'Bones' season finale: The times, they are a-changin'

Bones-Booth-Brennan-Beginning-in-the-End-320.jpgDeep breaths, everyone. Deep breaths! Okay. So. The "Bones" season finale was pretty much a textbook example of a game-changer -- by the end of the episode, the main characters had scattered to all corners of the globe for the next year!

But let's take a Brennan moment and think rationally: This wasn't a series finale, much as it felt like one. The next season will simply pick up a year later, and everyone will be back together again, right? RIGHT?? Good. Let's just hope they "evolve" in the right direction, if they aren't going to pick up right where they left off. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The Case: This was definitely one of the more dramatic body reveals -- a seemingly endless avalanche of junk breaks through an apartment's ceiling, followed by a decomposed corpse. Sure, the kid in the apartment looked happy about it, but he's totally gonna have PTSD flashbacks every time he gets something off the top shelf of the closet and everything falls down on him.

The victim, an agoraphobic hoarder, was hacked up by a fan before getting trapped under junk and starving to death. Sweets classifies him as a "level five hoarder." If you level up to six, can you cast spells to lift piles of junk off yourself? Angela uses a fancy mass recognition program (picture Hodgins as Pac-Man and the most important pile of junk as a bunch of cherries) to lead them to a spot where something valuable was taken.

Apparently, the victim had gotten his hands on an extremely valuable Fiestaware gnome from 1941, which was made using uranium. Seriously? (Seriously.) A collector had stolen the gnome from him, but in the end it was a former coworker and lover who accidentally killed the victim, pushing a fan at him in the struggle that ensued after she tried to force him out into the sunlight. And that, my friends, was Booth and Brennan's last case together. Well, their last case together for a year, at least... 

Booth and Brennan: Bones is our first offender, getting so jazzed up about super important ancient remains found in the Maluku Islands that she's distracted from the case, even making mistakes. (I know!) She at first claims to be questioning if the work she's doing at the Jeffersonian is "worthless" compared to a historic dig, but then confesses that she just needs a break: "I'm worried all the time. Worried that Booth might get hurt on a case and I couldn't prevent it, worried about what our partnership means ... I just need some perspective so that I can view my life with objectivity." Okay, that's actually quite the admission on Brennan's part, and absence makes the heart grow stronger, right?

When Brennan is asked to head up the project, she refuses to make a decision before talking to Booth, her partner. His mouth says "It's okay," but his lack of eye contact speaks volumes, so much so that even Brennan picks up on it. Booth, however, is himself being courted by the Army to train soldiers in Afghanistan. With Parker encouraging him to go be a hero he decides to bail on DC as well, rather than do his job without Brennan.

Brennan hopes they'll pick up where they left off after a year, but Booth reminds her that things evolve over time. I wonder if he's hoping they'll evolve in a certain direction while they're apart, or if he's given up hope and is escaping into the Army as a distraction.

Caroline dispenses a lot of tough love, insisting that they clear the case before they leave and then confronting them after they protest that it won't be their last case: "Trust me. The way you two are running from each other, you'd better be damn sure of these little trips you're taking." One of these days Caroline is just going to snap and lock Booth and Brennan in a room together until she hears naughty noises through the door, I swear to god. When Sweets suggests that solving the case might make them want to stay, Caroline tells him to "grow the hell up." Awww, the anger is just her special way of expressing how much she cares about those two.

At the airport, Brennan says all her other goodbyes and looks for Booth as her flight boards. Suddenly he's there, looking quite dashing in his Army uniform -- he had to sneak off the base to say goodbye. Man, they beg you to come back and then they make you sneak out to say goodbye to the partner you left for them? Sort of? Harsh! He tells her to be really careful in the jungle, and she points out how much more dangerous Afghanistan is, telling him not to be a hero ... not to be himself. Great line. Loving, but not overtly so.

It looks like Booth is going to kiss her, but instead he grabs Brennan's hand and tells her that they'll meet at the reflecting pool in one year -- she knows exactly the spot he's talking about, of course. He reluctantly lets go of her hand and they both walk away, and then both look back, so sadly. At this point I maaay have yelled something along the lines of "Why are they doing this?!?!" at my television.

