In Which We Go Back to the Baseline

The Body in the Bounty

Season 6, Episode 4

As has always been with Bones, we can't have ~monumental things~ happen all the time. It gets too overwhelming. So, every now and then, we have a slightly slower episode. Since the first three episodes of this season were chock full of juicy bits and heartbreaking scenes, it was about time for a slightly slower episode, and that's what we got.

As always, though, there is still quite a bit to talk about.

NON B&B STUFF:

-I love how, if you've watched enough episodes, you can tell exactly when whoever it is is going to find the body for the episode and scream. When he was all, “Oh, there's a winner at the bottom” or whatever, I was just like “Oh, no, that couldn't be a human body! Of course not!”

-Cam was so adorable in this episode. I can't even.

-So, the last name of the dead guy is the last name of one of my acting teachers. That's not weird at all (and by “not weird at all”, I mean “kind of weird”).

-I may or may not have gasped and teared up slightly out of happiness when Angela said she wanted to name her child Temperance if it is a girl. I love their friendship so ridiculously much.

-I had a dream the other night that Kathy Reichs was teaching a class at the University of Washington, and for some reason I was required to take it, and I failed. EPICALLY. Yeah.

Look at what we got for our first B&B scene! Car banter! And it actually feels mostly normal and not-awkward for the first time in three episodes! It feels like Christmas in October!

Seriously, though, hooray for non-awkward car banter! So so nice.

And the crime scene... scene: Why're you protesting against telling Booth about things to do with your method, Bones? Because Hannah is a journalist, you say? And he might tell her something in a “post-coital haze”? Does it look like someone is taking an opportunity to simultaneously make like she's completely ok with Hannah and Booth's relationship by bringing it up herself and ALSO try to bring out a shabbily-produced negative consequence of their relationship?

Yes, I think so.

“I always get my man”

“I am a woman”

CAM'S REACTION. Perfection in a two-second clip.

But, speaking of that scene, along with many, many others throughout the episode: Hello, super literal-ness in basically everything Bones says. I'm not going to write tons of long paragraphs about it or anything, since not only have I already mentioned it before but Hart Hanson has flat-out said it: it's her way of “protecting herself”. The more literal she gets, the more she's hurting inside. It acts as a shield, both to keep things out and things in.

And it's so very sad. Makes me think even more that maybe she was planning on saying something to Booth about her feelings when she came back, until she heard about Hannah. It would explain the elation in her face when she saw him for the first time when they came back, the devastation in her face when he said how serious it was, how intensely literal she's gotten, and how she basically did admit she had feelings for him but that it was all a chemical reaction; for her to have this idea that she's going to admit her feelings to him, only to have him say he's with someone else, would have been a HUGE deal for her. It would have caused her even more hurt than if she came back and not planning on saying anything. And if she had planned on admitting her feelings, she would've had to have thoroughly examined her feelings for him and at that point, found them undeniable. Something that she can't even trick herself into believing wasn't there. So she explained it away by saying it was all “chemical”. Yes, contradicting what she had thought before, but her best option, in her mind, at that point.

It's just speculation, and we'll probably never know, but still. There you have it.

The fact that they're eating lunch together makes me so happy. Normalcy is coming back in very slight ways.

Of course Brennan thinks she'll scare the children away. It's so sad she thinks that, but her thinking that falls in line with her whole state of mind about herself right now, which in general is very sad. So.

So, WE HAVE MORE BANTER! Things are settling back in a bit. Maybe it was just that they needed time? Maybe because Hannah wasn't around this episode? Hmmm.

Oh hey, the set is called “The Lab”. That also happened to be the name of the nightclub our favorite couple owned in Booth's coma dream. I mean, the sign for it was the same (or at least similar) and everything.

I see what you did there, Hart Hanson!

...I may not know entirely what it means yet (I feel I need to wait a bit and see about other shout-outs to the coma dream before speculating on just what it means), but I see it!

And we end with two things: First, a marvelous ensemble moment. When they are all so into the oath, and into the fact that Brennan is onstage, in a spandex skeleton suit and a tutu and pigtails, and they are just positively beaming with pride that she did this.

Second... Booth. Booth is all into it, all goofy-like and Booth-like, and then, his face grows neutral – somber, almost. And he moves until she can see him. And he gets that little grin on his face, and gives her the thumbs up. And she gives him a thumbs up back in her giant glove, and it's all silly, but then she puts her hand back down, and she keeps her eyes locked with his. And, it's not a moment type of moment (not to say they don't have those types of moments anymore – I believe the end of the 6.2 was a variation of that type of moment). It's not. They can't have those all the time anymore. At least not right now. But it was a moment on a more basic level, a sort of back-to-the-basics level, which I believe is deeper than their moments, in a way. They have their sort of romantic type “omg I'm so in love with you” moments, but then there are the more simple ones, the ones that really touch at the basic level, the basic essence of what makes them, them. Without all the moment type stuff. Their baseline dynamic, their baseline care to the most extreme level for each other. It touches what doesn't change between them no matter what they go through.

And I think that makes it positively marvelous.

(by the way: fuck baseball. Although, this means that I can read the new Kathy Reichs book now, since I can't read them when the show isn't on hiatus for at least a week because otherwise I get everything confused as hell. Anyone know the exact date the show comes back?)