 1 of both but hoping to catch up to the newest seasons come fall. Loving both, especially Bones (that Christmas episode is superb!)

The Finale in the BONES (Season Wrap Up: Bones)

In a season that was often uneven, and that came after a season that was so over-the-top gimmicky that its emotional epiphanies often felted tainted by the ridiculousness, Bones actually somehow managed to make a re-believer out of me. It felt like, especially in the second half of the season, the show was aiming to start dealing with the characters' emotions in a much more real way.

Let's start with the season finale and the many HUGE changes it brought with it. Or, more accurately, let's start with what it didn't give us: much like The Rolling Stones, Bones viewers can't get no satisfaction. If, after the fantastically frustrating 100th episode, we thought that season's end would finally make Brennan wisen up and return Booth's feelings... well we were half right. I do think that her admitting that she worries all the time about Booth's safety and what her relationship with him means is a pretty big step forward for her, so that in a weird way her decision to head to Maluku Islands is actually her accepting that she needs to change something substantial in her life to be happy because she can't just stay in limbo with Booth forever.

The case of a crazy hoarder was slightly more on the nose, metaphor-wise, than Bones normally plays it (in fact, it was down right Grey's Anatomy-esque in its case-to-personal-life-connections). Still, it was interesting, and asked for a lot from all our principal characters (including Angela, whose computer-gadgetry is quickly replacing Sweets' psychology as the go to magical crime solver when all normal means have been exhausted). In terms of a season finale that was much more over-arching than single episode criminal-of-the-week, it was serviceable.

But you can't discuss this finale without dealing immediately with the ramifications. It ends with Booth off to Afghanistan (and was I the only one who thought it was a little over-the-top to have Parker say that he was responsible "for all those people dying" if Booth didn't go?) and Brennan off to Indonesia for a year. Given that next season is set to begin right after that year, I sort of think this was a brilliant ploy. Rather than making the audience sit through another year of hemming and hawwing, it's allowing our characters to grow and change and then come back, ready to deal with what all that growing and changing means. In a lot of ways, it's the best possible ending/beginning. Plus it allowed Hodgins and Angela to take off romantically to Paris for a year, and Sweets to finally "grow the hell up."

In fact, the finale in a lot of ways reaffirmed my faith in Bones. Despite appearances by ZZ Top frontmen and a sidestory that included stealing a classic car from a biker gang, this episode and the ones that preceded it were deeply grounded in the truth of the characters, their legitimate growth and affection for each other, and the ramifications of the intensity of those relationships. For the first time in a while, I feel like the people in charge of Bones REALLY get these characters and REALLY care that they get where they're legitimately going.

That episode ending moment full of longing and regret was beautiful. Brennan in particular has really blossomed at the tail end of this season, dealing with the fact that because of who she is and how she sees the world, she can't have what she wants, which we all now know is Booth. But she's not there yet, not ready to be hurt and put herself through this yet, so it's easier to head off to a jungle and send Booth off to a warzone than it is to give herself over to him.

More importantly, the show has done a great job of making me BELIEVE that these two aren't ready to be together yet. As a somewhat-too-ardent Booth and Brennan supporter, I found the obstacles thrown in their path... annoying to say the least (when Booth woke up from his coma last season with no recollection of Brennan, I legitimately considered throwing my TV out the window in protest). But this season, they've done a much better job of making those obstacles more than just TV-created speed bumps, but legitimate character arch stuff that works on thematic, personal levels.

The season was uneven, that's for sure, and sometimes frustrating, but overall it's left my incredibly optimistic as to what the show runners are going to be able to do with their year-in-the-future return.

Some quotable highlights:

"the pyramids are better at change than you are. It's a joke. I was being affectionate." (Booth to Brennan)

"Mr. Adventure's here, ready to kick some biker ass." (how freaking cute was sweets?)

"I hope you find something that just changes the entire notion of what it means to be human." (Angela to Brennan, but also a good summing up of the show's game plan going into next season)

Season Finale Grade: B+

Season Grade: A-

Bones Update

I'm about two weeks late, and I don't have the time/energy to give this the attention it truly deserves, but as the resident Bones expert here at My Tv I feel the need to comment on the recent dramatics. For the record, BIGGEST SPOILER WARNING EVER.

About two weeks ago, Bones had its 100th episode, an episode that coincided with a major step forward/backwards/laterally for Booth and Brennan. To summarize, Booth finally laid it all on the line, Brennan reacted like a coward not ready to deal with how deeply she feels, and the episode ended with a deeply wounded Booth telling Brennan he needed to move on if she wasn't going to be ready for him. It was a great episode, but the ending left me nervous. Where did the show go from here?