Sweets and Daisy: Daisy has also been offered a spot on the dig in Indonesia, much to Sweets' dismay. And she probably doesn't make things better by saying her career means "everything" to her, and suggesting he become a pearl diver. Hodgins, always the romantic, thinks Sweets should go, but Sweets isn't sure he wants to give up his entire life like that. Dude. It's a year on a tropical island. You're a supergenius with like twelve degrees -- I'm pretty sure you could get your job back after a sabbatical.

And so he not only doesn't go with her -- he also thinks it's best that they not wait for each other. Um, seriously? Weren't they engaged? Even if he won't follow her to Indonesia, he can't spend a year doing the long-distance thing with the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life? Sweets, Sweets, Sweets.

A) I now question any advice he's ever given as a psychologist, and B) He really does need to grow the hell up. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the woman he loved! Maybe this is karmic repayment for Daisy suggesting to Brennan that she and Booth might be holding each other back. (...Or maybe Sweets was just looking for an excuse to get out.)

Hodgins and Angela: Angela's dad is back, and he recruits Hodgins to steal his car from some bikers who won it in a card game. Angry dogs are involved, but Sweets mesmerizes them with his mad cat-imitation skills. Awesome. The whole thing was sort of a test, and after Angela's dad and Hodgins escape (sans Sweets), her dad gives Hodgins the car as a sort of "welcome to the family" present.

He won't be using it for a while, though, because Hodgins and Angela are headed to Paris for a year rather than break in a new agent and anthropologist. So ... it's just Cam and the NotZacks at the Jeffersonian? Bummer for Cam... 

Odds and Ends:  

  • This really felt like a series finale, didn't it? I'm still processing, and reeaallly not looking forward to having to wait around all summer!
  • No matter how you all feel about it, can we agree that it surpassed the extremely low bar that was last season's finale?
  • Operating under the assumption that the show will skip forward a year, I'm interested to see how the characters change. I honestly think it's a pretty good excuse to shake things up in that department without changing the cast around too much (cough"House"cough).
  • I will note, however, that I don't want Booth to turn into a cannibal's disciple after returning from the Army. (And speaking of returning, is it optimistic of Booth to think that the Army would let him come back after a year?)
  •  It looks like Brennan's headed toward a revelation of her own, but I wonder if Booth will still feel the same way a year from now, or at least feel so motivated to act on his feelings. A lot can happen in a year...
  • No mention of Hacker or CatFish, for the record.
  • There's a Ramen spectroscope? I feel like there's a really great noodle joke in there, but I can't quite get to it.
  • Loved that Hodgins gave Brennan a guide to everything poisonous in Indonesia, but I loved Brennan's "I love you, too" reaction even more. Seems Booth told her that "the proffering of overly solicitous advice is indicative of love." Ha! And aww!


  • Cam: "I think I'll be happier downstairs with the dead stuff."
  • Brennan: "You didn't look like buddies." Booth: "What, all of a sudden you can tell stuff like that now?"
  • Hodgins: "I'm so turned on by her brain ... I'd like to see her brain totally naked." Sweets: "That's a terrible image. Just terrible."
  • Sweets: "Mr. Adventure is here, and ready to kick some biker ass." Cam: "Please don't explain."
  • Suspect: "Would you mind turning him around?" Booth: "Why? Because the gnome knows what you did, and you don't like him staring at you with his soulful little eyes?"
  • Angela's dad: "It's been my experience that if you drive at 'em, people get out of the way."
  • Brennan: "I can provide you with a list of forensic anthropologists who can do this job." Cam: "No, Dr. Brennan, you can provide me with a list of forensic anthropologists." Brennan: "I don't know what that means."
  • Cam: "I've really enjoyed working for you, Dr. Brennan." Brennan: "In fact, Dr. Saroyan, I worked for you." Cam: "We both know better."

I could analyze this episode and its implications to death, but I'm sure you all have something to say about it, too (and not all positive, I'm guessing). How do you think the characters will change in the next year? What are the implications for Booth and Brennan's relationship?