Bones (TV series): Difference between revisions

'''Max:''' [[Meta Guy|Why, are you gay?]] }}

 

 

[[Insufferable Genius|She's also aggressive, abrasive, and has all the social grace of a snapping turtle.]]

''Bones'' is easy to dismiss as yet another [[Forensic Drama]], especially considering the laxity of some of the science and the better-than life crime recreation technology, but fans are quick to point out that the show's strength lies in its characters. The cases are little more than a backdrop for their interaction and growth. The writing is sometimes uneven and the episodes are more often either brilliant or horrible rather than mediocre, but the dialogue is clever and frequently peppered with moments of genuine emotion. Their behavior and interests help the audience relate to them as [[One of Us]].

 

 

An often recurring theme is the nature of intellect versus emotion and at what point you should use which. Most of Brennan's team rely on careful logic, and in some cases are bound entirely to it. Meanwhile Booth brings Brennan along on investigations and has to help put a soft touch to her chainmail glove when dealing with people.

A recurring element is [[Myth Busters|wisecracking Hodgins and stoic Zack performing some absurd "test"]] to help solve cases. One particularly memorable one was putting a ''frozen pig'' through a '''wood chipper'''. [[It's a Long Story]].

 

 

Has a [[Bones/Characters|character sheet]]. Not to be confused with the comic book series ''[[Bone]]'', the animation studio [[Studio BONES|BONES]], [[The McCoy]], the Snoop Dogg horror film, or [[Dem Bones|actual bones]].

** Abernathy's step-father.

* [[Accent Relapse]]: Inverted by {{spoiler|intern Arastoo Vaziri who isn't actually "fresh off the boat", but is pretending to be so he won't have to take any grief for his devout Muslim beliefs.}}

{{quote|'''Bones:''' He can hold his breath for 3 minutes down there!

''(beat)''

* [[Angst]] / [[Angst? What Angst?|What Angst]]: {{spoiler|Angela and Hodgins are brimming with sadness after learning they both carry a gene that gives their child a 1/4 chance of being blind, but later Hodgins decides to make the best of it, saying they should take up hobbies that don't require sight (piano for him and sculpture for her).}}

* [[Anti Intellectualism]]: Hodgins gets chewed out on a regular basis for his impromptu tests -- spam and artificial bone to determine exact circumstances of death by incineration make perfect sense to Hodgins and the viewer, but Cam says (paraphrased): "You say SPAM to a jury and they get a laugh and the perp gets an acquittal!" Bones herself gets harangued for being smart while jurors are slack-jawed morons -- she nearly loses an otherwise open-and-shut case because the opposing expert is chatty and handsome. "The jury likes Michael better than they like me, apparently that’s a problem. Are they stupid?" Goodman responds that, "Compared to you, yes they are stupid. However, compared to you most of the world is a little stupid." Bones and her "squints" are supposed to be smart enough to catch crooks with microscopic bone fragments, but not smart enough to intimidate [[Muggles]].

* [[Artistic License Chemistry]]: In "The Twisted Bones in the Melted Truck", the bones in question were "melted" by exposure to a magnesium fire. Magnesium burns at 5000°F plus which would have been more than hot enough to melt the bullet which was found intact within the skeleton (lead melts at 622°F, steel at 2500°F).

* [[Arc Number]]: 447

{{quote|'''Hacker:''' Ten seconds earlier and I would have been the hero, right?}}

* [[Bi the Way]]: Angela

* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: "The Hole in the Heart". The Squints pay tribute to {{spoiler|Vincent Nigel-Murray}} by singing his favorite song as they place his casket in the hearse.

* [[Blond Brunette Redhead|Black, White, Asian]]: Cam, Brennan, and Angela. It fiddles around with the stereotypes, too: Angela is the cool one, Cam is the reserved one, and Brennan is the nerdy one (granted, they're all nerds, but she takes the cake).

** In "The Princess and the Pear", Fisher winds up sleeping with a suspect. In "The Gamer in the Grease", he mentions he's had nearly 100 conquests and gets another one while waiting in line to see ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]''.

** After learning of Booth and Bones' {{spoiler|mistletoe kiss}} in "The Santa in the Slush", Sweet's first reaction is {{spoiler|"was there tongue?"}}. Two seasons later, in "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole", Sweets learns of {{spoiler|Booth and Bones' real first kiss, during their first case before the pilot}} and is pretty dang shocked. Bones immediately replies {{spoiler|"there was tongue contact"}} before he can even ask the question.