The answer: to one of the best episodes of all time. Brennan and Booth head back to her hometown to solve the murder of a former classmate, which also happens to coincide with Brennan's high school reunion. What followed was incredibly telling (Brennan was known as "Morticia" to her classmates and hung out with a creepy janitor played by Freddy freaking Kruger), funny (the teen horror movie parody stayed just on the right side of goofy), and moved the plot forward (the little Booth and Brennan dance, all the people hitting on both of them, the significance of Brennan's episode ending friendship speech).

It managed to deal honestly with the ramifications of the big episode AND still be fun, something I wasn't sure was possible. If the show can continue this, dealing honestly with Booth and Brennan's emotions, continuing to move them towards impending couplehood while throwing up legitimate and engaging reasons for them not to be together, and writing really damn good one shot episodes, then I'm feeling more confident than I have been that the show can weather the storm of expectations than I have felt in a while.

I didn't even mention the motion on the Hodgins/Angela front (Yay!) or the fun Sweets stuff. That's how good this episode was!

Bones: Mummification

For most of tonight's episode, the mummified motif present in our case of the week (which, despite being set at the Jeffersonian and involving mummies and international intrigue, seemed even more trivial than the past few weeks') seemed overly appropriate. The whole "Brennan dates someone else" plot line seemed sort of ridiculous two seasons ago; by this point, it seems... just a hair short of unbelievable. I just don't think at this point that Brennan is SO unaware of both her own feelings for Booth and Booth's feelings for her that she "doesn't understand" why Booth was so upset about her dating his boss. Nor do I particularly think she wanted to date said boss, even if it did have "the possibility of sex" (as brilliant a Brennan line as any, I might add).

All that being said, the storyline played out pretty damn well. Even if I found the device tired, about forty minutes into the episode, it became obvious that are characters were not, in fact, mummified. Time had progressed quite a bit past the point where either of them could deny the fact that their personal lives affect one another. For Pete's sake, last week they played house with Booth's son. They're not "strictly professional" by any stretch of the imagination. Booth's anger at Brennan when he found out she had shared a story about him on her date was so well played by Boreanaz and well-received by Deschanel that I was reminded why, once again, no matter how much the plotting of this show lets me down, I keep coming back.

But then even the plotting stepped it up. That scene in the museum was as intense as any the pair have ever shared, and even though I knew, this being a FOX show and not a particularly gutsy one, that nothing huge could happen in a non-SWEEPS episode that wasn't ridiculously over-promoted, it got my heart going all a-pitter-patter, proving that despite all the tug of war the show has put me through I'm still invested in it.

I sort of hate when my reviews devolve into a "Booth-and-Brennan hook up" watch. It's really all there is to write about in an episode like this. In theory there was a B-plot: Sweets and Daisy had some sort of fight and made up by show's end. But Daisy doesn't exist outside of the episode's where the show gets bored with the other interns, and I'm far more interested in the twisted parts of Sweets personality than watching him creepily try to condition his girlfriend like he's Sheldon and she's Penny.

The show used to be more than that, and occasionally still is. Don't get me wrong, the best part of this show was always Booth and Brennan, but the mysteries used to be more engaging, and the background players used to seem more intriguing. The best Bones episodes blend all of these together. When the mysteries are as weak as this week's, I literally want to fast forward through all the explanation parts. I've gotten sucked in to episodes of Law & Order that I've watched for two minutes, so I know I'm not just immune to procedural dramas. And even though I love that Bones is more character based than plot based (I think it's a brilliant twist on the genre), I wish they could get their better balance back.

But as long as the scenes between Booth and Brennan are as well written as tonight's, I'll continue showing up for every cliched-interruption, plausibility-stretching dilemma, and by the numbers murder cases the show wants to throw my way to take up the minutes between brilliantly acted screwball romantic comedy.

Hallelujah

You have no idea how relieved I am to be typing this: I REALLY enjoyed tonight's Bones.

Don't get me wrong, it was by no means a perfect episode (the 007-ness was a bit hoaky for me), but it made me happy. The final Booth/Brennan scene almost made up for all of the push and pull of the coma, hallucinations, amnesia absurdity. I love the quiet sweetness of Booth and Brennan, which is why I found all the melodrama of last week's episode annoying.

But Brennan, putting her natural snobbishness aside in order to let Booth teach her plumbing, and then sharing such an intensly intimate yet true to both of them moment trying to fix Booth's plumbing... well... that's the perfect amount of relationship drama.

And although in the beginning I thought the 007 thing was DOA, it turned out pretty twisty turny and interesting, with a few classic-Bones gross out skeletons along the way. And I've always liked Wendell, the intern of the week, and I like what he brought out in all the rest of our cast. I also liked that there was a legitimate storyline for the rest of the cast that didn't involve commenting wrily on Booth and Brennan's feeble steps towards relationshipville.

I still don't like that the show feels the need to hit us over the head with B&B (example: the CIA girlfriend, "I guess it's not like the FBI. We're not just allowed to sleep with eachother." Brennan, "Is she talking about us?" Yes, Brennan, she, just like every other guest star for the past 18 episodes is picking up on the fact that you and Booth are in a relationship, even if you aren't), nor that they sometimes are more obsessed with goofy music breaks and commercial friendly one liners than with true character development. And the commercials with David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel all cuddly annoy the crap out of me.

