The Characters and Relationships of Bones

[amensisterfriend]

I've been catching up on this show and can't get over how much I love seeing a female lead who's so unashamedly intellectual, ruthlessly rational, scientifically oriented and endearingly socially awkward---that's nearly always a male role on these shows, and it's such fun to see a reversal of that. My one quibble is that I can't buy Bones writing contemporary fiction, which generally requires a fair amount of emotional insight into characters, knowledge of contemporary pop references, etc. I could see her writing amazing nonfiction anthropology books, but popular fiction? For some reason, I just can't bring myself to buy it.   

 

I actually really love the characterizations in general so far---the characters are vivid and well-defined and a really nice mixture of likable strengths and amusing flaws. Booth is a little too much of a 'typical guy's guy' for my taste, but I'm liking DB in the role more than expected. I absolutely adore Hodgins and Zach. Hodgins will be pleased to know that he's my new TV boyfriend, in fact. I'm sure he'll be honored. ;) I'm surprised by how much I'm liking both Cam and Sweets. Only Angela really irks me, with her unintentionally condescending "sweeties" and the way she's kind of selfish and ridiculous in the name of being a "free spirit." That said, I definitely see the value of Brennan having a strong female friendship.

 

Brennan and Booth have a lot more chemistry than I'd expected. I'm not generally a fan of the 'opposites attract' trope at all, but I think the show does a nice job of showing them connecting and getting each other rather than just constantly bickering and clashing, which would drive me nuts. The prolonged "will they/won't they" and pointless love interests will probably drive me absolutely nuts, but I do like how there's such a strong friendship established. 

 

I really love the interplay among the characters---realistic conflict, but also a lot of humor and affection. I'm not always easy to sell on that 'your workplace is your family!' idea on TV, but in this case I think the show has done a great job of showing a strong bond among everyone...and also showing that most of them are too quirky and odd to have fit in all that well elsewhere ;) 

 

I'm a forensics/whondunit fanatic and find a lot of the mysteries surprisingly engaging, but it's the characters and their dynamics that have me buying the DVDs!  

 

 

 

 

[immortalfrieza]

My one quibble is that I can't buy Bones writing contemporary fiction, which generally requires a fair amount of emotional insight into characters, knowledge of contemporary pop references, etc. I could see her writing amazing nonfiction anthropology books, but popular fiction? For some reason, I just can't bring myself to buy it.

At some point they explain that it's actually Angela that writes the emotional and sexual stuff that actually brings Brennan's books in readers, Brennan writes the actual technical stuff.

 

Though we haven't actually seen Bones write anything or had any real mention of her books whatsoever for a long time.

Edited October 29, 2014 by immortalfrieza

[anabananadog]

I love Bones and like most of the characters. The only character I LOATHE and wish would be killed off or written off, is Daisy Wick. I hate her voice, her annoying behaviour and her general stupid inability to shut her mouth when other characters are fed up of her yapping. Now that Sweets is dead, I really wish they would get rid of Daisy. He was the only reason the character had any relevance. 

[immortalfrieza]

Oops, I forgot.  Any need to try to find this?  Any Booth/Brennan interaction at all?

If watching Booth and Brennan interact is your sole reason to watch this show you're massively missing the point of this show. It turns out that on Bones at least the writers don't need to assassinate the characters of a couple to make them constantly interact all the time just for the sake of it even when they aren't the focus of the episode unlike what the rest of TV would have us all believe. Whodathunk that a show would ever have a couple written remotely realistically?

 

Never been a fan of Angela but I like her and Hodgins together - they have had a good relationship and now it seems they are going to try to put stress on it, as though his situation is not stressful enough, by having him lie to her.  Sigh.  I hate TV writers (most times) - 

 

I thought Bones should have just kept her miserable self to her self.  Her constant harping on how he should have no "hope" bla bla bla was cruel even for this awful version of Bones.  Why oh why did they alter the character so drastically after season 3 (or was it season 4? I can't recall) - I just recall being gobsmacked when the following new season began and there was this robotic speaking/acting version of the character.  Who the hell ever thought that was a good idea. 

 

She's just impossible to take - I often fast forward through her spiels about her findings because I can't stand listening to her.  Oh well, what's done is done even though I will never understand what they were thinking.

