S11.E18: The Movie In The Making

[WendyCR72]

To produce a television segment on the Jeffersonian’s Medico-Legal lab, a documentary crew follows Brennan, Booth and the Jeffersonian/FBI team on a “typical” case as they investigate a corpse found in a landfill that was buried there more than a decade ago. The camera captures normally unseen footage of the team at work, while candid commentary by each of the team members provides an inside look at the investigation as Booth and Aubrey show off their unique skills in the field, and Brennan and her team prove their expertise and integral importance to solving murder cases.

[laredhead]

I really liked the episode tonight.  In fact, it seems that the last few shows have been better than previous ones.  It's almost like the series got a shot of new energy now that it's winding down.  Tonight's story line wrapped up a lot of the history of the series in a nice little package.  I hate to mention another TV show, but Bones has stayed fresh since Booth and Brennan got married, whereas Castle just sort of withered away and finally disappeared with a whimper of a finale that was totally awful, IMO.  Christine as a car sales person was funny.  

[GreenScreenFX]

This episode reminds me of the "X Cops" episode of the X Files, but less original and less funny.

[Willowsmom]

I loved the tiny tribute to Zach and Vincent Nigel-Murray.

[ae2]

I realize that they can't throw us mentions of all our lost beloved characters each and every week, but it sure was nice to get some callbacks here. All the way back to Zack! He's been gone for so long now. Even the death of Vincent Nigel-Murray feels like an eternity ago. (Also, RIP Alphas, like VNM, gone much too soon). They've done a good job throughout the season dealing with the loss of Sweets, who had a huge impact on Bones/Booth.

This was a good episode. The whole season has mostly been a step up from the slump they were in. Not many shows pull themselves out of something like that.

(The bad parts of this season include Hodgins' terrible story line, and anything involving Cam/Arastoo.)

[Julia]

18 minutes ago, ae2 said:

I realize that they can't throw us mentions of all our lost beloved characters each and every week, but it sure was nice to get some callbacks here. All the way back to Zack! He's been gone for so long now. Even the death of Vincent Nigel-Murray feels like an eternity ago. (Also, RIP Alphas, like VNM, gone much too soon). They've done a good job throughout the season dealing with the loss of Sweets, who had a huge impact on Bones/Booth.

This was a good episode. The whole season has mostly been a step up from the slump they were in. Not many shows pull themselves out of something like that.

(The bad parts of this season include Hodgins' terrible story line, and anything involving Cam/Arastoo.)

+2 on Cam/Arastoo. I don't dislike him as a stand-alone character, but he makes her less (and given that he wasn't an authoritarian judgmental jackass before they started dating, she apparently makes him less too). Boo on her not kicking the obnoxious documentarians out and having her moment in the privacy she had every right to ask for.

I wasn't happy about the way they handled the Sweets mention. They could have given him a hat tip without giving him credit for getting them together, something he successfully stalled for years, first by showing Booth x-rays which 'proved' he didn't love her (despite having written an entire book saying otherwise) and then by playing on Booth's addictive tendencies to push him into a declaration he knew Brennan wasn't ready for. Then when they finally did have a chance to be together as newlyweds he moved in with them. Love him or hate him, Sweets was the producers' go-to plot device for keeping them apart until Pelant got there and while he was away.

[Panopticon]

40 minutes ago, Julia said:

by showing Booth x-rays which 'proved' he didn't love her (despite having written an entire book saying otherwise) 

That will forever be my least favorite thing about the show, bar none. Not so much the fact that Sweets did it, but that he never answered for it and apparently no one even noticed. How did Booth, who in the early seasons was so brilliant when it came to human behavior and noticing tiny inconsistencies in witness testimony, not notice? And worse, he went right to worshiping Sweets as the best, purest duckling and the most important person in his life other than Brennan? Romantic endgames aside, Sweets gaslit Booth so that Booth spent most of that season tying himself in knots because he didn't think he could trust his own perceptions, and... nothing. 

But hey, perhaps B&B were done a favor by not being allowed to get together sooner since they wound up being the kind of couple where she answers to a nickname she hates for a decade and deals with petty disagreements by demanding that her husband who has a bad back sleep on the couch. 

I actually do give the show a lot of credit for putting together its best season in at least five years, and there have been many parts of this season that I really enjoyed. This wasn't one of them. 

[ae2]

49 minutes ago, Julia said:

I wasn't happy about the way they handled the Sweets mention. They could have given him a hat tip without giving him credit for getting them together, something he successfully stalled for years, first by showing Booth x-rays which 'proved' he didn't love her (despite having written an entire book saying otherwise) and then by playing on Booth's addictive tendencies to push him into a declaration he knew Brennan wasn't ready for. Then when they finally did have a chance to be together as newlyweds he moved in with them. Love him or hate him, Sweets was the producers' go-to plot device for keeping them apart until Pelant got there and while he was away.

While there is a lot of merit to your post, the show has been internally consistent with B/B feeling that Sweets is the reason they're together.

[Julia]

1 minute ago, ae2 said:

While there is a lot of merit to your post, the show has been internally consistent with B/B feeling that Sweets is the reason they're together.

I know there is. It bothers me that they were both made less intelligent and insightful so that the producers could keep them apart. Brennan nailed Sweets for his manipulative tendencies when she barely knew him during the Gormagon case.

[ae2]

Btw, I'm mostly in agreement with you. Sweets' arrival was the reason Bones & Booth started spending less screen time together, since she mostly stopped going into the field or into interrogations. It also meant Booth had less to do and became significantly dumber. However, I blame all these issues on the producers and I can see why the characters would credit Sweets.