But this was a well written episode, with very true, moving character moments, and that was something I sorely needed for all my patience with the show.

Bones Comes Back

I wish I could say that the Bones premier erased all my doubts about that damn finale. I really wanted it to. I feel like all I do of late is hate on this show, which is sad, because it's probably the show that I am the most invested in.

I think my number one problem with this show can be referred to as Moonlighting syndrome. Maybe you don't remember the tv show moonlight, but chances are if you're a big enough tv dork to read this site you've at least heard of it. Moonlighting was an 80s tv show starring Bruce Willis and Cybil Shephard about detectives, and it was very much so based on the sparkling chemistry and will-they-or-wont they of its leads. When they finally did, the steam let out and the show fizzled.

Maybe you don't remember Moonlighting, but the people who work at Bones sure do. The problem is, the past two seasons I feel like they haven't been very good, or very convincing, at keeping their leads apart. That's why the finale frustrated me so much. And the whole "what if Booth loving Brennan is just a coma side effect" thing feels forced. Anyone who has been around the two of them for the past five seasons knows exactly what Booth's feelings for Brennan are and vice versa. So it felt untrue to me that Sweets of all people (who spent so much of last season realizing the depth of the duo's feelings for each other) would try and dissuade Booth with the argument that he doesn't really love Brennan, it's just a coma side-effect. Much more convincing was Cam's acceptance of it, but caution to Booth to think about how world-rocking making a move would be.

I just wish I felt like the show had a master plan, or a sense of where all of this is going. It seems like they're just content to drag out the relationship, and lack the plotting skills and the confidence to actually let them change their dynamic. They so subtly and brilliantly built to this moment, right here, in season five, where Booth has no choice but to acknowledge, out loud, that he is in love with Brennan, that to see all of that growth thrown away for a hokey clown metaphor was frustrating.

I guess that's why I find Bones blatant commercialism and poor over-arching plotting so annoying; there's so much on this show that is well done and smart, that it seems like an insult to all I've bought into when things just feel so contrived. The last ten minutes of this week's Bones legitimately made me snort because they seemed so hokey.

I can accept that Booth and Brennan aren't going to get together for awhile, but then I want to see them doing what they do best, verbally sparring and solving cases, not have to sit through endless metaphorical scenes about Booth's feelings and Brennan's vulnerability. I don't want to have to watch Cyndi Lauper (no matter how brilliant a cameo, given Brennan's penchant for the singer) explain for what feels like the four thousandth time how the pair are "intertwined." Lauper basically played the part of omniscient narrator, whose psychic powers giving her license to spell out the plot to those of us not subtle enough to pick up on all the anvil sized clues. I know all this. Stop telling me. Go back to showing me.

None the less, I still love Bones. It's still a cast of fine, talented actors, who have such good chemistry one's tempted to forget how manipulative it all is. And the murders of the week are normally much more intriguing than this week's lame psychic, cult ridiculousness, especially because they normally have more heft than as a device to talk about the relationships. This isn't Grey's Anatomy. The cases are supposed to try, test and prod our heroes, but not in this straight forward a manner.

So that's my Bones rant, and I hope that future reviews will be tempered with more love than vitriol.

Well, Now. That Was Dissapointing.

**If I could have written a worse case scenario for how the writers of Bones would deal with all they promised us for this finale, it might go something like this: extended dream sequence for 55 minutes, cut to the hospital room, Booth has amnesia. It was like every lame plot device, every overly goofy sequence, every believability-straining quirk rolled up into one episode.

First of all, A FRAKKING DREAM SEQUENCE? THE UBER HYPED SEX SCENE IS A FREAKING DREAMMM?>!!! THIS ISN'T BUFFY* YOU CAN'T JUST SHOW US AN ALTERNATE REALITY AND THINK IT'S ENOUGH. I don't just want to work out the audience's collective Booth/Brennan lust through alternate realities, I've invested four years in these characters and I think they deserve each other and deserve happiness. There was a brief moment at the end, before the big amnesia blah blah blah, that I thought, "Maybe I can forgive this whole episode if it ends with Brennan finally coming to grips with her feelings for Booth and kissing him, promising us that they'll deal with their relationship next season." AND THEN. WOW. It turned absolutely any redeeming value to the rest of the episode into nothing.

The actual storyline, which is revealed to be Brennan's new book that she's reading to Booth as he sits all coma-fied, follows most of those we know and love as a cast of characters within the Night Club Murder Mystery. There's parts where this is kind of cute. Specifically, it really utilized all the crazy interns, who I've suddenly noticed I love. It also made a lot of cute references to the four seasons we've had thus far of the show, such as the bar being named "The Lab" and Sweet's band being Gormogon (and Sweets, in an internet-shout-out, says "Some people think I'm Gormogon. But I'm not.). Also, John Francis Daley was pretty adorable, freed from the confines of Sweet the psychiatrist, and switching over to Sweets the bartender. He giggled so cutely while playing in his band that for a brief moment I got sad that this was such an awful episode.

