Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Time

What better place than to be stuck in an elevator, if you're two people with deep, wild passion and affection for each other - which, for a variety of reasons, has not yet been consummated -  and, just to make matters even more jagged, neither one until now, for different reasons, really wants to talk to the other about?

This is just what happens to Bones and Booth in tonight's episode 6.16.   Sweets, outside of the elevator, starts the proceedings by urging the two to talk - which, of course, they don't.  But Booth gets off the second best line of the night, when he tells Sweets to "stop shrinking around the bush".  (The best is a series of three "hellos" - too much to explain, you have to see it.)

As time goes on - with Bones consulting with the team by phone on the case back at the Jeffersonian, and everyone stuck also in a snow storm - Bones asks Booth if maybe they should start talking about their relationship.  This a significant development - that is, Bones, in her new, more assertive role with Booth - but he says no.

Later in the elevator, Bones and Booth resume their crucial conversation.  This time, Bones delivers one of the most important declarations we've ever heard her make to Booth:  she's sure they would be great in bed together, and she explains why.  Booth cannot disagree, but still seeks to maintain some distance by saying, great in bed together, sure, but not in a relationship.  Bones - again, with a new wisdom about the best thing to say to Booth - agrees.  This promising conversation might have gone even further, but Sweets comes back in from the cold and unknowingly ends the very conversation he wanted to induce.

But there's more.  In one of the best last scenes between Bones and Booth, we find them back together, out of the elevator in a nice comfy apartment with candle light, for their post-case conversation.  Bones, still driving these exchanges, explains to Booth that whereas she was once just impervious to hurt (meaning she felt no pain), now she's traded most of that in for strength - she can deal with pain when it arises.   Booth, despite what he's been saying so far, is moved by that.  The night ends with both of them writing on a piece of paper how long each thinks it will take Booth to get beyond his issues so the two can be totally, satisfyingly together.  But they don't show each other the estimates - and instead commit them to the candle's flame.

My take:  I hope each wrote five minutes, or some very short time.  I'd also like to have seen - broken record that I am on this point - Bones reach over and kiss Booth.   That, especially after their conversations, would have been the best way to get Booth beyond his perceived need for more time.

But what did they really write on the paper in this story?   And did they write the same, or nearly the same, times?   The still secret answer to that is what keeps this fine show going.


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"

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

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