Bones Season 8 Finale: Can't Buy the Last Few Minutes

Well, you my readers all know how much I enjoy Bones.   I always try to find what's right about it, which usually is pretty easy, because so much of the story is so good.  But I gotta say even I can't bring myself to say I much liked the ending of tonight's otherwise excellent season 8 finale.

It was good to see Pelant back in action, an appropriately disturbing book end - or, actually, another deadly station in the harrowing train ride he has taken with our cast.   And while I thought that Booth was his target - which would have been obvious and was certainly telegraphed in all of the ads for this finale - giving that distinction to Sweets was a nice surprising move.

The other major factor tonight was Booth and Bones deciding at last to get married - yes! -  after Bones' not Booth's proposal.   This also was a very good move, to say the least, and something the narrative has building towards all season (see some of my reviews of previous episodes this season).

I also get that we cannot and should not expect too many happy endings in a show like Bones, where death and therefore disappointment are contant companions to humor and the joys.  And therefore the options in the continuing story are limited.  We know, for example, that neither Booth nor Bones can be killed - and, as I mentioned in my review of last week's fine episode - neither can any major member of the cast - without turning the show into something different, which no one wants.  Only interns can be fair game - ever since the departure of Zach Addy - which is what made last week's episode so riveting.

But we still want some differences or something different in the story as it develops, which is what made this year's story such a pleasure - Booth and Bones finally together, as they should be.

And the next step, the next difference, of the two being married would have been good to see indeed.  In fact, the flat-out best parts of tonight's episode were the reactions of all the major characters to the news that Bones and Booth were getting married.

Now, I could nonetheless accept their not getting married - hey, I have no choice, no viewer has - if the reason seemed grounded in a believable story.

But what happened at the end of tonight's episode was not.  Pilant tells Booth he'll kill five innocent people if he marries Bones, so Booth can't marry Bones, and, moreover, he can't tell her because Pilant will know?   I just don't believe that Booth would go along with that.  Maybe, ok, he'd postpone the marriage, but he'd find a way to let her know.

Maybe that will happen next season, and that's the one bright spot in this season 8 finale.  Unlike the series finale of Lost, which was irredeemable, tonight's season finale of Bones has a chance to correct itself next season, which I'm very much looking forward to.

See also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera ... Bones 8.10-11: Double Bones ...Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil ... Bones 8.13: Two for the Price of One ... Bones 8.14: Real Life ... Bones 8.15: The Magic Bullet and the Be-Spontaneous Paradox ... Bones 8.16: Bitter-Sweet Sweets and Honest Finn ... Bones 8.17: "Not Time Share, Time Travel" ... Bones 8.18: Couples ... Bones 8.19: The Head in the Toilet ... Bones 8.20: On Camera ... Bones 8.21: Christine, Hot Sauce, and the Judge ... Bones 8.22: Musical-Chair Parents ... Bones 8.23: The Bluff

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution