In Which SHIT IS TOO CRAZY FOR A TITLE

Season 5, Episode 16
100^th EPISODE
The Parts in the Sum of the Whole

(NOTE: THIS IS 4,329 WORDS OF UTTER FANGIRL CRAZY. PROCEED WITH CAUTION (to say the least).)



Instead of starting with talking about how fucking sad the last scene still is to watch, I'll give you the same experience of the episode; happy, fun times of hearing about their first case for the main part of the episode, then having it jump from happy and fun to sad and OMG WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON.



Oh, sweet baby jesus. Let's just start this.



BOOTH: Okay, what exactly do you think, you think we're telling him about?

BRENNAN: Page 31. And I quote "Subjects worked together for the first time in solving the murder of pregnant Congressional intern, Cleo Eller.

BOOTH: Oooh. Right, yeah. That's right. We worked that other case before that.

BRENNAN: What did you think we were going to talk to him about?

BOOTH: The whole, uh, love thing?

BRENNAN: Love thing? Oh, his conclusion we're in love? I don't care about that.

Ughh, Bones, why must you always make things so complicated? Now, Booth's reaction makes total sense, how he's all uncomfortable about it and whatnot, because he knows he's in love with her. And Bones' reaction makes sense too. Remember that time when Sweets said the more rational and cold and emotionless she is, the more vulnerability and feeling she's hiding underneath? Yeah, he was right on that one. It might be very, very, VERY far underneath, but it's there (and we'll see this in the final scene of the episode). She has repressed this idea of being in love with Booth so much, believed it not to be true again and again so much that's she's tricked her conscious into believing it.



Thinking back to her “I believe in love” (damnit, now the song from Hair is stuck in my head) speech, some speculation comes up. That happened just two episodes ago. One wouldn't be out of place to think that this mini-epiphany of hers elicited some thoughts in her about maybe being in love with Booth. But then she goes, “Oh my god, being in love with Booth?!” It's a monstrously HUGE thing for her. There are so many implications. So much that could go wrong. And what if they couldn't work together anymore? Or what if he doesn't have feelings for her at all? How could he, with his lion heart, love someone like her, who's so cold-hearted (she isn't truly like this, and he doesn't think of her this way either, but that's how she generally sees herself)? The act of being in love with anyone, let alone Booth, would require her to put herself out there, to open herself up, and possibly get rejected or abandoned again and get devastatingly hurt.



And, of course, this whole thought process happens within a split second in her mind, and she automatically dismisses the idea, because she simply cannot deal with that yet. It's just all too much for her emotionally; it's not even a possibility. So she eliminates the idea all together.



BRENNAN: Are you a student here?

BOOTH: Special Agent Seeley Booth from the FBI.

BRENNAN: I'm Doctor Temperance Brennan from the Jeffersonian Institution.

BOOTH: Do you believe in fate?

BRENNAN: Absolutely not. Ludicrous.

(Cut to: Present Day. FBI Headquarters - Sweets Office.)

BRENNAN: I still don't.

BOOTH: And I still do.

Oh hey, here's Booth's evidence that he's “that guy”. Right from the start, literally the first thing he says to her after he introduces himself is about fate. Implying that fate brought them together.



Right from the start, he knew.



SWEETS: And you didn't argue, even though he withheld information and tested you.

BRENNAN: Well, my abilities were outside of his experience.

SWEETS: He called evidence "crap" and she basically called you stupid.

BRENNAN: We were feeling each other up, like, uh, a Honeymoon period.

BOOTH: Out. We were feeling each other out.

I don't know if it's just me, but whenever I watch the scene before this one, I feel weird, because we're so used to seeing them argue at the slightest thing, and so for them NOT to argue after he calls evidence “crap” and she calls him stupid, it's a shock to the senses.



It makes sense, though. They really don't know each other yet. Even Bones isn't going to verbally attack a guy she doesn't really know who she's going to be working with. Like was said, they were feeling each other out.



BOOTH: I brought in Gemma's baseball playing boyfriend for questioning for murder but I know he didn't do it.

BRENNAN: Well, how do you know?

BOOTH: why? Because the killer's Judge Hasty.

BRENNAN: Well, feeling isn't knowing. When you know something, you can argue fact not merely make unsupportable claims in a passionate tone.

BOOTH: You said that in a passionate tone without facts. You see, what it comes down to, it's all about what you feel.

Buuuuuut, here we see the start of their little “arguments”. I think they have two different kinds of arguments: ones where they're really arguing, and ones where they're just debating and bickering just for the sake of trying to be right. This is of the latter. And we see this format a lot through the series: she says something about how you have to go by logic and not feeling, and he switches it around, or finds an example of when she acted on feeling, etc.



BOOTH: I gotta tell ya..I really am enjoying working with ya, Bones.

BRENNAN: Bones is not my name.

BOOTH: It's just a nickname.

BRENNAN: Oh, yes. I see. I could call you....shoes!

BOOTH: Shoes? Why shoes?

BRENNAN: Yes, because they are so very shiny.

BOOTH: The shoes, they're part of my uniform.

“Because they are so very shiny.” Other than their drunken makeout session, this is probably my favorite part of the whole flashback.
I laugh SO MUCH every time.
It's the “so” added in there that makes it so funny.



BOOTH: The FBI, they just have a way of doing thing.

BRENNAN: Well, anthropologically speaking, para-militaristic organizations tend to constrain individuality.

BOOTH: That's for sure.

BRENNAN: But any group, no matter how restrictive, the free thinkers, the mavericks, rebels with leadership quality, find ways to declare their distinctiveness.

BOOTH: I'm a free thinking real rebel.

Hmmm. Perhaps that's why she loves the Cocky belt buckle so much. Because she knows she was the one who first planted in his mind the idea to break out and “declare [his] distinctiveness”.

BRENNAN: Are you seeing anyone?

BOOTH: Wow. Right to the point there, huh, Bones? Uh, casually but she doesn't like my hours. You?

BRENNAN: Well, uh, a physicist has been asking me out so I was thinking of saying yes.

BOOTH: Well, I'd ask you out if I could.

BRENNAN: Why can't you?

BOOTH: Well, FBI rules, again. No fraternizing with other agents or consultants.

BRENNAN: That's too bad.

BOOTH: Glad you think so.

I JUST LOVE THIS SCENE. The chemistry is full notch. And the way she asks if he's seeing anyone when her back is to him, showing how uncomfortable she is (in a good way), “that's too bad” “glad you think so”... IT'S SO GREAT.



BRENNAN: No. In fact, I am very intelligent.

JUDGE HASTY: Yeah? You could have fooled me. You're ridiculous.

(He grabs Brennan's arm and she turns around and punches him in the nose..and then punches him in the nose again - he falls to the floor.)

BRENNAN: (to Booth) Is this very bad?

BOOTH: I have been wanting to do that for years. You are so hot. That's great.

DAMN STRAIGHT SHE IS SO HOT, BOOTH.

BOOTH: What I wanted to to confess was - see, I have a gambling problem but I'm dealing with it.

BRENNAN: Why did you feel you had to tell me that?

BOOTH: I don't know. I just feel like, um, this is going somewhere...

BRENNAN: Why did you feel this is going somewhere?

(She gets closer to him)

BOOTH: I just - I feel like I'm gonna kiss you..

(They kiss. A lot.)

BOOTH: Wow.

BRENNAN: We are not spending the night together.

BOOTH: Of course we are. Why?

BRENNAN: Tequila.

(Brennan gets into the taxi and it starts to pull away but Booth chases after it.)

BOOTH: Hey, ho, ho. Hold the cab. Hold the cab. Hey!

(He knocks on the window, Brennan rolls it down)

BOOTH: So, you're afraid when I look at you in the morning, I'll have regrets?

BRENNAN: That would never happen.

(She chuckles, as the cab drives away as Booth stands in the middle of the street. She waves to him out of the back window)

Well.

First, GODDAMN THAT KISS.
DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN.



But then, she suddenly changes her mind. She decides not to have sex with him, despite the fact that she was the one who was all gung-ho for them to have sex to begin with.



What changed?
He started talking about how he felt they were “going somewhere”. I mean, sweet jesus, her emotional development at this point, before she's been around Booth very much at ALL... the prospect of any sort of serious relationship is beyond preposterous to her. In their discussion, she probably doesn't think much of it, when he's all drunkenly admitting his gambling problem to her because he thinks they're “going somewhere”.



But after THAT KISS... after she feels the passion and emotion he puts into it, after she sees the passion and emotion SHE puts into it, after she feels their off-the-charts chemistry at full blast... she realizes “oh shit, he really thinks this could go somewhere” (and maybe, very very very very VERY deep down, she realizes “oh shit, this COULD go somewhere”). Or maybe it's a realization of a different kind; she feels the intensity of the kiss, and realizes this is a whole new territory, this is something she's never felt before.



And that's why she cites tequila as being the reason she's leaving. She thinks it's the alcohol that's making her, and him, feel all this.
So it's her cue to get the hell out of there.



(let it be known that I'm not implying she's already like, falling in love with him or anything, or having any real feelings for him at all. But drunkiness + insane chemistry + hot kissing can create some interesting temporary feelings in a person, even if that person can't actually process those feelings, is all I'm saying.)



BOOTH: Is something wrong?

BRENNAN: I find I'm annoyed with you.

BOOTH: Why? Because I fired you and hired you back? It's the Federal Government.

BRENNAN: No, because you got me drunk to fire me and then have sex with me.

BOOTH: Whoa, no. I got myself drunk so I could fire you and you decided not to have sex with me, which I accepted gracefully. So, you regretting that decision?

BRENNAN: No, I'm not. It was a very good decision and I stand by it.

BOOTH: What's going on, Bones?

BRENNAN: Do not call me Bones.

...
BOOTH: Okay, excuse me. You know what? You really need to learn how to speak to human beings.

BRENNAN: I speak six languages - two of which you've never even heard of.

BOOTH: You know what? You're a cold fish.

BRENNAN: You're a superstitious moron.

BOOTH: Get a soul.

BRENNAN: Get a brain.

Oh, dear. Well, let's go over this.
Bones is the one who starts with the angry streak. Why?
She has her rationalized reason of “oh well you got me drunk to fire me and then have sex with me!” Which very well may be part of it. Or really, part of it may be part of it. The drunk part.
Know how I said earlier how in her line of logic, being drunk is what made both his and her inhibitions go down and make them feel all that crazy intensity of their crazy intense chemistry. And that is No Man's Land for her. Bones no likey. And who gave her the alcohol? Booth.



So, she's angry at Booth.



And of course, he doesn't really know her well enough to get this yet, so he just gets angry back.
And then they transfer their anger to other, non-related things (“Get a soul!” “Get a brain!”).
And it all goes to hell.



BRENNAN: Let go of me.

BOOTH: I will if you would jus-

(Brennan slaps him across the face)

BOOTH: Oh! What the hell?!

BRENNAN: You are a bully. You - you grab my arm, just like the judge. You use your gun and your badge to intimidate people.

BOOTH: Really? You use your brain to make people around you feel stupid.

BRENNAN: Well, you are a stupid man. I hate you.

BOOTH: Oh, you hate me. What, are you 10 years old? I'm not your dad!

BRENNAN: I will never work with you again.

(Brennan grabs her jacket and storms off)

BOOTH: Who asked you?!

This scene was very difficult to watch the first time. Times thereafter weren't difficult, but were still unpleasant. No matter how much I remind myself that this is them long before they became them, that we knew all along that something happened to make her never want to work with him again. But even so, it's still sucky to watch. Because their bickering is fun, but nobody wants to see them THAT angry at each other.



I think it's interesting how he mentions her intelligence, and she mentions the badge and the gun, and that's just like an bit of one of their arguments in the pilot (“I'm not the one who’s gotta mention that she’s got a doctorate (her intelligence) every five...” “I am the one with the doctorate.” “I’m the one with the badge and the gun.”



You know what else is interesting? That slap. Nice act of passion there, Bones.
Think about it, though. She was already pissed at him for getting her drunk and making her kind of ~feel things~. So for her to be grabbed by the arm by this man she had ~felt things~ about... part of it is directed right at him for being an ass and a bully, but part of it is also anger at herself for allowing herself to ~feel things~ about said bully. Of course, it's completely irrational, but not in her mind.



So, back to current Bones time.
And there's this quote on a slab of stone when Bones and Booth are walking out of Sweets' office.
"Nothing happens unless first a dream.." - Carl Sandburg.



And I'm a bit stuck on it. I mean, it might not mean anything, but I mean, they do a big sweeping shot of it, you can see every word. It has to mean something if they included it in the shot, I'd think.



It's a little just like, “...what?” I mean, it's no “everything happens eventually”, in that, it's not direct. At all.



