Season 7, Episode 2
The Hot Dog in the Competition
I have to start this off by clarifying something.
This isn't an episode review blog, where one judges the quality of the episodes. This is a creative analysis blog.
I view things from a theatrical background – I've done theatre for years, I'm going to school for it, and it's what I intend to do for the rest of my life. I mention this because in theatre, we're taught that everything in a play means something, that the author put everything there for a reason. Even if you don't like it, you have to take what you're given and try to find what you can from that.
Now, I fully realize that TV is not theatre, that not every single thing is there for a specific reason, and of course it would be foolish to think so. But because my training has so ingrained me to think this way, I think this way when I watch Bones, hence this blog. And while, since it IS TV, we can never be sure exactly what has a real meaning behind it and what doesn't, I feel like it's simply more interesting to speculate anyway. It makes my experience watching the show better, and I'm assuming that it does for you too, because otherwise you wouldn't be reading this right now.
And even if an episode is bad, if the writing is off or the plotline is weird or the characters aren't quite in character, I'm still going to take what the episode gives me and try to make sense out of it, because even if it's not quite on the same level as everything else, it is all with which I'm given to work.
So, all that said... yeah, this episode was a little off.
But I'm going to do what I can with it.
Before I get into the bulk of the episode, two small things to note:
1) I'm not quite sure how they're getting away with continuing to work together while they're living together and she's pregnant with his child, when just a few years ago it was always OH WELL WE CAN'T BE TOGETHER ANYWAY BECAUSE THE FBI WOULD MAKE US STOP WORKING TOGETHER SO THERE. I hope they address this someday, at least just to give an excuse.
2) I've noticed, in both this episode and the last, a return to a higher level of resistance against Sweets from Booth than I believe he had before. Now he seems always to straight-up refuse to talk to Sweets about things, whereas before a lot of the time he would give in after a little while. Even when he did refuse before, there was the strong reasoning that he didn't want to talk to Sweets because he didn't want his true feelings for Brennan to be revealed. But now that that's out... I'm a little curious as to why this is happening. My reasoning automatically makes me believe that it's probably because he's hiding something else deep down that he doesn't want to be revealed, but that is pure speculation, not enough has really happened in that department so far this season to start any sort of valid theory.
We saw a couple of what might seem to be regressions in this episode – namely, Brennan going back to not understanding why Booth is upset about something when she took what was the rational action in the situation.
But WAIT?! What happened to all her empathy she'd be gaining all these years?!?!?
It's still there. It's still all there. Frankly, I just think old habits dies hard. She lived inside an full-body armor of rationality for at least a decade and a half before she met Booth. Yes, she's broken that down these past six years, but it doesn't change the fact that that her uber-rationality is part of her personality. The armor is not actively up anymore, but it is still ingrained in her, so I believe it would make sense, especially now that she's dealing with these things that are new and probably really fucking scary to her, that she might fall back on that every now and then. Plus, it's a different situation. Of course she's going to be empathetic and sit and listen to an angry, drunk Booth say hurtful things. The stakes are high enough in that that she can immediately pick up on it. More simple, subtle things, like this situation, might be harder for her to pick up on if the level of negative reaction she gets from Booth isn't at a certain high enough level. She didn't “learn” to be empathetic in this episode, she's already known that. She just had to find a new way to evoke it in this situation.
And then, the way she says “You're happy” at the end when he's watching the sonogram – she says it as a pure statement, observation, and she says with with a smile. She's happy that he's happy. That rational part of her personality yields to her empathy smoothly and pleasantly, as opposed to complicatedly and grudgingly or out of the the demand for it from the level of tragedy of the situation, as almost every time before, and that's the difference.
