In Which Bones Can't Respect The Law, But Can Respect Booth

Season 1, Episode 5

The Boy in the Bush

Right in the first line, when Bones is giving the speech to the college students...

Bones: ...the FBI and the Jeffersonian have forged a mutually beneficial if somewhat tense relationship which survives to this day.

Just the way she says the “mutually beneficial... if somewhat tense relationship” part is just so perfect and so telling of their relationship. She acknowledges the tension with a smile on her face. With humor. That can only mean good things.

Here, though, we have some of that tension she was talking about.

Bones:  Do you have any idea of how bad the foster care system is?
Booth: Do you? What do you want to do? Hmm? Do you want to kidnap them the way she kidnapped Charlie?
Bones:  I want you to let them go home to Margaret Sanders.
Booth:  It’s not going to happen.

Bones is so clearly and thoroughly upset when she says that first line; it's probably one of the most passionate lines she's said up to this episode. And the way he says the last line – pausing for a second, stern, but not mean (that's for later, when he's laughing at the fact that her car is dented now – she flat-out calls him “mean”) - it show how he doesn't want to do this, but he has to. He doesn't want to make her upset. But he has to abide by the rules, and since she hasn't yet told him just why she is so upset over it, he can't provide much leeway.

Booth: (irritated) You say you understand but you don’t, not really. I mean, if you don’t like the rule you ignore it, right? (puts his hand on the table to lean on it and breaks the pencil.)  I can’t have that and if you want to do this.
Bones: Do what?
Booth:  Work on cases. You know, with me outside the lab.  If you want to do that, I need to know that you will respect the law.
Bones: Tell you what.  If I can’t respect the law, I can at least respect you.

Uh-oh, here we go again with Booth's issues with superiority. And it bugs him even more when it's with Bones (hence his mocking her earlier for parking her super-expensive car crooked), because this is Bones. He wants to like her, but damnit, she makes it so hard sometimes.

This has an interesting reversal of mindsets. Normally Bones is the objective one and Booth is the subjective one. But when it comes to the law, at least in this case, they've switched. Booth, the White Knight, has his moral code, the laws of the United States, that he sticks by, and he can accept nothing less. It is unchangeable. It's his code, it's what makes him the white knight, it's what makes him, him. Bones, on the other hand, sees the multitudes of flaws in the laws, and doesn't see why they should be followed any further. In this case, she thinks these specific laws shouldn't be followed, even though it's generally accepted that laws are to be followed. She is subjective with it.

But, she values her working relationship with Booth. She thinks the laws are bad. But Booth, his intentions are always good, she knows this without a doubt. So if she can't respect the laws, she can respect him.

Of course, this is the completely opposite with their personal lives, with emotional matters, and that fact ends up being Bones' reasoning as to why they can't be together in season five – because she's the steadfast one when it comes to that kind of thing, she's the one who can't change (or, can't let herself change).