In Which We Have Some Sadtimes :(

Season 4, Episode 3
The Finger in the Nest



This episode is always hard for me, being an owner of dogs and an overall dog lover. I cry to the last scene every time (I'm sure you've figured out by now that I'm an easy crier. Seriously. Moreso than anyone I've met. I'm not joking. It's an issue).



BRENNAN: It’s not his fault. He’s actually a very nice dog, aren’t you? He reminds me of you.

BOOTH: Me?

BRENNAN: He’s got warm and reassuring brown eyes, and he’s capable of great violence.



Heehee, Brennan thinks Booth has warm and reassuring brown eyes. <3
(let's just ignore the violence part; Bones doesn't know any better.)


That whole sequence of that last two scenes... so heartbreaking. Ripley in a way was a way for Bones to sort of give all this love she has to something without having to deal with the emotional repercussions (well, all of the emotional repercussions, I should say). As Sweets said, we know that the more icy and cold she appears the more emotion she's holding down underneath. We know that, to an extent, Bones isn't this cold, unfeeling person she so often portrays herself to be. She has feelings. She has love. But giving all that love to people has ended up hurting her too much in the past, and so, in a way, she's forgotten really how to give love to people now. But yet, she still has love. And it's all bottled up inside her. A dog would have been the perfect chance for her to give love to something that wouldn't hurt her, wouldn't abandon her, wouldn't have complex human emotional repercussions from loving it.



And Booth realizes all of this. He sees her face light up when she shows him the tag she made for Ripley. Which is why he is so delicate in telling her Ripley was put down, why he encourages her to talk about him when they bury him, why he holds her after she's done. She just starts to let her love out, to give herself over... only to be crushed, yet again. And it's awful. And heartbreaking to watch.