In Which They Meet Again, After Seven Months

Season 6, Episode 1

The Mastodon in the Room

Season six. Well.

I can't even think of a sentence, or several, to really sum everything up without actually going bit-by-bit first.

Let's go.

First, NON B&B OBSERVATIONS:

-Sweets. The beard. And the hair. NO. Do not want. That is not Sweets.

-Wendell's beard, on the other hand, I enjoyed. Quite a bit.

-But back to Sweets, him and Daisy... I don't actually care much about them at all, but still, I have a feeling they'll be back together at some point. I'm not going to guess when, because last time I did that with a couple, I was about a season and a half off. But I'd be willing to say they're more likely to get back together at some point rather than not. I might be wrong, though. They might not do that, since that's the route they went with Angela and Hodgins, and they don't want to do the same thing.

-Cam looks GLAM. I love it.

-Those white lab coats look awful and wrong on them and it is upsetting.

-I love that Angela's pregnant. I've known for a while thanks to spoilers, so it wasn't a surprise but all the stuff about it was cute and enjoyable.

Now, to B&B things.

I love that she's still talking about Booth, even seven months later in Indonesia. “I'm finding it interesting that I'm only scared of snakes when Booth is around to jump on. ” (or something of that meaning). The way she talks about him, too, is just like how she did when she talked about something he did or said to someone else before: without emotional connotation, but the fact that she's talking about him at all has an emotional connotation.

The looks on their faces when they see each other again for the first time... that just might be my favorite moment of the episode. Not even the hug, just the way they look at each other once they find each other... especially Bones. It's so magical when a simple look can say so much, can give off so much feeling, and this one does. “Monumental” is the first word I think of, despite how vague it is. You can just feel how happy she is to see him (and him, her), how happy she is that he's not hurt, how it's been a long time since they've seen each other.

It's monumental.

And, of course, the hug is great too. One of their more emotional ones, even though she's not all wrapped up in him and whatnot.

That whole moment is just played so freaking well. I love it.

And then of course, one of the first things she asks him is if it was dangerous, which basically says that all that stuff in the last few episodes about being so concerned about him getting hurt both emotionally and physically still stands. He's aware of her concern, of course, so he doesn't tell her that it was, in fact, dangerous.

Her insisting on changing it to “do you mean, did I have sex with anyone?” when he goes “did you meet anyone special?” is frustrating and logical at the same time. She's believes she's incapable of “special”, that she's incapable of love, as was determined last season. Still, her continued insistence of romance and love simply not being part of her life now or in the future throughout the episode shows that she's possibly regressed a bit in her emotional development, thanks to her separation from Booth and the fact that he's actually moved on, which again, makes perfect sense, but is also just damn frustrating.

Oh god, when he's all like “Serious as a heart attack” and she goes “Heart attacks are very serious”, and he says “Yes, they are. Very serious” and his face gets all somber... and her guard slips up for a second, and her face just falls. I didn't notice it the first time around, but watching that scene again, you can see her face just positively falls for a second, before she changes the subject very quickly. Of course, right afterward, she packs the feeling away, sticks it way down, and is saying “Booth fell in love” later on without so much as a flinch, but right then, it hurts her. But there's nothing she can do to change it, she thinks; she made her choice. So she sticks the feeling away. But in that moment, when it's all processing... her face says it all. And it's heartbreaking.

The revelation of the existence of Hannah was incredibly abrupt. I'm kind of glad they did it that way, though. I mean, it makes sense. They've been apart for seven months, and while they'll always be Booth and Bones, things are bound to be a little awkward at first, and so they're not going to get into this big thing about what happened with them, or even anything implying it. They're not ready to have a big thing, or even a kind of medium sized thing, yet. They need to get back in a rhythm. A big or even medium-ish thing would mess things up before they even got started again.

But, let's take this time to mention how Hannah is Booth's always-doomed “type” - pretty long-haired blond. First Rebecca, then Tessa. While the existence of Hannah is in no way comforting, it's at least more comforting than if his girlfriend was NOT his always-doomed type.

(and, in relation to that, I find it interesting that they had Bones dye her hair darker. Perhaps to increase the contrast between his ever-doomed type and Bones? Perhaps.)

When Cam is all “We had a great thing going, and you let it all apart”
Hmm, that could definitely have more meaning than just about the group (not from Cam, obviously, but just, in general.) Perhaps.

In the first few scenes in the FBI, I spy no funky tie or Cocky belt buckle. This is disconcerting.

Booth's whole “Move on, give yourself a chance to be happy” speech to Sweets is disconcerting to me. Not the speech itself as much as the fact that it's not laced at all with any sort of hidden feeling about the whole thing. He seems truly one hundred percent happy that he has “moved on”, which is good, but it's just like, it'd be a little reassuring if there had been just a slight hint of... Booth hiding SOMETHING about what he's feeling about the whole thing.

