In Which Brennan Does The Unthinkable (For Brennan, That Is)

Season 6, Episode 9

The Doctor in the Photo

Mind. fuck. my brain. can't. what. AHHHH.

Ok, let's just start and hope I can retain some of my English skills along the way.

Booth, Bones is not a party trick. Just saying.

But speaking of Booth, notice how he's the one, at first, who is pointing out the similarities between Bones and the victim. And once her “world gets turned upside down”, he stops really noticing them.

And then, the ring. The ring sets it all off.

Brennan's drawing irrational conclusions that SHE is the victim? Whaaaa-?

So who better to confide in than Angela. But but but, Angela convinces her she's being irrational (Brennan's world is upside-down, indeed), and you can see from the look on Brennan's face that she's happy about this. She's happy Angela brought her back down to her land of logic, because she doesn't want her world to be turned upside-down. That's exactly why she's hardly dealt with her feelings at all this season til now.

Annnd, diner scene. This is stretching it waaaay too far, but it's an idea, brought upon when Booth and Hannah were trying to convey the hero-slow-clap scene to Brennan and Booth said “when he takes some big chance” - perhaps that could be a parallel with what Brennan does later (putting herself out there to Booth is DEFINITELY a big chance she takes), and therefore, it's basically affirming the idea that Brennan opening herself up to him is heroic and brave (hyperbolically, of course).

A stretch, yes, but I JUST WANT TO BELIEVE IT'S TRUE OK.

But on to actual things, like the look between Booth and Bones at the end of that scene when Hannah is all like “single, no kids... no one to miss her”. That look... they both know what's up. Booth passes over it quickly, looking away from Brennan, but Brennan stays looking, stays with it... and the spiral continues.

Let's talk about how Booth knew exactly what Bones was thinking when she was saying that it was impossible that the victim was the best cardio surgeon on the eastern seaboard because they hadn't heard about her death. Even with everything that's going on, he still knows her. He knows when she has shit going down.

And before we get too much more into stuff, I just need to say that the music for this episode is GRADE FUCKING A. So good.

Then, Micha. Oh, Micha. No, we're not far enough into the episode yet for the facts and quotes that back up my two theories about Micha, but I want to do it now because we'll have enough to talk about near the end.

So, it's pretty generally accepted that Micha is a figment of Brennan's imagination. How nobody else is ever around when he's around, how Booth doesn't know who he is, how she says that he's the only person who she always understands perfectly. But from that idea, I have two theories, neither of which are mutually exclusive from each other. So, they could both be true. Or neither.

But anyway: 1) Her brain creates him as a way counter her loneliness, something that would most definitely be felt quite strongly when she's alone in the middle of the night at the lab. And yes, she probably feels lonely at other times of the day, of course, but only when she's alone can her brain safely create Micha. Otherwise she'd be talking to air and everyone would think she's nuts, and her brain knows this. 2) Her subconscious uses Micha as a device to try and get her conscious to accept ideas that revolve around the fact that straight-forward, objective logic isn't always the only way. After being around Booth for all this time, and seeing subjective thinking actually work on occasion, she wants to believe that it's possible, but her conscious has such a solidified idea of dogmatic empiricism, that she herself can't convince herself otherwise. But, perhaps another person, explaining it in ways she understands, could.

Yep, it's because he's part of your brain, Brennan.

After that, more stuff happens. This would literally have to be the first episode of this show you've ever seen to not get the parallels between the pilot and the victim's relationship and Booth and Brennan's relationship, so I won't insult your intelligence and list them. They are all that obvious.

(and my heart broke into a million tiny pieces when she said “some people are very adept at keeping their pain hidden” OH BONES JUST STOP IT YOU'RE BREAKIN' MAH HEART NOW.)

And later on, after all the drug stuff arises, there's the argument in the office. Hannah doesn't like it when they argue, which I wouldn't doubt is because she can ~sense the tension~ with them when they get all sparked up (ok again I'm stretching stuff too far but JUST LET ME HAVE THIS OK). Not going to lie, I was kind of hoping Bones was getting all defensive because she herself was doing drugs and was keeping it a big bad secret. DON'T JUDGE ME, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN AN AWESOME AND UNEXPECTED STROYLINE.

But everything I just said doesn't even matter. Because now we're into the last ten minutes of the episode.

Oh dear.

First, he believes her. Of course he believes her.

That's our Booth.

(Remember that in what's coming up.)

And what's coming up is now.

Deep breath in, and out.

OH MY HEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAART.

Ok.

She's talking about Micha. And the pilot and the victim. And then, “He offered himself to her, but she never gave him a chance.  That was her regret.  I got the signal, Booth.  I don’t want to have any regrets.”

And with all the talk in this episode about being able to tell things by looking in someone's eyes being a myth, the hope in her eyes when she's saying this is one of the most painful things to watch. She has no idea he might say no. She's finally come to this decision, this place where she can accept him...

and he looks at her, and realizes that that's what she's doing. And once he does, he looks away, because he can't bear to see her hurt like he knows she's about to be. And he tells her, “I’m with someone, Bones. And, Hannah, she’s not a consolation prize, I love her.” And she's sobbing, and he can't bear to see her like that, and he stays looking away, closing off as much as he can, because he knows the last thing that needs to happen at the moment is for him to get upset over her being upset.