This episode felt like they just wanted to use the whole cast and didn't know how else to glue everything together, so they threw it all into a ridiculous storyline that definitely didn't belong on a reality-based show like Bones, and then added Motley Crue at the end. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, they went where Cordelia went on Angel (although hers made, sort of, more sense) and Jack's wife went on 24, and soap opera after soap opera has gone throughout the ages, and gave Booth amnesia just at the moment when Brennan had realized her intense longing for him. AND. WORST OF ALL. THEY SPENT THE WHOLE EPISODE WITH DAVID BOREANAZ DRESSED REALLY, REALLY STUPID. He's way too hot to look that dumb.

I said in one of my reviews of Dollhouse (and the finale episode review is coming, I swear, once I've had time to process) that the thing I love best about watching Joss Whedon shows is knowing, wholeheartedly, that while I don't always agree with the decision he makes, that he's making them for story reasons and that they will eventually come to a satisfying conclusion. But Hart Hanson, the Bones show runner, is a perennial tease, who for the past two seasons has managed to majorly drop the ball on the finales. It's not just that their conclusions are unsatisfying, it's that these episodes barely even feel connected to the procedural every days that are so brilliantly done by Bones. It's hard for me to maintain loyalty to a show that doesn't maintain loyalty to itself.

*Buffy/Angel is one of the only shows in history that I think has successfully done the "satisfaction through alternate reality" plot, a) because it works within the plot devices and b) because they normally have control over the themes that they used in these episodes (think of the beautiful, wonderful Season 2 episode "I Only Have Eyes For You" where all of Buffy and Angels issues worked out over surrogates that also showed our lovers/enemies smooching again). The inside story, besides showing how much Brennan loves her some Booth, didn't really work all that well thematically. Jared's not in love with Brennan, Max isn't trying to kill Booth, etc.

**This photo isn't from last night's episode. I decided to use a better example of the writers actually understanding what to do with their characters to make me happier.

"The Critic in the Cabernet" or Bones: Sex Watch '09

I'm as loyal a Bones viewer as any, having watched it since it's premier four years ago, and loved nearly every minute of it, but I'll be the first to admit the show is flawed. The quality of the writing vacillates wildly between episodes. Take this season. We have some truly brilliantly written episodes, subtly playing with the themes that will come to define this season, like "Mayhem on a Cross." That final moment, with Booth gentle touching his pocket, was like the most romantic television poetry, gently weaving together the feelings these two characters have for each other and articulating them in a way that is at once infinitely clear and infinitely subtle.

And then, sometimes, we have talking cartoon babies. So much of last night's episode, "The Critic in the Cabernet," annoyed the hell out of me. The mystery of the week was fairly standard (in fact, for the first time in recent memory we don't get an actual confirmation of who the killer was) because this episode was not about the mystery, even in so much as any Bones episodes are about the mystery. This was about Booth and Brennan.

In the beginning, the show continued its habit of treating psychology like a magical drug that brings out the truth. That's mostly okay: I can believe that someone like Brennan would only be able to admit the truth to herself when she thinks she's being tricked into it. But this week took this stretch a little far, with Brennan wildly shouting out during a free association exercise that she wanted a baby and she wanted Booth to father it.

Still, I could have easily forgiven that. Brennan is prone to flights of fancy and absurd declarations. But then it took Booth all episode to realize that he couldn't just father Brennan's child and then divorce himself from the operation. It was completely out of character for a man who's made his stand so often on the importance of fatherhood and responsibility, and who, just 9 episodes in "The Salt in the Wound," ended the episode with a long speech to a teenage boy about the importance of, you guessed it, taking responsibility for one's sperm. He didn't need a talking Stewie-baby to tell him that he wanted to be involved.

And let's talk about that all important guest star, Stewie from Family Guy. I've known about this truly idiotic cross over idea for a while, and I guess that the actual cameo wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was unnecessary. Oh, sure, Booth was having anxiety hallucinations about fathering Brennan's child, and Stewie's a baby, but aside from this tenuous connection with the issue at hand (yes, pun very much so intended), there was no real justification for the inter-network synergy that results in a freaking cartoon character getting to define Booth's emotional arch. It was sloppy, weak writing, made all the worse by the blatant FOX-ification of it.