A far more accurate way of putting it would be "why oh why have they kept Brennan the same way she has always been from day one?" Seriously, Brennan has ALWAYS been this "robotic speaking/acting" character from the very beginning and it's a significant part of her character and appeal, if anything she's become more emotional and considerate of the feelings of other people over the last few seasons than she ever was as the start of the series. In short, if you don't like Dr. Brennan the way she is now you've never liked her period.

 

Also Brennan was entirely correct. All the hope in the world was not going to defy medical science, either Hodgins was going to recover or he wasn't and giving Hodgins a load of false hope would only make the disappointment he feels if and when he gets the absolute conformation that he will never walk again just that much more crushing, as is precisely what happened in this episode.

[Julia]

I love Bones and like most of the characters. The only character I LOATHE and wish would be killed off or written off, is Daisy Wick. I hate her voice, her annoying behaviour and her general stupid inability to shut her mouth when other characters are fed up of her yapping. Now that Sweets is dead, I really wish they would get rid of Daisy. He was the only reason the character had any relevance.

Largely because the showrunner was a jackass. And at some point, the only way he could think of to 'realistically' explain why the badass-if-awkward freethinking outsider she was and the emotionally fluent diamond in the rough he was wouldn't just have the relationship they both desperately wanted was to retcon her into the autism spectrum. Although, in fairness, one of the results of Booth's brain tumor was the loss of most of his insight and his sense of humor, and a significant number of IQ points.

So, the isolated girl Brennan was changed to a promiscuous rebel who was scarred by her mother's disapproval into aspergers (and seriously, shame on them for pigs for reviving the completely discredited and cruel cold mother theory of autism). And Booth needed that narcissist basket case Sweets to understand basic human motivation. And then militant athiest anti-marriage vegan crusading animal cruelty activist Brennan begged Booth to marry her in church with an offering of factory-farmed beef jerky.

My theory has been is they were just incredibly bored with the show after about season five and started phoning it in. Then they decided to punish the audience for not being interested in the shows they wanted to be doing instead by destroying the characters they loved (you'll notice Wesley Sweets did just fine) and having their animated corpses perform car ads.

And, you know, I'm pretty sure writing smart tv is a lot of work, if you don't have to do it to get paid.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Julia

[Panopticon]

A far more accurate way of putting it would be "why oh why have they kept Brennan the same way she has always been from day one?" Seriously, Brennan has ALWAYS been this "robotic speaking/acting" character from the very beginning and it's a significant part of her character and appeal, if anything she's become more emotional and considerate of the feelings of other people over the last few seasons than she ever was as the start of the series.

 

Do you have any examples of why you feel that way? Because that's really and truly the exact opposite of what I've noticed.

 

In the early seasons, she pitches her voice to a low/gravely level. In the later season it's much higher. Not that there's anything inherently problematic about that, but the gravely delivery would not be compatible with the sing-song, dragging out random syllables thing she also starts doing frequently in season 6 and constantly in season 7. In the first third to half of the show, I never heard her speeeaaaak liiiikkkke she haaaad to stop and thiiiinnnnkkk abbbboooouuutttt sentence strruccctture. 

 

In the early seasons, she directed her boyfriends and non-work friends to call her Tempe-- an affectionate, intimate nickname. Now, if anyone calls her anything other than Dr. Brennan (or Bones, in Booth's case) it's the super-awkward-tongue-twisting Temperance.

 

In the early seasons, she lived with one man (at least to the point that he had a TV in her apartment); considered sailing around the world with another; and crossed paths with a third who she had dated for years in her early twenties as a grad student. In later seasons, she said that she'd never had an actual romantic relationship, only casual sex.

 

In the early seasons, she slept in lingerie. In the later seasons, she referred to lingerie as "undergarments" and said she'd never had any until Booth bought it for her.

 

In the early seasons, her clothes were fashion forward and tailored, if quirky; one of the federal prosecutors told her to knock it off with the clunky statement necklaces and she got annoyed. In the later seasons, her clothes were much frumpier and lacking in any particular style. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with her deciding that she's less into expressing herself through her wardrobe when she has a husband and a couple of babies at home, but taken in context it's one more way that she's not showing her own individual humanity. 

