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Showing posts with label Emily Deschanel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emily Deschanel. Show all posts

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Bones 10.1: The Fulcrum Changes

I just watched the Bones 10th season premier - I was giving a Keynote address at Baylor University last night.  It's the kind of episode that's best to watch at home.

Sweets in many ways was the moral center of Bones, mediating between the science of Bones and the spirituality of Booth, and a lot more between them.  Even in this episode, his advice to Bones and Booth, individually and together, was crucial in the two rediscovering their relationship after Bones' daring move to get Booth released from prison - which was a really fine piece of acting by Emily Deschanel, by the way.

At some point last season, Sweets looked like he was leaving the show.  He broke up with Daisy - which I was sorry to see - and talked increasingly about doing other things in his life.  But then he came back, and even spent a night or two with Daisy.   Good move.

Episode 10.1 pretty quickly establishers that Daisy is very pregnant with Sweets' baby, even better. They were a great couple, and would have made great parents, which Bones attests to when she tells Sweets he will make a great father.

And now that's been taken away from us and the story.   The usual explanation for these sorts of things is that the actor wanted to leave the show.  But that doesn't really matter, because this isn't a question of blame.  It's a question of mourning what could have been had Sweets been able to continue.

There's a new young FBI agent who has style and is even a little reminiscent of Sweets.   But he won't be Sweets.   And so the fulcrum of Bones has now changed, to something different from the perfect mix it's been.   There are still lots of great stories to be told, especially Booth and Bones, who were just outstanding in every scene they were in tonight.  But the show will be missing one central story, which moved everyone, on both sides of the television screen.


See also Bones 9.1: The Sweet Misery of Love ... Bones 9.2: Bobcat, Identity Theft, and Sweets ... Bones 9.3 and NCIS 11.2: Sweets and Ziva ... Bones 9.4: Metaphysics of Death in a Television Series ... Bones 9.5: Val and Deep Blue ... Bones 9.6: The Wedding ... Bones 9.7: Watch Out, Buenos Aires ...Bones 9.8: The Bug in the Neck ... Bones 9.9: Friday Night Bones in the Courtroom ... Bones 9.10: Horse Pucky ... Bones 9.11: Angels in Equations ... Bones 9.12: Fingernails ... Bones 9.13: Meets Nashville, and Wendell ... Bones 9.14: "You Cannot Drink Your Glass Away" ... Bones 9.15: Hodgins' Brother and the Ripped Off Toe ... Bones 9.16: Lampreys, Professors, and Insurance Companies ... Bones 9.17: Spartacus in the Kitchen ... Bones 9.18: Meets Day of the Triffids ... Bones 9.19: The Cornucopic Urn ... Bones 9.20: Above the Law ... Bones 9.21: Freezing and Thawing ... Bones 9.22: Promotion ... Bones 9.23: The New Intern ... Bones Season 9 Finale: Upping the Ante

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

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

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A different kind of police fiction

Friday, November 18, 2011

Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington

My favorite part of Bones 7.3 is Lance and his efforts to get a green light to carry and use, if necessary, a gun on the job.  As he points out to Booth, who is dubious, Lance after all is FBI, and he could cover Booth's back when they go out together.

What Sweets didn't know (I called him Lance, because that goes a little better with Bond) is packing and firing a gun would turn on Daisy.   That's not only good for obvious reasons, but it's saving Daisy that focuses Sweets when he goes through his qualifying tests, which he passes with flying colors - like James Bond - and even gets nicked in the process.   Which also excites Daisy.

Indeed, Daisy may be the leading character tonight, because she also figures in the hunt for Prince Chamington's killer (or dismemberer), the same person who killed the brilliant toy designer (Charmington the doll was found with her body).

Meanwhile, toys, or at least play, is the thing in a lot of the rest of the story, too.  Angela and later Hodgins find the Chinese-translated-into-English assembly instructions that accompany a baby walker set indecipherable - something everyone can relate to - and Bones gets in touch with the importance of play in a baby as well as adult's life.