Although, it could easily be argued that Vincent Nigel-Murray has more to do with them being together than anyone else. (Too soon?)

[Panopticon]

LOL, that's one of my various reasons for not particularly enjoying Christine. If it was a choice between her and Vincent, I'd rather have kept Vincent. It was as if the writers were doing aversion therapy... every time Booth and Brennan hit a romantic milestone something awful came along with it, so of course when they finally got together it had to be prompted by the horrible murder of a young, popular character.

That said, I am glad the show reached way back and included Vincent and Zack in this episode. The end of the bit about Zack where Hodgins stared at his hands and the camera zoomed in on them was a really nice touch.

I liked Aristoo's talking head about all the places Hodgins is king of. It was always my head canon that Hodgins did that, so I'll take the confirmation even if it comes from Aristoo.

Um, so Aristoo wants to be a father. Hasn't Cam always been excruciatingly clear that she isn't into the idea of mommyhood, Michelle aside? Please spare me Cam being knocked up for the series finale. I did like Cam slamming Michelle's photo down so the cameras couldn't get to it.

In an episode so full of tiny nods to history, I wonder why they went out of their way to change which sport got Booth to college and ruined his shoulder? The early seasons put a significant amount of emphasis on Booth as basketball star. (Player Under Pressure = excellent episode.) Fine, hockey is his first love and they had a nice picture of a very young David Boreanaz in a football uniform. That doesn't necessitate the retcon, since Booth was clearly the kind of kid who played any sport given the opportunity, and intermural hockey almost certainly wouldn't have been an opportunity.

Meanwhile they did go back to Brennan getting called Morticia as a kid. Since lots of other long-defunct characters got shout-outs, I wish they'd included a callback to how she wasn't bullied at school early on because her popular, socially adept brother made a point of swinging by her classroom every day. Somewhere in all this wrapping up as the series ends, can we get an update on Russ and Amy and their family? One line of exposition from Max next time we see him?

[secnarf]

I ended up listening to this episode more than watching, because I had to clean my apartment, but I did catch a few minutes actually watching and I loved the picture of young Emily Deschanel! So cute. I think I'm going to have to go back and watch it just for the photos. I did enjoy what I heard of the episode, though, and I really wasn't looking forward to it because I generally dislike fake-documentary-type episodes.

[possibilities]

I almost didn't watch because I was so sure I was going to hate the documentary conceit, but then I wound up really enjoying the episode. I don't deny it had its flaws and inconsistencies, but I guess the combination of my low expectations, plus getting psucked into both the sentimentality and the humor (especially that one girl wanting to be a forensic anthropologist and Christine wanting to sell cars), made it work for me.

[joanne3482]

Apparently I need to rewatch the episode where Vincent Nigel-Murray was shot. I honestly didn't remember it being in the lab. I thought it was on the street at the same time The Gravedigger was shot. 

[Willowsmom]

the shot came through the skylights above the platform.

[Julia]

On June 3, 2016 at 11:16 PM, secnarf said:

I ended up listening to this episode more than watching, because I had to clean my apartment, but I did catch a few minutes actually watching and I loved the picture of young Emily Deschanel! So cute. I think I'm going to have to go back and watch it just for the photos. I did enjoy what I heard of the episode, though, and I really wasn't looking forward to it because I generally dislike fake-documentary-type episodes.

Someone remind me which episode had her ask him to investigate her parents' disappearance at Sid's in season 1, because there were some adorable pictures of young Emily Deschanel in her dossier (I guess when your father is an Oscar-winning cinematographer your family snaps are something special). 

[Ava]

I believe that was  episode 14, "The Man on the Fairway".  Seasons One and Two for me are almost perfect, there's not a single dud episode in the bunch.

[Panopticon]

20 hours ago, Julia said:

 there were some adorable pictures of young Emily Deschanel in her dossier (I guess when your father is an Oscar-winning cinematographer your family snaps are something special). 

It really amused me when I read a standard start-of-season interview with Emily this year and the interviewer had her run down her favorite of her father's movies, her favorite of her mother's movies, and her favorite of her sister's movies. I assume she has to do that all the time but that was my first time paying attention. Speaking of season 1, I love that in that in the Los Angeles episode when Brennan looks with utter disgust at the superficial side of the city, there is absolutely no wink-wink-nudge-nudge that the actress portraying Brennan was born there to working movie people and had never not been a part of that world.

The first two seasons were just so good. While there were things I liked about this docu-episode, I could never adore an episode that reflects at all on how the aspects of the early seasons I revere went wrong. (Wrong being subjective to me of course, I realize that it's valid that other people like this version of Brennan and couldn't get enough Sweets.)

[Julia]

I just loved her mom as Mrs. Glenn.

[Valmarmar]

I think I have an emotional attachment to this show !!!!  GEEZ !!

[Mama No Life]

I liked this episode except for the bickering with B and B.  I know that's their thing, but geez.  She hates the name Bones after 11 years?  He sleeps on the couch when they fight?  Gah. 

[GreenScreenFX]

To be fair, she hated the name "Bones" since the very first episode. 

[GreenScreenFX]

It was brought up the entire first season. I think Brennon finally gave up arguing about it.

[Mama No Life]

I know she hated it initially, but good grief...either he is purposely calling her a name she hates, including at their WEDDING, or she is bringing up something stupid.  Either way it bugs.