* [[Broken Aesop]]: In "The Goop on the Girl", a suicide bomber at a bank appears to detonate his bomb using the signal from an angry left-wing radio show. Booth accuses the host of spreading "poison" throughout the airwaves and causing the attack, even if he was not legally responsible. The episode ends with the radio host giving a long apology on air, lecturing on the dangers of media-stoked rage, and ending his radio show. Nobody told him, however, that the radio show ''didn't'' inspire the bombing. The only reason the show's signal set off the bomb was because it was very close to the frequency used by the actual robbers.

* [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]]

** Averted in "The Suit on the Set" -- literally shot on location at Fox Studios, although as far as I saw they never explicitly say where they are [[Product Placement|(they just let the coffee cups do the talking)]].

* [[Cannot Spit It Out]]: Booth and Brennan at different times. And when one of them can, the other one doesn't want to hear it.

* [[The Cast Showoff]]

** Eric Milligan is trained in musical theater, so the show had Zack sing an amazing rendition of "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing".

** One episode features a team of secret service agents 'comandeering' the lab and the team, requiring them to examine a set of bones. They're firmly told not to speculate about the deceased's identity, but as the evidence mounts it looks more and more like they're examining the remains of President JFK. {{spoiler|and if it *is* JFK, then the evidence they uncover all but proves the existance of [[Who Shot JFK?|a second gunamn, and a cover-up]] }}.)

* [[Contamination Situation]]: The first season's Christmas episode, "The Man in the Fallout Shelter".

* [[Cool Old Guy]]: Max Brennan; Billy Gibbons; Hank Booth; [[Stephen Fry|Gordon Gordon Wyatt]]

* [[Cop and Scientist]]

** Also Caroline Julian is ''made'' of this trope -- everything she says is both deadpan and snarky.

* [[Death in the Clouds]]: In one episode they're taking a plane to China when a dead body is found, and they have to discover and arrest the murderer before they touch down or else the case becomes "property" of China.

* [[Did Not Do the Research]]: Aristoo's journal article subplot. One, even if under NDA, his labmates would already know about his work, having collaborated with him on it in some fashion, and thus would almost certainly be aware that he is planning to publish it. In fact, one or more of them are likely to qualify as co-authors. Two, a reputable scientific journal does not publish puff pieces on Selena Gomez, and most certainly would not bump legitimate scientific content to do so, and double extra certainly will not kill it outright, even if it is bumped for some form of breaking news: science is science, even if it's published a week or month later, and more to the point, journals do not and cannot operate that quickly, due to the peer-review process and the nature of publication. Three, speaking of peer review, your current supervisor will never, ever, ''ever'' review your paper for the journal. Not only is that a direct conflict of interest in and of itself, and against any reputable journal's editorial policies, but she would very likely be the last author on said paper anyway, and thus have vetted it thoroughly before it came within a mile of the peer-review process. And that's to say nothing of his efforts to get another paper, which amount to throwing shit at the wall and seeing if something sticks. While even the best scientists have gone on the odd fishing expedition from time to time, there's a reason why the scientific process is what it is.

* [[Distracted by the Sexy]]

** In "The Babe in the Bar," when Vincent Nigel-Murray comes up with an idea to preserve the bubbles of the victim's last breath, Cam in her enthusiasm says "If I didn't have self-control, I could kiss you!" The normally [[Motor Mouth]] Nigel-Murray is struck silent for several seconds until Hodgins brings him out of it.

** Hodgins himself falls victim, when he sees the newsreel Angela dug up to check out Booth's new girlfriend.

* [[Don't Explain the Joke]]: Brennan ''does'', both with her own jokes and the jokes of others.

* [[Double Meaning Title]]: The sixth season opener, "The Mastodon in the Room", deals with the team getting back together and examining the motivations that had split them up and the problems this had caused. Unlike most episodes however, the case has nothing to do with mastodons. It instead involves the body of a young boy, and as the episode is entering its last few minutes with not even a mention of mastodons you find yourself thinking [[Stealth Pun|"Aren't they ignoring the Mastodon in the Room?"]]. Then in one of the final shots, the team returns to their old lab -- which in their absence has been turned into an exhibit room for the Jeffersonian -- which features an actual mastodon.

'''Camille:''' I was just asking! }}

* [[Ensemble Darkhorse]]: An [[In-Universe]] example. It had been a [[Story Arc]] looking for a new lab intern and the crew were really starting to like Wendell Bray. When the scholarship that qualified him for the position in the first place went bankrupt, they spent an entire episode trying to find a way to keep him. {{spoiler|He was kept on thanks to an anonymous donation. Except they received ''three times'' as much money as they needed, meaning ''everyone'' was desperate to keep him but didn't want to admit it.}}

* [[Establishing Shot]]: The stock footage of a lovely summer garden outside 'The Jeffersonian'.

* [[Ethical Slut]]: Angela '''really''' likes sex, and has no reservations about letting it known.

'''Booth:''' It's just allergies, Bones.