“You know the last thing I wanna do is hurt you, but those are the facts.”

The irony of the use of “facts” cuts like sword. “Facts” were always what Brennan believed in, what made her comfortable. Now the “facts” are what are tearing down her world.

And perhaps it's that same word choice that starts to bring her back down to a slightly logical level. Because then she goes, “I understand”. And there's a moment after she says that where Booth shuts his eyes for a second longer than normal.

And then, “My whole world turned upside-down. I can adjust.”

And the kicker (kickster) to the whole thing. His response, “I did.” And her “I know you did.”

Enough with the “and”s, I just needed to recap everything so I could have a reference for the rest of what I'm about to say.

She tried, she tried. She put herself out there. And he turned her down. Which I am not mad at him for. And you shouldn't be, either. Because his reasons are understandable. He had to move on, and she would want him to move on. She wanted him to, she wants him to be happy. We cannot really fault him, despite how much we might want to, for turning her down, and if you do, you need a bit of a reality check. And really, he wouldn't the same guy were he to just drop Hannah, even if it is Bones who is offering herself up to him. He's not that kind of person. He's loyal, and he sticks to his commitments. And he truly does love Hannah. Were he to do anything otherwise, it wouldn't be him, and lord fucking knows we're grasping for any last bits of the Booth we used to know nowadays. And even if you were mad at him in the scene for turning her down, his “I did” in response to her saying that she'll adjust, has to get you at least to not be as mad at him. We're reminded – he went through this exact same thing with her, except he was on the other side.

Now... when I first started this post, immediately after watching the episode, I had a whole paragraph tearing Booth a new one for not at least offering to comfort her, instead of offering to call someone ELSE to comfort her. But that's precisely why I don't post posts right after episode, especially monumental ones. Because waiting a day or two to watch and examine it again, not only does rationality set back in, but once can watch more closely for details since one already knows what is going to happen.

Which is why I made all those notes when recapping about Booth's body language. Throughout this whole thing, he's averting his eyes, he's closing his body in, he's keeping still. I think not only this situation but just seeing her like that at all was just too much for him to deal with, too conflicting of emotions that he's aware of at this point, because of what she said, so he has to shut down. He knows he has to stay loyal to Hannah, but at the same time, deep down in him, he doesn't want to. He wants to be with Bones. But he can't, because he loves Hannah. And Bones opening up like this is bringing forth too many conflicting emotions and desires. He simply can't deal with it at this moment, so he shuts everything down, which is why he doesn't comfort her. Those conflicting emotions and desires are hard enough, but to do deal with her sobbing and being hurt like this, which hurts him so bad to see, would just confuse him infinitely more. He can't, not at this point.

And here's another thing:

See, he sent Sweets after her, because he was concerned for her.

He saved her from getting hit by the car. How did he know that she was there? He was

watching her (or, he at least had someone watching her at the lab). He knew she had some weird mental shit going on, and so he kept an eye out on her, following her into a bad part of town on a rainy, late night.

He still is looking out for her. He still cares about her. He can't be as direct with it now because he's so set on Hannah. He can't show his concern in the same way. But he can sure has hell find other ways to get the job done, and that is precisely what he does.

He still cares about her.

Let's talk about how heartbreaking the “I'm fine, alone” line is. Because clearly, she is not.

Actually, let's not talk about it. It's too heartbreaking. But I just needed to mention it.

What we should talk about, though, is how she's wearing the same jacket that she wore in the last scene of The Parts in the Sum of the Whole WHAAAAAAAAAAT AH SNAP. Yep, she did. When she wore it in PitSofW, she was alone after having a chance for love. And again, when she's wearing it now, she's alone after having a chance for love.

And then, “Three days. Three days for the world to turn right-side-up again.”

How she sees the world has changed. But now, it feels normal to her.

So. This episode. This, what Brennan did. What Brennan did was possibly the most monumental emotion step she as ever taken in the history of this show. She put herself out there to Booth, with the risk of getting rejected. And she did. And it hurt.

But, as is said in her exchange with Micha in the end, "I'm sad."

"Better than dead. Or dead on the inside."

This was something she really needed to learn, that it's not better to avoid emotional entanglements in order to avoid the pain from them, that it's better to feel both good and bad than feel nothing at all, before much more progress could be made both with her own emotional growth and her and Booth's relationship. Now she knows that taking the chance is better than living with regret.

And Booth. Oh, Booth. I think our Boothy is a little more confused psychologically with this whole situation than they're leading us to believe, because they've been mostly focusing on Brennan's emotional involvement in the whole thing thus far this season. And I think before anything happens with them, there's going to have to be a mini-Booth-centric episode, of sorts. He's going to have to go through a re-realization of his feelings before anything else can be done. Because as we've seen in this episode, when confronted with those feelings, he shuts down, and pushes them away. Until he stops doing that, nothing will change with him.

Well. A disparaging episode, to say the least. Not quite as much as PitSofW, though, since this ending was much more predictable than that one (not to say that this one didn't still hurt like hell, though).

But, as goes the equation of a blog post here at Everything Happens Eventually, the end of a post of a disparaging episode requires some hope (because, uh, if you have none, then why the fuck would you keep watching?).

And that hope is coming in the form of a cliché this time:

The third time's the charm.

Have a good hiatus, readers. :)