As I've been saying for the past two weeks, it's a pleasure to see Bones enjoying herself and the way she looks at Booth, which is a real credit to Emily Deschanel's acting.  About the only note that rang a little false in tonight's episode is Angela saying something about no pictures of naked Congressman, as she looks in vain on the victim's computer for something pertinent to the case or at least interesting.  That line was no doubt inspired by Anthony Weiner, and the script likely written this summer, but all that feels like ancient history now, doesn't it.  I run into the same temptations in my novels - the key is to resist putting in a reference to some current, hot topic.  By the time the novel is published - or the TV episode is on the air - that current hot reference will likely have cooled to fading room temperature.

But the series is just bubbling and the best it's been in years, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke

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






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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book




Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...


Thursday, November 10, 2011

Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke

Another nice, amiable Bones tonight  - 7.2 - with heart-warming banter between Booth and Bones at the end that still blows me away.  Emily Deschanel radiates a love - Bones takes pleasure in Booth's happiness - that is a quiet tour-de-force of acting.

Meanwhile, there is a new kid on the block back at the lab.  Finn Abernathy has a troubled past, but he's brilliant and has real backwater Southern charm.  Opie - as Hodgins calls Finn (who calls Hodgins "Thurston") - helps solve the case and also gets in one of the best lines of the night.  When Hodgins ribs Finn about his hillbilly accent (it just dawned on me that Finn may have been named after Huckleberry), Finn replies so what, they "both speak science".  Cam awards the exchange to Finn with a "snap" accolade, and Hodgins later admits that he was an "ass hat".   You don't get that too often on television.


As for the mystery at hand - who murdered the attractive, pregnant competitive eater - it's solved by a fluke.   Not an oddity but a parasite, which the killer picked up in Japan and inadvertently left with the corpse.


Life and death, libido and thanatos, are the mainsprings of drama, as the ancient Greeks knew so well.  In Bones, they take a new prominence, as Bones and Booth solve a case in which the victim's pregnancy serves as a motive for her murder - she was going to leave her profession as a competitive eater - and the two investigate murders while bringing their own baby girl into the world.


As I said last week, this is a new kind of refreshing chemistry and drama, for Bones in particular and television in general. 

See also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home


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





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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book




Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

Bones has concluded its sixth season, slow to get out of the gate (or slow after getting out of the gate) with three stellar episodes.  And tonight's season finale had some of the best elements of not only the season, but the entire series.

First, we had a laugh-out-loud funny Bones and Booth in costume as bowlers in pursuit of the killer.  Both were in fine form, and Emily Deschanel especially was hilarious as a white trash, gum-chewing bowling moll.   Add to that a great line by another bowler about Bones' bowling character Wanda talking like she watches "PBS on purpose" - you just can't take the Bones out of Wanda - and you have Bones fun at its best. 

Also worthy of note in the chuckles department tonight was a clip of Dwight Eisenhower showing up back at the Jeffersonian.   And it was fun to see Wendell virtually all alone and running the case in the lab tonight, as not only Bones and Booth but Angela and Hodgins had slightly more important business elsewhere.

Angela and Hodgins were having their baby.  The lead-up and birth were handled perfectly - again, with Bones' patented mix of profundity and humor - and the baby boy was adorable and in perfect condition, including his vision.  Happy endings are nice.

But the best came at the very end.  As I said last week, I was sure from Bones' expression with Angela that Bones had slept with Booth.   Bones' father - good to see on the show tonight - sees there's some kind of unusual good chemistry between them, too.   And the denouement is that Bones and Booth not only slept together, but Bones is pregnant with Booth's baby.   The expression on Bones' face at the end was, again, priceless - happiness and relief - and kudos again to Emily Deschanel for great acting (David Boreanaz was fine too!).   Given that the actress is pregnant - mazel tov! - this is a brilliant development in the Bones and Booth story in more ways than one.

I was going to say that I thought there should have been a least a little more reaction tonight to the loss of Mr. Nigel-Murray, but Bones knowing she's pregnancy suggests that a little time has passed - likely more than a week - since last week's episode, so it makes sense that no one would mention Nigel-Murray at this point.

Great co-writing tonight and show-running in general by Hart Hanson, Looking forward to the Fall!

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

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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The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book




Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Friday, December 10, 2010

Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr.