So yeah, by the time Booth started seeing Stewie in the interrogation room, I was pretty annoyed. There'd been moments I liked during the episode (depressed intern is always a hoot, and everyone's reactions to Booth/Brennan craziness almost made it worth it), but all in all I started pantomiming a shark and Bones jumping over it. They weren't letting the storylines breath. It felt like every big moment was being crammed into this one episode, whereas a well plotted show would have it unfold naturally over a couple of episodes. From Brennan's baby lust to Booth's disease, it felt like they were just dumping all their left over plotlines into the soup of this episode and hoping it came out delicious.

And then, Booth told Brennan what he was hallucinating, and I'm reminded why, even when the writing falls short, I still love Bones. The acting is always freaking fantastic. The look of abject terror and concern that Brennan gave Booth as she insisted she get him to the hospital; the adorable way Booth looked around his hospital room, desperate until he saw Brennan; Sweets freaking out in the hospital room as Angela and Hodgins reconsidered their own relationship. This is the stuff that Bones is made of. It's continually demonstrated its commitment to its characters, and it's that reason why we should invest in the show.

At its heart, Bones is a screwball romantic comedy, and in that vein (and that vein alone) the end of this episode was a rousing success.

*All this being said, I literally tossed a pillow at the television when I saw the preview for next week's episode. Anything advertised as "the wackiest Bones yet!" clearly doesn't get what makes this show so fantastic, and was anyone exactly clamoring for a guest spot from the Motley Crue? On top of that, obsessively advertising B&B's horizontal shenanigans just makes the network a pimp, peddling its leads' flesh, which I suppose is always true, but at least they're normally subtler about it. I hope I'm wrong. I'm hoping that next week's episode manages to deal with B&B in a way that is both true to their character arch and satisfying. The only thing that would annoy me more than the show making too big a deal out of their having sex is the show failing to realize the importance of it; the show having mislead us this far with its promises of B&B sex? I guess that would depend how it's done.

Bones: The Girl in the Mask

After four episodes of Bones in two weeks, I think I can forgive the show that this past one felt a little... empty. It's not that it was a bad episode, it didn't have me cringing or wanting to write angry emails to Hart Hanson, it was just lacking either the goofy or profound heights that I know the show is capable of. Even the title, "The Girl in the Mask," sounds boring.

The episode followed the murder of Sachie Nakamoro, whose brother is a Tokyo Cop who once participated in a cultural exchange with Booth. These "special" episodes based on age-old friends that we're only just meeting are kind of 50/50 for me. Sometimes, it gives the episode extra gravitas and layers of emotion. Sometimes, like this week, it just seems like something shoe-horned in because the murder was kind of generic. The subplot, meanwhile, was pure goof, with the four other permanent members of the Jeffersonian (Angela, Hodgins, Sweets and Saroyan) all trying to figure out the gender of the forensics expert flown in from Japan. It was kind of stupid, but not offensively so, unless you happen to be easily offended, and I liked watching four people who all think of themselves as enlightened and above such petty things as gender try and overcome their baser instincts.

Apart from that, this episode featured a more serious Booth than we've seen in a while, as he angrily threatened pimps (great Booth and Brennan interrogation scene --> Booth: You're a pimp. I don't like pimps. Brennan: He really doesn't.), and showed a lot of Brennan's growth as a human being, such as when she very sensitively (and anthropologist-ly) asked the victim's brother to leave the autopsy room. In fact, there were lots of good tiny character beats hidden within the mystery.

The reason, though, that I consider this a subpar episode of Bones has nothing really to do with its faults, except that I found myself acutely aware that the whole purpose of this episode was to set up future ones with Brennan's wondering if loving someone is worth it. Thanks to annoyingly omnipresent spoilers, I know this has direct consequences both for her relationship with Booth and for another upcoming storyline (which, since I'm not a jerk, I won't spoil here). In many ways, I think Hart Hanson shot himself in the foot by telling fans we'd (FINALLY) get some Booth/Brennan action by the finale, because now to a certain extent this season has become entirely about the build to that. In stronger episodes than tonight's, I can ignore the thirteen year old girl inside me screaming "Just smooch already!" But in otherwise boring episodes, it's more fun to giggle along with her.

Random Thoughts:

• Two great Brennan moments tonight in the form of her lack of humility:

Tanaka: Everyone in the field accepts that you are the best.
Brennan: Yes I know. (huge smile)
and
Brennan (after Nakamoro empathizes with her brother leaving her):
I turned out quite well, actually.

• How many random people have to explain to Brennan that she's in love with Booth before she realizes it?
• I'm not sure how I feel about the mid-show recaps, but Sweets was pretty adorable doing his this week.
• The show really brought the "EWWWWW" factor this week with the brains melting.
  
• What the hell was that airplane noise Booth made while feeding Brennan? Also, how absurd is it the Brennan doesn't think she has anybody so close in her life that she would talk to them for five-fifteen minutes a day? Honey, if you spend your evenings eating ice cream (which he feeds you) and drinking beer together, you're substantially more than just work colleagues.
  

Does no one respect the delicate beauty of the television schedule anymore?