But, I mean, characters say things with complete conviction that aren't really true all the time. So I'm not to worried. And plus, his insistence that everything is completely great in "moving on" could likely be a typical Brennan mechanism; insisting everything is perfect in order to hide that's not. Not that it's not great, but nothing is entirely great, and his insisting that it is more than likely means he's hiding certain feelings about it.

There's when she's talking about how he needs a committed romantic relationship to be happy. It goes back to the whole “I love you so much that I must let you go” idea. She sees that that's the kind of thing he needs to be happy. She doesn't think she can provide it, and she loves him so much that his happiness is what is more important to her than anything. So, despite any feeling she might have, she lets him go, to have his committed romantic relationship.

Another thing that bothered me was that she supposedly only dreamed of Booth in the context of them solving murders together. I love that her previous doubt about whether solving murders was really what she wanted to do or not was squashed by these dreams, but at the same time, I don't believe she realistically would only dream about him in that context, not with everything that had happened, not with all her undealt-with feelings.

But, I also have a couple justifications for this. First, it's highly likely that she wouldn't say to Angela if she dreamed romantically about Booth, as to avoid Angela trying to get her to deal with feelings she didn't want to deal with, feelings that might be especially hard to deal with now that she knows Booth is with someone. Second, it goes back to the idea that them as partners, them solving murders together, is the base of the pyramid of their relationship. So much of what she feels about him, her admiration of him, part of the “white knight” situation, etc., is based in their partnership. So, dreams about them in that context necessarily aren't NOT romantic in some ways, or at least have some romantic aspects to them in Bones' mind, because for Bones', a lot of their partnership spills over into their romantic aspects of their relationship.

I love them bickering about which of them decided to leave before the other... a nice reminder of how some things never change.

I call bullshit, again, on her wanting to go back to the islands as opposed to staying, at first. But, I sniff a justification: she does not want to deal with her feelings. Booth has someone else. This means she ESPECIALLY doesn't want to deal with her feelings now. What better place to not deal with feelings than on the other side of the planet?

And then, finally, later on, I SPY THE COCKY BELT BUCKLE! All is well with the world.

“We've worked around bigger” is the closest time they get to mentioning all the shit that's gone down. Yes, they've had some big shit gone down. They worked around it. And they'll continue to work around it. And now, it's back to that, exactly: work. In a way, yes, it's like they're starting over. But I'm beginning to think that's not necessarily a bad thing. Because they're not really starting all the way over. They still have all their history, all their feelings, everything they've been through, and of course, their Booth and Bones “essence”. It's just that those feelings are pushed back way far down again. But they're the unexpected couple – they can't get together in the expected way, with Emotional!Booth leading the way. The unexpected couple has to get together in the unexpected way – it's got to be Brennan. And once they get to that point, they'll be so much stronger than if they had gotten together before, because Bones will be so much more emotionally developed, for her to get to that point where she can open herself up like that and believe that she does, in fact, have a warm and open heart.

“Welcome home, Booth” “Welcome home, Bones” is the only part that might be tied with the look in the beginning as my favorite moment of the episode. Like I said, things might be different now, but they are home. Together, they are home.

And then, of course, there's her lingering stare at him. This might also tie as my favorite moment. That look is so full of love it would almost make me sick, if it wasn't so damn (here's that word again) poignant.

I like to think that's a sign for this season, which involves another “p” word – pining. It would be nice to see Bones be the one pining for once, and I think there's a chance we'll finally get to see it a but. 

As a last note, since we're done with the episode and so this will make sense now, this is another of those titles that has meaning: The Mastodon in the Room. A Mastodon is what was on the lab platform at the end. Basically, it's a prehistoric elephant. So, it's basically "The Elephant in the Room". Remember how earlier I was talking about how they don't mention at all what happened with them before they left, and how the subject of Hannah is glossed over quickly? 

Yeah, that's why. Their situation is the elephant in the room. How long it will remain an elephant can't quite be told yet. 

PROMO TALK:

Remember that roller coaster thing I talked about? How this first episode was supposed to be the really scary part of the ride that makes you go “OH GOD WHY DID I EVEN GET ON THIS THING?!”?

Well, as it turns out, that's not till next week.

I was under the impression that we'd meet Hannah in this episode. Turns out, it's not until next week.

Now, really, it's like you're getting to that scary part in the roller coast and you're freaking out and dreading it but just wanting to get it over with so you can appreciate it once it's over... and it's just taking a tad bit longer than you thought it would to get started.