Bones – Want to hate my opinion of Bones more?

Sometimes I think Temperance Brennan is, as a character, the biggest walking contradiction on television today. Emily Deschanel is absolutely stunning, and a brilliant actress to play such a complicated character, but, I’m not necessarily a fan of the way she’s being written these days. Quite fewer people agreed with my opinions on Bones’ actions during the 100^th episode, including our own Julia, and, well …  showrunner Hart Hanson. However, I stand by the idea that Bones’ has been acting out of character this season (and love that commenter “JoyBrennan” was able to so much more thoroughly make my point), and this week’s episode of Bones helps prove my point.

In about 30 seconds of airtime, Brennan goes from calling the Rock and Roll Camp dilettante camp, to being on stage rocking out herself. It doesn’t work for me. Not only did she delay working on the case once a lead came in, she bought into the same hypocrisy that she had moments before been railing against. So, either her criticisms of the camp were falsehoods, or, well, the word hypocrite comes back up. Her first scene of the episode ends with her goofing around with Cam and Booth about their conversation topic, then looks down on the same type of out-of-bounds conversation that Hodgins and Vaziri were having about baseball.

I expect more out both the character and the show. Bones was — and will continue to be — one of the best procedurals on television today. I’ve been a big fan of the way that the characters have been developed over the five-plus seasons that we’ve known them (especially Sweets, with considerably less screen time overall). I can’t deny, though, that I’ve been disappointed in the direction that they’ve taken with the show’s namesake this season. As I’m sure that our two leads will be coupled in some manner by the end of the season, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to write off these changes to the path that Hanson and the other writers wanted to follow to get to that eventual endgame.

Notes & Quotes

• This is the second time on TV this week we’ve found ourselves in an industrial laundry area (Jack Bauer didn’t kill those guys on 24, did he?)
• “Too bad they didn’t do it on the delicate cycle, huh?” – Cam
  “Well obviously the manufacturers didn’t anticipate human remains.” – Bones
• “What is it?” – Booth
  “I’ll put it this way: our victim was male.” – Cam
  “Would you rather us go back to talking about lady parts?” – Bones
• Bones seemed to be more of a killjoy during the first exam scene in the lab, no? More so, in the first scene in the diner, at least if you’re male….
• “You’ve known me for two years, Sweets. You should expect to be impressed by me.” – Bones
• Never mess with Prince, or the artist formally known as Prince?
• Hodgins as a baseball fan? I don’t know if I buy that…. Has there been evidence of this before?
• Cam and Michelle.
• “All organisms evolve and develop along patterns only recognized in retrospect. Your life doesn’t exist outside of the laws of nature.” – Cam to Bones
• “We have some unanswered questions about Kurt Cobain’s death and thought maybe you could give us some insight.” – Booth
  “Seriously?” – Bebe
  “I believe he was being ironic, but if you do have information about this Cobain person I’m sure the FBI would appreciate that too.” – Bones
• Cam may not have a lot of confidence in her abilities as a mother (Which she is obviously wrong for), but it’s damn fun to watch her flounder about trying to get it right.

Clacked by Ivey West
on Apr 30, 2010 @ 08:55 EST5EDT