The most legitimate idea I can come up with is that they can't get together until Brennan really accepts and “imagines” the idea of them together (until she “dreams” it?) Or, it could be talking about how this whole revealing-of-feelings by Booth couldn't happen until he really imagined it for awhile or, in a more literal sense, until he “dreamed” it, i.e. his coma dream of them together?



Or maybe it just means nothing at all?



I don't know. Help me out with this one, blog readers. What are your ideas?



BRENNAN: In his book, Sweets wrote that being abandoned by my parents made me convinced that all meaningful relationships are doomed.



Uh, true.

BOOTH: And he wrote that I got "White Knight Syndrome" cause of my physically abusive, alcoholic father.

Also true.

BRENNAN: Hate psychology.

(Booth stops walking.)

BOOTH: I'm the gambler. I believe in giving this a chance. (He moves closer to her) Look, I wanna give this a shot.

BRENNAN: You mean us? (he nods) No. The FBI won't let us work together as a couple-

First off, DAMNIT BOOTH, don't you remember that time you said to Sweets "don't you know by now that you can't rush her" with emotional things. THAT APPLIES HERE, FOOL.Which is part of why this ends the way it does; it all happens too quickly. He rushes her. Emotional shit is hard enough for her, but for him to just drop the bomb on her like that... it doesn't help him at all, that's for sure.

Well well. Rational Brennan, going straight for the supposedly “rational” idea.

Note how she doesn't protest at all that she doesn't feel that way about him, or that they don't have that kind of relationship, which she would have said to anyone else who suggested that her and Booth “give it a shot”.

(I'm noting this now because I'm going to talk about it when I talk about the implications of all this later on.)

BOOTH: Don't do that. That is no reason why we can't...

(He cuts himself off and kisses her. She kisses him back and then places her hands on his chest and pushes him away.)

DAMN, THAT KISS.

BRENNAN: No. No.

BOOTH: Why? Why?

BRENNAN: You-you thought you were protecting me, but you're the one who needs protecting.

BOOTH: Protecting from what?

BRENNAN: From me! I - (she starts to break down) I don't have your kind of open heart.

Know all those times I've mentioned how Bones doesn't think she has empathy, how she doesn't think she has the capacity to love, etc. etc.? Those all compile themselves in this moment.

BOOTH: Just give it a chance..that's all I'm asking..

BRENNAN: No, you said it yourself; the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.

BOOTH: Well, then let's go for a different outcome here, alright? Let's just - hear me out, alright? You know when you talk to older couples who, you know, have been in love for 30 or 40 or 50 years, alright, it's always the guy who says "I knew." I knew. Right from the beginning.

BRENNAN: Your evidence is anecdotal.

BOOTH: I'm that guy. Bones, I'm that guy. I know.

He is SO that guy. Which we know from what he said the very first time they met. There's no if, ands, or buts. We don't go “Well, maybe Brennan's right, maybe his evidence is just...” No. Not at all this time. The showrunners showed it right to us – he's that guy.

BRENNAN: I- I am not a gambler; I'm a scientist. I can't change. I don't know how. I don't know how. (and with that, she breaks Booth's - and her own - heart) Please don't look so sad.

FAN-WRITTEN STAGE DIRECTIONS, YOU ARE SO TRUE, YET AGAIN. She breaks both their hearts. She doesn't want to turn him down. But she's convinced she is cold-hearted, much too cold-hearted for Booth. She's afraid she'll hurt him. She's afraid she'll get hurt herself. She doesn't think she can change. She cannot see how much she has changed since knowing Booth because she has such an ingrained idea of herself as a “cold fish”, from how others treat her. She doesn't think she knows how to change, but the fact is, she already has. But she can't see this. And Booth is in no place to try and convince her otherwise, because 1) He's not in the state to – he just put his heart out on the table, and he can't focus on trying to convince her of something like that any time soon after that, and 2) He knows her well enough to know when he can and can't change her mind on something, when she has to figure it out for herself. And also 3) I wouldn't be surprised if his confidence in his ability to “read” her is monumentally shaken right after her first “no”. So he might not even be thinking that she's really changed now, even though deep down, he know she has.

It's one thing to believe in love – it's another to actually be in it. And right now, it is just too much for her to handle, even with Booth. She's just too afraid of it all still.

BOOTH: Alright. Okay. (he sighs, and leans back against the wall) You're right. You're right.

BRENNAN: Can we still work together?