Last week, when I realized a day late that Bones had an extra episode on Wednesday as well as our regularly scheduled Thursday, it was like a gift from the television gods. This week, when I discovered, again a day late, that Bones had an extra episode on Monday all I could think was -WHAT?!
Why does Bones, one of the most successful shows on FOX right now, keep jumping around and, more importantly, why do I never know about it?

At first, it was hard to believe the episode was even real. Add to that the fact that this week's episode featured Brennan, Camille, and Booth stealing the body of a colleague from a wake and Weekend at Bernie's-ing around town with him, and you'll forgive me if the whole episode had an air of dreamyness to it (maybe "I did acid in high school. That's probably why I'm not a doctor."). "The Double Death of the Dearly Departed" could be the best goofy episode in Bones history, in that the goofiness seemed authentic rather than absurdity for the sake of absurdity.

Random Greatness:
* Brennan and Booth singing, but especially Booth, because everytime he sings it reminds me of Angel's awful karaoke'ing skills.
* Brennan attempting to mime sex to Booth by having her hands do the wave.
* The Weekend at Bernie's reference with the sunglasses.
* Everything having anything to do with the poor undertaker and Camille's indentification with him.
* Booth flirting his way through the lawyer
* "Hank's greatest passion. Aside from sex."
* Booth knowing right away that Brennan wouldn't be able to take this small little man talking to his dead mother and brother seriously.

The episode ender, our patented Booth and Brennan have an adorable covnersation as the music goes up, was wonderful. Brennan's sincere, although not in the teary eyed way we're use to, explanation of why she agreed to go and visit Booth's grave once he's dead was so straight forward and yet belying all her complex emotions for him that it almost made reevaluate the rest of the episode as more than just a goofy interlude before major plot developments. "I believe that pretending you were still here would make me feel better for a moment. And speaking to you would require me to figuratively look at myself through your eyes, again temporarily, and I think that would make me live my life more succesfully." It was so intensly Brennan in its explication and yet sincere, and Booth's being genuinely touched by it as he put his arm around her on the walk out was all sorts of greatness. But damn if at a certain point I don't think the two of them should just admit that somehow, sans Priests or rings or dresses, they've gotten married. Brennan basically just pledged eternity to Booth.

Bones- The Heart of the Matter

Wow. Just when, a few episodes ago, I was ready to write off this season of Bones as missing the pop and verve of previous seasons, the past few episodes have been amazing. I'll admit it, though, as my one caveat, that I am true and through a sucker for Booth and Brennan stuff (when it's well written - earlier this season it seemed the writers were using it as a crutch to liven up otherwise boring episodes). The slow burn of their relationship, the intense trust and respect they have for each other, and the fact that both David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel are first rate performers adds up to my practically swooning.

This week featured two episodes of Bones for the price of one. The first one was a pretty standard rate episode, following featuring a murdered bridezilla. It allowed us a glimpse into Brennan's marriage dislike and Booth's optimism, and lots of great repartee between the two, as well as a pretty cool murder mystery. It also set the foundation for episode two, with Brennan at episode end admitting that she's jealous that she can't blindly believe in love, and Booth promising her that one day she would.

The second episode ostensibly was about the murder of a Death metal kid* by his freaky cohorts, but it was really about the return of Booth's one time psychologist**, Gordon Gordon (guest-star Stephen Fry, right), and the effect that has on Sweets, Booth and Brennan. We learn that Sweets was abused when he was very, very (almost unfathomably) young, and that he ended up being adopted by an older couple who died shortly before he started working at the Jeffersonian (we also learned he has an amazing six pack that reminded me of that needless scene in Ugly Betty when Henry took his shirt off just to show that underneath that dorky exterior lay... that.). The Sweets stuff was nice, and I think should do a lot to deepen the character and make him more than just the annoying dispenser of information (although, honestly, I never find him annoying, probably because the star of Freaks and Geeks and Kitchen Confidential just warms my heart every time he doofishly grins). Booth and Brennan rush over to save Sweets from loneliness and give him a feeling of family, and Brennan immediately launches in to share with him her metaphorical scars. He claims it's out of character. It's not. Brennan has an intense empathy with orphans. In this one moment, she understands Sweets better than Booth does.

Since Sweets is writing a book about the strange chemistry that is Booth and Brennan, and he asked Gordon Gordon to read it and give it his thoughts, this episode also allowed the characters to talk explicitly about what is normally only acknowledged through sly glances: the lovey dovey ridiculousness of Booth and Brennan (neither of whom has had an actual love interest outside of each other for more than a season, because honestly, it just seems stupid whenever they try).