Adelbert Ames, Jr. was the first psychologist I studied in my PhD program in Media Ecology at New York University back in the mid-late 1970s.  I sort of think of episode 6.9 of Bones tonight as inspired by Ames, the reasons for which will become clear in a few paragraphs.

But first, what an exquisite episode 6.9 was.   It had to be - it is the episode in which Bones finally comes to terms with her loss of Booth.  Emily Deschannel gave one of her finest performances in the series.  And the plot had touches of the Odyssey - yeah, I thought it was that good, seeing what it accomplished in a hour, and how it showed us Bones' journey.

The victim is a woman a lot like Bones - a top-notch MD, her work is her life, with few personal connections.  She turns down someone who loves her.   Sound familiar?  Bones soon starts not only seeing herself in the victim, but thinking the victim literally looks and sounds like Bones in the photos and recordings the victim's left behind.

These semi-delusions are of course all vehicles via which Bones can finally allow herself to realize what she lost when she turned Booth away.   As part of the process, she and we meet "Micah" - a figment of Booth's psyche, played by Enrico Colantoni from Flashpoint (good to see him!) - a night watchman at the Jeffersonian who speaks truth to her.  Micah, and the victim not only sounding just like Booth but talking to Booth through the recordings, are the sure proof that a large part of what we're seeing in this episode are Bones' semi-illusions and warped but highly instructive perceptions.

Micah tells Bones about an experiment he heard about in a lecture, in which a scientist gives a subject glasses that make the subject see upside down, but after three days, with the glasses still on, the world rights itself (and when the glasses are taken off, the world looks upside down again - for three days).    Bones realizes that is what had been happening to her, which in turn allows her to finally get in touch with what she realizes happened with her and Booth, because of her.   These un-rose colored glasses are painful for her, and for us to see, but they're just what she needs.

The scene between Bones and Booth in the car where she says she had her chance was one of the best scenes in the series.  Heart breaking and real.

And where does Adelbert Ames, Jr. come in?  Well, it was George Stratton, near the end of the 19th century, who did the world upside down glasses experiment.  But it was Ames in the 1930s who really broke it all out about the way the brain compensates for bizarre, unreal perceptions, which I actually think is a better tag for this superb episode.  That, and I wanted to give the first theorist I studied in  my doctoral program a little well-deserved shout-out.

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 6.9: Melted Bones

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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The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Bad Santa, Heartwarming Bones 5.10

Actually, the Santa only seemed to be bad at the beginning of Bones 5.10 - we later find that he was set up by bad people, he's really just an exterminator (of pests, not people) - but Bones 5.10 was indeed a heartwarming, winning winter solstice episode, with everyone at the table, including Emily Deschanel's real life sister Zooey, who plays Tempe's second cousin.

The holiday highlights include -

1. Bones undresses Booth, to locate shrapnel from the exploded Santa, but hey, whatever it takes.

2. Michelle wants to spend Christmas in Hawaii, but Cam eventually says no, so the two can spend Christmas together. It's good to see them close.

3. Great line from Bones, in response to the exploded Santa's mother saying her son wouldn't hurt a fly. "He's an exterminator," Bones replies, "by definition he hurts flies."

4. Zooey's character Margaret, who quotes Ben Franklin the way Bones cites science, has some pretty good lines too. The best, about Booth and Bones: "He that would fish, must venture his bait."

5. Jack and Angela have a good momentary scene. I still think, to borrow an expression from The Supremes, that someday they'll be together.

6. Bones has more compassion than ever - she doesn't want the exploded exterminator/Santa's mother to have to go to his funeral alone on Christmas day, because that would be "heartbreaking" for her. Booth reminds her and us that Bones would usually say that the heart is a muscle, and therefore can't really break - but it is a pleasure to see how far she's come along.

7. Ryan O'Neal's back as Bones' father. I wouldn't mind another episode with him in more close-to-criminal form.

About the only thing missing from this episode was the whole ensemble of graduate student lab assistants - most of all Zack Addy, who could have put in an appearance as the lab assistant of Christmas past. Well, maybe for the Easter episode...



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







The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book


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