Bones Review: Baby Steps in the Right Direction
October 2, 2010 by Trisha Leigh
Filed under Feature, feature overlay, Television
Bones was better. A smidge, a teensy, tiny step, a hair – but improved.
This week a couple with nothing in common (remind you of anyone?) was murdered in the park. In an interesting turn of events, it seems I was wrong in part of my assessment last week. It turns out Booth’s hot reporter girlfriend does actually exist, but I still say the whole picture on the BlackBerry thing felt strange and false. Katheryn Winnick, the poor dear who’s playing Hannah, gives her lines the old college try, and does a decent job playing a girl in love – even with the stilted, forced, unrealistic dialogue.
Hannah might convince me she’s a girl in love, but Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) doesn’t even come close. He keeps saying he’s excited she’s back in the States, that he loves her, that she makes him feel good, but…I’m not buying what he’s selling. I’m not sure if the words they’ve written for him are meant to sound forced or not, but they do. Bones (Emily Deschanel) insists she’s not jealous of the gorgeous, gregarious Hannah, but no one believes her. She keeps insisting she’s happy for him but continues to mention how she thought of Booth while they were apart, making everyone – including the audience – uncomfortable.
My prediction on the Hannah storyline: she’s a mover and a shaker, not happy unless gunfire slinging insurgents wait around every corner. She’ll realize that, no matter how sexy Booth looks with no clothes on, she needs more than that. Hannah will end up back in Afghanistan, leaving Booth free to reengage with Brennan.
Angela (Michaela Conlin) and Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) spent most of the episode dodging stupid dialogue and making me want to throw up in my mouth from the sugary sweetness of it all. Nothing much is going on with their storyline, which is fine. They are most entertaining in supporting roles, their funny quips and private asides enhancing the overall experience.
The return of the always entertaining Dr. Clark Edison (Eugene Byrd) as Brennan’s assistant made me chuckle a few times. All of the rotating intern characters bring so much humor to the set and I hope to see more of them return in future episodes.
Thursday night’s show tried to throw back to what made the series so great in the beginning. Aside from the emergence of Hannah, very little took place outside the case being worked. I found the outcome to be more than a little obvious, having suspected the park ranger as the killer from the beginning. The writers constructed a murder case that gave them ample opportunity to discuss what’s not going on between the main characters, a tiresome pattern they’ve fallen into.
I want to see Booth and Brennan solve cases with the help of Cam (Tamara Taylor), Hodgins, and Angela. I want to see them with Sweets (John Francis Daley), who is the one person who needs more camera time. I don’t want to use every mechanism available to beat the dead horse of Booth and Bones’ will-they-won’t-they emotional tug of war.
Tell me a story. Solve a crime. Make me laugh. Bring back the endearing, phenomenal ensemble cast that made this show take off and dig in its heels on Thursday nights.
Incidentally, the show’s good humor is returning faster than the rest of the writing. I laughed out loud at several lines that were just so in sync with the particular character or situation. There needs to be more of that.
Let’s get back to basics, so when the inevitable happens at the close of this series, we still give a crap.
Season 6, Episode 2: The Couple in the Cave (originally aired September 30, 2010)
For more on Bones, click here.
Thursdays at 8/7c on Fox
Photographs courtesy of Fox, IMDbPro.
Emily – I guess I enjoy Sweets’ affable sense of humor. More than that, though, since his character is a psychologist he’s able to address issues and move storylines forward without it seeming forced and ridiculous.
Thanks for the comments everyone. I’m glad it’s not only me that cringes at the writing on a weekly basis.
I like the new girlfriend but I agree with some of the other posts. If Booth was so in love with Bones then how could he fall in love so quickly. He is certainly a fickle guy. I say let Booth and Hannah stay together and bring back Sully for Bones. He was good looking and loved her and wanted her to sail away to a better life. What a perfect ending having Bones sail away into the sunset with Sully on the boat.
I am SO over this whole will they wont they thing. I understand how they have to establish where everyone stands for the first couple of episodes but I agree, they should dumb down the whole Booth and Brennan relationships and go back to the basics, we all know they are eventually going to end up together. Focus on the crimes and less on the relationship/s.
And I hope Hannah isnt in it as much as she is at the moment, it should be like Michelle, we know shes there, we just dont see her all the time. I’m not totally convinced that Booth thinks Hannah is the one either, I think he still has feelings for Brennan but he is still angry and hurt with her for leaving and its going to take a while for him to forgive her and also because she broke his heart.
I hope Brennan doesnt melt down – atleast not publicly because that will be so embarassing and cringe worthy for us and everyone else. I cant say that in real life that wouldnt happen…? but thats not the Brennan we know and love.
I don’t even know what they’ve done with the character of Booth. Pretty much ruined it.
He’s basically proving to Brennan that love is ephemeral and she was right not to give him a chance. He’s ‘so in love’ with Hannah, that when she departs, and she will… what reason will Brennan have to take a chance on him? He can just fall in and out of love in ooh, what, 7 whole months can he? Why on earth should Brennan take a chance on him if he can fall out of love with the woman he’d allegedly been in love with from the first moment he met her in SEVEN pathetic months?
What a mess. I don’t see how they can write their way out of this one.
Hannah herself was oh-so-perfect and I’m sorry, I don’t see any chemistry. Why I had to see and hear about so much sex, I’ll never know. Yeah, we get it. Booth can’t keep it in his pants. Hannah’s a bit of a slut. Nice. Keep telling me how much love there is and keep hinting at the cracks in their relationship. They’ll milk this one as long as possible.
Poor Bones deserves a lot better. Bring back Sully. Bones and Booth missed their moment and I can’t help but think how sad that is. Terrible writing.
I loved it and of course it rings hollow and of course Hannah is going to leave and in the meantime we see Brennan’s phenomenal struggle to show her heart and claim Booth. And we know that Booth is fooling himself thinking he can be happy with Hannah. It’s all part of the grand scheme to move Booth and Brennan closer to their realization that they must be together.
And before the end of the series. I want years of them together.
It was a wonderful episode.
I wouldn’t get too excited, yet. This episode was okay. Better than the premiere, but everything was so over-the-top in this episode. It was a little ridiculous. I thought everyone hounding Brennan about Hannah was juvenile. The whole episode was badly written and these poor actors had to read these painful a s s lines. I cringed at a lot of things.
I’m glad Brennan was in the lab more and that Booth was doing his interrogation alone. The case was the focus which is a plus. Um…Sweets HAS been given way too much screen time. More than Cam, Hodgins and Angela. What do you find so compelling about Sweets? He adds nothing to the show, IMO. Only shippers seem to love him for obvious reasons which aren’t a good enough argument for me.
Again, I wouldn’t get too excited about Booth’s feelings for Hannah just yet. It was only her first episode out of many. You know how the show likes to switch character personalities from episode to episode(especially Brennan) without batting an eyelash. I don’t even think they know how to do romance well.