Which brings me to what we learned about Booth and Brennan tonight. As Gordon Gordon put it, one of them is acutely aware of the attraction between the two of them and struggles with it daily. Although I felt like the end of the episode was hinting towards Brennan, it's Booth. Come on! All Brennan knows, or will let herself know, is that she respects Booth, intensely, and that when she thought he was dead it upset her a lot. But since she's not capable of believing in real love, yet, she doesn't recognize how much she feels for Booth. But he does, and it tortures him. The little one minute moment of Booth's heart breaking when he heard about Brennan's abuse at the hands of her foster parents, and the intense look the two of them shared as she put the handkerchief back in his picket was simultaneously heartbreaking, beautiful, and telling, for the audience and for Sweets. And damn if David Boreanaz didn't knock it out of the park acting wise.

So yes. I really hope the writers know what they're doing, because they've set these two characters up and there's not much farther they can push them before they have to see what's so obvious to literally everyone around them (in episode one, even store clerks and plastic surgeons could tell within seconds how in love they were just from the protective and sweet way Booth put his arm around Brennan and the ridiculous way they fight over details).

*I love when they put Booth and Brennan inside some strange microcosm of society (pony play, circus folk, death metal) even though it often leads to absurd episodes, because I like the consistency of character that comes along with it. Booth is inclined to distrust other cultures, he reacts negatively and tends to berate them. But when it comes down to it, Booth understands people. He's the type of guy you'd think would be homophobic until you find out he's trying to find his gay brother a date (mind you, his brother isn't gay, he's trouble making, but it's a metaphor, silly!). Brennan, on the other hand, thinks she reacts to everything with scientific objectivity, and her initial reactions to these microcosms tends to be intellectual and interested, but she often finds herself almost irrationally put off by cultures that don't conform to her value structure. Okay, yes, a little pretentious, and I've probably never used the word microcosm so often, but that's why it's a footnote.

** I like that despite Brennan's distaste for psychology, the show actually treats it like a magic elixir that can explain everything. To date, I can only remember Sweets being truly wrong once (about Brennan, when he testified he believed her capable of murder).

And Then There's Another Quality...

Bones this week could be the best of the season. It hit all the right notes, from Brennan's episode ending explanation of why it doesn't matter that Booth is stupid to the somewhat goofy subplot with Angela's Dad torturing Hodgins for their break up. I didn't do my proper note taking, in depth reporting, but suffice it to say, I'm more excited for the Booth/Brennan-ness to come (they had some of their season best chemistry notes, such as him "saving" her during the cannon explosion and the two of them screeching while locked inside the particle vibrator). And I think Mr. Nigel Murray could be my favorite of the interns of the week. Plus, and call me a fool, but I go all googly when they get Booth waxing rhapsodic about sex in contrast to Brennan's cold rationalism.

This was an episode that truly understood the heart of its characters (even the tiny ones- in her tiny scenes, Cam was all sorts of awesome, trying to offset the zaniness of Nigel Murray and Hodgins shooting cannons).

Revisiting Camille Saroyan

I've been enjoying the way Bones is leading to the inevitable Booth and Brennan shenanigans all season long, with the often goofy, character-centered episodes that have become a staple of the show's fourth season. But it was a nice change of pace to have this week's episode of Bones focused on the back story of Camille Saroyan. Too often, the level-headed, sensible Saroyan takes a back seat to her far more eccentric colleagues, reduced to nothing more than a dry wit and perfectly sculpted arched eyebrow. This week saw her dealing with the death of an old love in a way that was simultaneously heartbreaking and believable (you could see the pain on her face in every scene, but Camille is nothing if not a professional, and she did her damn job). When the hurt teenage daughter that could have been Camille's tells her "Maybe [he cheated] because he knew you weren't good enough. Maybe he was just waiting for the right moment," she takes a moment. She's clearly broken and sad, but Camille is a true and complete adult (a rare commodity on television) and she swallows it all and says, "maybe." I love that Camille is enough of an adult that she doesn't blow up on a mourning teenage girl just because she said that meanest thing she could think of.

On top of this, the renewed emphasis on Bones and Camille's differing world views was a welcome return to their original strange chemistry. The two strong, brilliant women disagreeing can be amazing, and brings out the best in both of them. But when they agree, and bond over their shared inability to deal with people, it's gold.

Camille: Questioning people isn't really my thing. Most of the time I just want to beat them until they tell me what I want to hear.
Brennan: I know. It can be quite frustrating.

And Brennan and Camille bonding over Camille's desire to save her once-would-be-daughter (referencing the pain Brennan once felt in being a foster child, tossed through the system) was probably one of the most beautiful moments in the series history of non-Booth/Brennan chemistry, and really emphasized how far they've both come.

While the Camille-focused storyline breathed fresh air into the show, there were still a lot of sticking points, where the show seems incapable of getting the tonal balance quite right. The angela is uber horny storyline was sort of stupid, and I'm inclined to side with intern of the week Craig that it's inappropriate in the workplace. But the payoff with the "romantic partner" coming in to get Angela to back off (but in true feminist solidarity, not being angry at all, but sympathizing with the plight of a woman trying not to reduce all her relationships to sex) was almost enough to make me forgive the ridiculousness of Angela being reduced to a mass of hormones throughout the rest of the episode. Plus, it led to some pretty funny analysis (and objectification) of the male actors on the show.