'''Brennan:''' Yeah, that's what I said. }}

* Expy: [[Bill Nye the Science Guy|Mr. Bunsen Jude, The Science Dude]]

* [[Eye Scream]]: Although it's done to a dead body, the scene where they remove fluid from an eye in one episode is still not for the squeamish.

== F ==

* [[Fan Nickname]]

** The rotating squints are "The Squinterns"

* [[Fan Service]]: Bones' [[Wonder Woman]] costume. Ms. Deschanel's assets are... unusually prominent. Noticeably prominent. Gloriously prominent. Quite a bit of [[Gainaxing]] too.

** Angela's bisexuality was hinted at as far back as the first few episodes. "You have ''no idea'' how open-minded I can be."

** A person doing interviews to see how suitable the lab guys were to be allowed access to top secret files (or something) asked Zack what he would do if {{spoiler|someone used irrefutable logic to get him to do something treasonous}}. Zack replies he would ask Dr. Brennan first.

** Zack is seen to hang on every word that his best friend, Jack Hodgins, says. This makes it all the more heartbreaking when you learn that {{spoiler|it was partly because of Hodgins believing in conspiracy theories that Zack was persuaded to become the Gormogon's apprentice.}}

* [[Frickin' Laser Beams]]

'''Cam:''' ''(surprised)'' You understand what she's saying?

'''Hodgins:''' Not in the least, but I am so turned on by her brain. I'd like to see her brain totally naked. }}

* [[Genre Savvy]]: In "The Hole in the Heart" (6x22), {{spoiler|Brennan tells Angela she and Booth slept together. Angela, a longtime friend of the literal-minded Brennan, assumes, correctly, that it was non-sexual.}}

* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]

* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: The sheriff who puts Hodgins and Angela in jail after they mess around with [[Product Placement|their Prius' auto-driving feature]] {{spoiler|showers them with confetti when they get married in the cell. Awww.}}

* {{spoiler|[[John F. Kennedy]]}}: Brennen's team suspects, but can't ever be sure, that {{spoiler|the skeleton the Secret Service conscripted them to analyze with state-of-the-art forensic methods was him}}.

* [[Knife-Throwing Act]]: Booth and Bones went undercover as a knife-throwing act.

* [[Laser-Guided Karma]]: In "The Graft in the Girl", a woman who dropped out of medical school is stealing corpses from a funeral home and selling them through a fake medical supply house for bone grafts. One of these corpses, who died of mesothelioma, infected at least five people with a deadly disease. The suspect isn't going to trial, though. She didn't last long enough in med school to know that bone dust is toxic, so she gave herself a fatal disease.

 

== M ==

* [[Magical Computer]]: Lampshaded in the pilot. But still played straight most of the time. Angela's computer (and Angela herself) can do almost anything with her combination computer-hologram projector. Such as recreating detailed hieroglyphics... from the stains of an object inside a several thousand year old mummy or being able to reconstruct an accurate corpse from a body that had been crushed with a car crusher... enough to be able to identify markings on the bones.

** Parodied in episode 100 "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole", a flashback to the first collaboration between Booth and Bones, where Angela, new to the Jeffersonian, reenacts the murder with a flip book animation of stick figures. Caroline Julian says it won't convince a jury unless it's a computer simulation.

** We never really find out Angela's birth name, only that it was so bad she had to change it.

* [[No Social Skills]]: Zack, and Brennan to a lesser extent. As Angela puts it when they attempt to fist-bump (and immediately start deconstructing the entire concept) "It's so cute when you try to behave like earthlings." What's strange about this is that from what we see of Zack's family, it's normal. Like, mind-numbingly normal. His descriptions of them fit the stereotype of the average American family to a T. If anything, this seems to have ''exacerbated'' his strangeness.

 

 

* [[Older Than They Look]]: Daisy's actress, Carla Gallo, is actually a year older than Emily Deschanel and ''ten years'' older than John Francis Daley (Sweets). Sweets himself falls victim to this. In his first appearance, he's 22, but looks like [[Freaks and Geeks|Sam Weir]] if he grew a foot taller.

* [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist]]: Mostly averted. The squint squad is a team of highly-focused specialists, and many episodes will have someone rattle off some fairly dense bio-babble that needs to be translated, even for the other scientists.

** Hodgins is also revealed to have ''three'' doctorates -- explaining why he can do bugs, plants and material science (don't say 'dirt' around him) It's best not to look too closely at how long it would take to get the background/experience the team has, and their relative youth.

** Also Vincent, who can spout random useless facts on a wealth of topics. And yes, there are people who can actually do this. He won a large sum on ''[[Jeopardy!]]'' doing this, and promptly spent all of it.