BOOTH: (after a slight pause) Yeah.

BRENNAN: Thank you.

BOOTH: But I gotta move on. I gotta find someone who's - who's gonna to love me in 30 years or 40 or 50.

BRENNAN: (softly) I know.

OK JUST SHUT UP RIGHT HERE. SO SAD. CAN'T DEAL WITH IT.
When he's talking about how he has to move on, and she's just like “I know”, and they walk off and she grabs onto his arm and kind of like falls into him...
OH GOD IT IS JUST TOO MUCH FOR MY POOR LITTLE SENTIMENTAL HEART TO TAKE. GODDAMN.
DAMNIT, BOOTH, DON'T YOU KNOW THAT SHE'S GOING TO LOVE YOU IN 30 OR 40 OR 50 YEARS WHETHER YOU'RE TOGETHER OR NOT?!



Phew. Ok. I'm done.
With the play-by-play, that is.



So here's the deal:
When this first aired, I bawled after she said no. Like I've said before, I cry to everything, but I mean, the only other time I bawled that hard to something on TV was when Burke left Cristina at the alter on Grey's Anatomy (they were my absolute favorite couple on that show). I mean like, heaping SOBS (again, I cry to everything, so it's not like, grounds for putting me on suicide watch or anything, but then again, the “heaping sobs” category of crying doesn't happen exactly frequently either).



Because, you see, the first time around, the scene felt so positively final. The emotion of the moment swept me up into temporarily thinking that that was it for B&B, that there was no way they could get together after that.



But then, just like with most things on TV that upset me, a night's sleep restored my sanity.



It wasn't final, silly brain, it just felt that way because Brennan's all like “I can't change” and crying all over the place and Booth is all sad and it's just a vomit of emotion.



And you know why else it's not final?



There was no real discussion of “love”. He didn't say “I love you, Bones.” She didn't say “I love you, Booth.” They didn't exactly admit it. Which, I think, is more of a “dam” for them than anything else. The sex stuff, they can do easily, because their sexual chemistry is through the fucking ROOF. That's easy for them. It's the admittance of love that changes shit. Because, as Gordon Gordon said, the idea of them together is ABSURB. Superficially, they are as opposite as can be. They bicker all the time. By all societal standards, they should not be together. For them to break that idea, for them to admit that they love the other one despite it all, is what makes THAT the real “dam” that has yet to break.



Before I go on to my last point, we need to talk about Booth a bit. Poor, poor Booth. This is positively tragic for him. He built this image, this life, around Bones, and again, the scene just feels so final. He feels like well, shit, this is it. She made her choice. And he's absolutely crushed. He's now completely doubting his ability to “read” her and how much he truly knows her. Which complicates things quite a bit, and will for time to come, because he had always been the lead in all their emotional whatnots before (perhaps, though, this will force Brennan to come up to the plate in the future, since his confidence in relation to their relationship is so thoroughly shaken now.)



And now to the last point: you know what ELSE makes this scene not final, even though it feels like it?
How Bones actually did not want to do what she did. She did it because she felt like she had to, for Booth, but one thing tipped it off that she did not want to say what she was saying, no matter what her words actually implied:
How much she was crying.



We have NEVER seen her cry that much before, EVER. Not even close. And it's not something she can control, at least not in an overtly emotional situation like that. Part of it was because she hated hurting Booth that way (which I'll talk more about after this), but it was also because it hurt HER to say it. Because it's not what she wanted. She wants to be with Booth. And, just like how the scene overall felt to us, she feels like it's final. She's saying she can't change, that she doesn't know how, and she's implying that she never will. In this moment, all her deepest hopes for a life with him are crumbling, and why?



Because she loves him too much to allow herself to maybe hurt him.



(Hello, paradox.)



It is one of those “I'm hurting you now because I love you so much” things. She wants to be with him. But she thinks she'll hurt him, because she doesn't think she has an open heart like him. She's dying to be with him; whether she is aware of it consciously, subconsciously she id definitely aware of their progress as a couple since they've been working together. But she can't stand the thought of hurting him because she's a “cold fish”, so she sacrifices her own wants and needs and desires for him. She does what she does out of love.



I will leave you with a quote. Not from the show, but a quote relates VERY highly to this situation, specifically Brennan, whose court the ball is now in:

"And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

-Anaïs Nin.

Yeah, they're nowhere near done.