My favorite?

Angela: [re: Hodgins] He does have a terrific ass."
Brennan: Perhaps that's why you're always making him leave.

And oh my god was the fantasy sequence inside the hypnosis sequence idiotic. It was funny, but it didn't fit in an otherwise serious and moving episode, and like the recent boat apparition and emphasis on the supernatural, didn't seem to belong in a show quite so rooted in science (although "Uh... dude? You're blocking my way." to the giraffe was pretty funny).

All together, a damn fine episode. Hopefully we'll get more of this type of character building, and less being trapped on a boat in the upcoming episodes.

Things that Make Me Sad in an Old Guy Shaking His Cane at Young Whipper-Snappers Kind of Way (SPOILER ALERT)

I am well-documented in my love for FOX's BONES, starring Emily Deschanel and David "Angel" Boreanaz as sexual-tensioned investigators (okay technically she's a scientist and he's an investigator, but they both investigate, so sue me.). And half the fun is wondering each and every episode: is this the one where they finally get down with their bad (Boreanaz) and geeky (Deschanel) selves?

Thanks to the omnipresence of spoilers in the Internet culture, I may not know the exact date of said horizontal shenanigans, but I know they're coming. An IMDB headline (not exactly a place I normally look for spoilers) told me that "now that Brennan and Booth are lovers..." Excuse me, WHAT?! I mean, I had read interviews with the shows Exec Producer that certainly indicated the pair would be (as Scrubs puts it) "bumping uglies" by season's end, but they were worded just vaguely enough that I felt I could safely ignore them.

But I can't even blame IMDB. It's the geeky online establishment, of which I am wholeheartedly a part, that clamors for these spoilers, even at the expense (quite often) of ruining the fun. Although I love that I can now waste time in between classes by scanning through the likes of io9.com or avclub.com and reading all about my favorite nerdy tv shows, I wish there was still a bit of surprise involved in watching character-driven dramas these days.

Or maybe I should just move out of my (wifi-connected) cave and into the modern era.

Bones Gets Its Groove Back

After last season's finale, in which (SPOILER ALERT) the show made pretty close to a shark-jumping move in having resident nerd/opera singer Zach turn out to be working for the season-long baddie, I wasn't one of the people who proclaimed Bones dead. But then it came back from hiatus, and severely underwhelmed. The first few episodes vacillated from bad to middling. The mysteries all felt boring and gave me the intense sensation of deja-viewed. The Angela and Hodgins breakup-turned-triangle-with-Angela's-lesbian-ex was the worst kind of contrived TV drama. The rotation of interns to fill Addy's shoes were quirky and annoying. But worst of all, the chemistry between Booth and Brennan (the type of repressed-sexuality fire that is hard to sustain on any show) suddenly felt a lot less sizzling and imminent and a lot more drawn-out and like a writer's crutch. Oh this episode's boring: let's have Booth and Brennan share a long, tension-filled stare. Boring.

But just when I was ready to submit the show's charred remains to Brennan for investigation, something miraculous happened. It got great again. The last four episodes have been classic Bones. The mystery is back. The witty dialogue. Even the interns have been better integrated into the show's plots and dynamics. But, best of all, Booth and Brennan have their snap, crackle and pop back.

The past two episodes, shown in a double feature this past Thursday on Fox, were some classic B&B. In the first one, the two go undercover as circus performers to uncover the secret of the death of the siamese twins. Yeah, okay, pretty silly stuff, but Bones has always straddled the line between slapstick and forensics (it's one of the biggest arguments in favor of the show for those of you, like me, who couldn't give a frak less about CSI). Not only did the two stay in a trailer with only one bed, fake (noisy) sex, and demonstrate their intense trust and respect for one another, but they also solved a surprisingly touching and interesting mystery. The second half found Booth himself a suspect in the death of a hockey player with whom he had previously fought. Bringing in a female investigator to take the helm while Booth was the prime suspect was a perfect way of showing how far this couple has come. Two seasons ago, Booth would have ended the episode in bed with hottie blond agent. Now? He ended it hand in hand with Brennan on the ice rink.

Upcoming in this season we're going to see the return of the grave-digger (one of my favorite all time murderers on this show, and the episode that saw Hodgins and Brennan trapped in a car was a turning point for nearly ever character on the show) as well as a promised bedroom trip featuring Booth and Brennan (hinted criptically at by the show's creator). Much like every sexual-tension driven show before it, and much like Brennan did during her short-but-sweet circus career, Bones has to walk the tight rope of the inevitable relationship. Undoubtedly, the show would lose a lot of its zing once it loses the "will they or wont they" angle. But frankly, as long as the foreshadowing (foreplay?) continues to be this good, I can wait for the final (climatic?) moment.