** Angela often served this function before Cam signed up. After, she apparently felt more free to be nuts.

** Recurring intern-of-the week Clark Edison tends to act like this whenever he shows up. Ironically, his straight-laced nature compare to [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|the other interns]] makes him come across as equally quirky.

* [[Origins Episode]]: Episode 100 gives us the story of how Booth and Bones first met, their ''real'' first case and why they were at odds in the premiere episode.

* [[Our Ghosts Are Different]]

** "[[Catch Phrase|I don't know what that means.]]"

** Vincent's constant churning out of random facts, which usually have little or no relevance to the case at hand.

** Bones rarely praising her interns for their hard work. When Edison, who's African-American, implies she's a literal slave driver ("What'cha like me to do next, ''massa''?"), it goes over her head. Bones herself thinks she's just being "kind," in a way: since no one can measure up to the high standards she sets for herself, she doesn't bother.

** "He shot a clown once."

** Angela has been on that ship from the Pilot.

** Brennan's father Max is definitely a shipper by season six, asking Angela if Brennan and Booth were together, declaring his daughter much prettier and smarter than Hannah Burley, and then buying his daughter a conch shell toothbrush-holder with two holes.

* [[Ship Tease]]: Every single episode, more or less, but especially the Christmas episode where Booth and Brennan kiss. And that only came about because Caroline was feeling "puckish".

* [[Shirtless Scene]]

{{quote|'''Booth:''' Yeah, sure. [[Naked People Are Funny|Poke fun at the naked guy...]]}}

** They certainly do love to give Christmas presents: in the 2005 Christmas episode, Hodgins had to hit the showers after a biological accident and for about half the episode appeared in a towel and nothing else.

* [[Shout-Out]]

** "The Girl with the Curl" has the [[Angel|Hyperion Hotel]].

* [[The Spock]]: Brennan, who also sometimes is a [[Straw Vulcan]] as well. In addition, Zack.

* [[Spock Speak]] / [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]]: Brennan, almost to the point of [[Cringe Comedy]].

* [[Stab the Salad]]: Played for laughs several times in "The Death of the Queen Bee" with Mr. Buxley, the creepy janitor at Bones' high school -- played by [[A Nightmare on Elm Street|Freddy Krueger]], no less.

* [[Stalker with a Crush]]: Berimbau

* [[Straight Gay]]: To the max in "The Dentist in the Ditch." The victim played amateur full contact football, his entire ''team'' is gay and his ex is a bow hunter.

* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]: Wait, why is the ship exploding that spectacularly? Oh, [[Rule of Cool|because it's cool.]] Also several of Zack and Hodgins experiments.

 

 

* [[Tarot Troubles]]: With [[Special Guest]] [[Cyndi Lauper]] as the fortuneteller.

* [[Teacher-Student Romance]]: Brennan carried on affairs with a professor and her thesis adviser in college.

** Invoked by Booth in "The Proof in the Pudding" where part of his plan involves Bones burying the Secret Service agent holding the team in lockdown under technical jargon so he will let them perform a questionable experiment. Bones doesn't disappoint.

* [[Therapy Is for the Weak]]: Definitely. They resist Sweets' much needed therapy sessions for over a season. Even now, they would cheerfully leap out a window before admitting they're actually coming to Sweets for ''therapy,'' rather than profiling and the like. Finally, Sweets gets so fed up with Booth's weak excuses that he threatens to jump out of the car if Booth doesn't admit that he actually wants advice from Sweets. Even then, Booths adds afterward that he didn't really need Sweets' help, he was just making him feel better about himself.

* [[They Do]]

** Hodgins and Angela.

* [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]]: Analyzed carefully in the show. Booth is a former sniper and while he acknowledges the acceptability in dealing with enemy soldiers and criminals, he doesn't take it lightly. When Brennan had to kill someone to protect Booth, she is also noticeably troubled by it, but only the first time. She kills the stalker who shot Booth (who took the bullet for her) with a throat shot and was shown having no problems at all with the killing and even declares how she's killed and it wasn't that hard in the 2-parter in England when trying to talk Scotland Yard into giving her a gun like they did Booth.

* [[A Threesome Is Hot]]: A guy at the bar tries to get Brennan and Hannah into one at the end of "The Body in the Bag" -- they tell him to get lost.

** The previous episode, "The Hole in the Heart," was no slouch either, as {{spoiler|the season's main villain kills Mr. Nigel-Murray and Booth finally manages to take him down.}}

** The season three finale where we learn that {{spoiler|Zack was the Gormogon's most recent apprentice.}}

{{quote|'''Brennan:''' {{spoiler|I'm pregnant. You're the father.}}}}

* [[What the Fu Are You Doing?]]: Hodgins in "The Devil in the Details". Arastoo shows him how it's done.