Bones – Bones makes out with Booth’s brother…

FOX

(Season 4, Episode 9: “The Con Man in the Meth Lab”)

Is it just me, or are all of the episodes this season building, logically of course, toward Bones and Booth getting together? I mean, I know it’s inevitable, but the show seems to be deliberately removing obstacles and moving us in that direction.

Take last night’s episode for example: The case itself sort of sucked. It was boring, and they didn’t really put any time into it. Not really. Last night’s episode was about Booth and whether or not he is an alpha male. We also find out some key secrets from his past that explain why he behaves the way he does. Booth has a flashy, successful younger brother, and Bones is immediately attracted to him. She buys his assessment that Booth simply isn’t very ambitious. This makes sense with what she knows about Booth and where he is in his career, so she starts to view Booth as sort of the beta male of the two brothers. The whole point of this episode and of Booth bailing out Jared from his DUI was to show that Booth is actually the stronger of the two: Booth puts the pack first.

Bones lets Jared kiss her and has a late night with him, but doesn’t sleep with him. I both did and did not like the scene in which Angela and Cam come and tell Bones that she can’t sleep with Jared because that would be like vicariously sleeping with Booth. I thought that was a bit obvious, and I wish some shows would just let the viewers draw conclusions! But the conclusion they did let us draw was this: If Bones ever slept with Booth’s brother, then any chance she would ever have with Booth would be gone. He just wouldn’t ever go there. I think that was the underlying message in that scene.

What did you think of the scene in which Jared asks Bones whether his brother has ever taken the risk of kissing her, and she replies, “Nope.” Did you get the impression that she had any opinion of it one way or the other? I thought she was just generally agreeing that Booth is not a real risk taker (even though he actually is: Remember when he shot out the ice cream truck?). I think Bones is logical enough about sex that she would probably tell herself that they are both adults and could sleep together. It’s interesting that she hasn’t really ever raised this with Booth. I wonder what he’d do with that information. Oh, wait: He’d squirm.

I loved how Angela asked Clark whether he wanted to know if she and Hodgins were back together again, and wasn’t he impressed with how well they were working together. This makes me not-so-secretly hope for a reunion for these two. At any rate, it’s nice to see them in scenes together where they aren’t stiff and uncomfortable. A commenter pointed out last week that it’s only been six weeks since they broke up, so why was I in such a hurry for Hodgins to date again? It’s because on television, where time isn’t real, that is a loooong time.

On a final note, I am starting to enjoy how they are rotating the interns through, and the interactions with them as we get to know them better. And I am glad to see Cam have more substance. I like how they are giving her some back story with Booth — we never really knew how long she had known him, did we? Just that they had dated? Tamara Taylor is a great actress, and she is very intelligent and deadpan, so I am always happy to see her given her due.

Clacked by Jen Creer
on Nov 13, 2008 @ 14:00 EST5EDT