 

In the early seasons, when she inadvertently said something to Booth and he stomped off, she would plaintively explain that she hadn't meant whatever it was that way and seek him out to fix it (often after a consult with Angela). In later seasons, she needed someone to explain to her that Booth stomping off didn't mean that everything was resolved.

 

In early seasons, when she got a drawing from her step-niece, she was visibly moved. In later seasons, when she got a drawing from her daughter, she wanted to take a red pen to it to make it anatomically correct.

 

In early seasons, she was capable of hugging Angela without announcing "I'm going to hug you now" and without the hugs being awkward in any way.

 

In the early seasons, she sought out Rebecca to ask her to reassure Booth that he's a good father and understood why Booth wouldn't want to have another child who wouldn't be with him full time (to the point of dropping her artificial insemination plan without a word). In later seasons, she was surprised that Booth was upset that she learned their baby's gender without him (!) and that he would want to take Christine to the carousel even though she'd "already tried."

 

In the early seasons, she reacted to a grieving girlfriend who thought she might never have another chance at love with "nothing happens just once." In later seasons she reacted to a grieving widow with "your husband obviously enjoyed copulating."

 

In the early seasons, she understood why Russ wanted the marble their mother had had with her at her death. And why it was hard for a child in foster care to carry his clothes in a garbage bag. And she made a huge effort to replace Booth's cocky belt buckle the moment she realized he'd lost it. In later seasons, she 

wants to throw out all kinds of things with longterm meaning to Booth, including the belt buckle she got him.

 

In early seasons, the biggest faux pas she made at Angela's wedding was tying the bow on her bridesmaid's dress incorrectly. In later seasons, she announced that she wouldn't invite single people to her wedding because it would make them miserable to see her happy while they were not. (Fundamentally not how she herself felt when she was the single person and someone she loved was getting married...)

 

In the early seasons, when she saw Hodgins miserable and willing to give up in a life threatening situation, she gently coaxed him to talk to her and fight by holding out a handful of dirt and whispering for him to tell her something she didn't know. There was no rational reason to believe that they would live, and he ended up telling her how much faith she had. In the later seasons, when she saw Hodgins miserable and traumatized, she limited herself to whining how she didn't understand why he didn't just  go away and accept his fate.

 

Or, the tl;dr version: I think I disagree.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Panopticon

[rainsmom]

The Brennan in early seasons was definitely different. I would say she was crotchety. Cantankerous. Cranky. She was smarter than everyone else and lived in a state of perpetual annoyance that the world wasn't up to her level.

 

She was a social misfit mostly by CHOICE, not because she didn't have the social skills to fit in.Oh, she had her moments -- like her horrible TV interview and her inability to understand why the audience might not react to her opinion of not wanting children. But she wasn't on the autism spectrum.

 

In later seasons, she was definitely changed. As was Booth. Neither for the better.

[WendyCR72]

Brennan has changed as has Booth; I miss their early selves. Still, that said, at least Fox had the wherewithal to give a final season and end the show with both, together! Considering today's Castle news, it seems the Bones viewers really lucked out.

[Julia]

Brennan has changed as has Booth; I miss their early selves. Still, that said, at least Fox had the wherewithal to give a final season and end the show with both, together! Considering today's Castle news, it seems the Bones viewers really lucked out.

 

Point. Actually, given the most recent season of Castle, it seems the Bones viewers really lucked out.

[Panopticon]

And then there's the pseudo-sister show, Sleepy Hollow. Bones may have broken faith with viewers here and there, but not like that, and certainly not in so few episodes.

If a show manages to last 12 years and almost 250 episodes, it did something very right. Almost by definition, a show that long-lived will have lasted past its peak, but almost by definition that will have been a very high peak. And it was with Bones.

One thing I didn't bitch about in my essay about Brennan's devolution upthread was the change in her relationship with Parker after Christine was born, prompting Brennan to accuse Parker of wanting to kill his infant sister.... because this season the show went and fixed that by having her be the one who made sure Parker got home to meet baby #2. They did a nice job casting themselves a new Parker, too. Season 11 is not all bad. Sometimes it's pretty good.

Bones viewers could do much much worse.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Panopticon

[LissFirefly]

Honestly, my least favorite character is Caroline Julian, every time she says "chere" or "cherie" I want to punch her in her face

[FanOfDorks]

Zack & Hodgkins bromance forever.