BONES: The Con Man in The Meth Lab
November 13, 2008 by Kath Skerry
Seven Words.
Seven words were all it would have taken to make everything okay. But it didn’t happen, and I’m not sure I can ever forgive Brennan.
I have a lot to say, and this week’s blog is going to look a little bit different. First a few preliminaries, but then I’ll tell you why I love Cam now, why Brennan’s birthday toast to Booth was full of crap, and why I’m not sure Booth learned anything at all.
The Preliminaries:
1. I loved this episode. I’m so angry I can hardly type, but I love the emotion it evoked in me. BONES is at its best when I feel this way.
2. I’m over this whatever-ness that is Angela and Hodgins. Are they friends? Awkward? Whatever.
3. Sweets was good, so was Clark.
Okay, enough with all of that. Here’s the real deal.
Most of you don’t know me at all. In fact, none of you know me, unless you are in my family, I guess. But the truth is that I’m kind of a shy person. I’m very private and guarded, especially in matters of the heart. I’m also the oldest in my family, and like Booth, I know how it feels to just want to make things ‘okay’, and to just ‘take care of it’. I don’t have an abusive alcoholic father, and I’ve never had to bail my brother out of a DUI, but I still get it.
The thing about Jared? I could care less, actually. It doesn’t even bother me that Brennan went out with him. It really doesn’t. But what kills me, KILLS me, is that she was so quick to doubt Booth. Cam was right. And BTW…Cam is in my all time hall of fame right now. I loved her calling both Booth and Brennan out this week. She just wants Brennan to give Booth the benefit of the doubt. Booth, the man who has been there for Brennan. From the start, he vouched for her. He took a bullet for her, but more than that, he’s her friend. She doesn’t even have that many friends, and she betrayed him. Not by going out with his brother, but for making a judgment without all her precious evidence.
“Okay, yeah, yeah”, you’re probably saying, “but what about her speech”? “What about her birthday toast?”, you might be asking. Total crap. It was all about her. It was all about her opinion, her ‘anthropology’ what she was going to do about it, her, her, her. In the end, she never said what she should have said. Seven words. “I’m sorry. You are not a loser.”
Period.
That’s all she should have said. “I’m sorry. You are not a loser.”
That’s it. With those seven words, she could have made up for her actions and affirmed to Booth what he means to her. But she didn’t.
I am proud of her for seeking out the truth. I always have and always will love her hunger for the truth. And her reaction to Jared was great. But, later, when Booth confesses that he gave up his shot at glory to bail Jared out, she scolds him! Gah! Could she just once listen? “I’m sorry. You are not a loser”, she should have said.
And yes, the cake at the end was sweet, and Booth’s last line broke my heart, and Brennan should count herself lucky that Booth is even speaking to her, she really should.
I’m being harsh on Brennan, and to be fair, it’s about 25% Booth’s fault as well. Because for all of his actions and reactions with Jared, he’s doing the same thing with Brennan. She treated him badly, and he bailed her out. Again. She never apologized, and he let it slide. Someone please tell me why? Booth is such a beautiful person, and…actually, that’s it. He’s a beautiful person. And so is Brennan. I just wish she would have told him the truth.
Well. I have so much more I could say, but I’m out of space.
Next week I’ll be back with the regular format, but this week…this week, I wrote from the heart. And that’s not a crime.
Seeleybaby is GMMR’s resident BONES expert. She’ll be following the show all season for us, and we couldn’t be more excited to have Booth and Brennan (ok especially Booth) well covered this year!
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Definitely my favorite episode of the season- I’ve already watched it twice and I’ll probably watch it a few more times. And I agree with you about Angela and Hodgins- they are driving me crazy. I wish they would have gotten married when they were suppose to. But I’m not sure I can agree with you about Brennan’s birthday speech being crap-I think her speech was a semi-apology for doubting him. But I do wish she would have apologized to Booth more directly- he deserved at least that much. I was also trying to remember if this was the first real “fight” they’ve had- I can’t think of any other time- but maybe I’m blanking.
And can I just say that the promo for next weeks episode was great
My feelings for Brennan are even more negative than yours.
She had 2, or is it 3, years of first hand observation of Booth and should know his strengths and weaknesses. Yet she knows Jared for a few hours at most and believes his assessment of Booth immediately.
And she doesn’t even figure out she is wrong. Cam and Sweets have to tell her she is wrong and she only believes them when Jared’s behavior at the bar confirms it.
Apologizing after the fact really means very little, even if it had been more of a complete apology. Booth is supposed to be a friend, he has stood by her not only during physical danger but major family upheavals and she can only view him as not a loser if it is proven to her once again? To coin a phrase, “With friends like that who needs enemies.”
You are right that Booth is an enabler of the failures of those he cares for.
first off, my dvr cut off when they were outside together so i’m not sure what i missed in the ending as well as the promo.
bad bad brennan. but bad booth too. he should have been up front with her about letting another department take credit because his little brother, once again, goofed up and big brother booth had to fix the problem. brennan knows him well enough by now as to the kind of person booth is so she’s getting a scolding from me too. a private apology instead of at the bar was called for from brennan.
what about booth-lite kissing brennan and booth being annoyed that brennan was late to work the next day? brennan is open enough about that kind of stuff, but do you think she told booth?
however, i think this is all part of setting up for their eventual getting together. conflict conflict conflict, realization that they should be together, etc.
booth needs a hug.
See, I was really angry with Brennan this episode, but I was satisfied with her toast as an apology. She’s never been good at apologizing, and it is a huge fault of hers, but the parts that were about her, the “I forget sometimes,” the “I’ll never be distracted again,” were the “I’m sorry,” and the parts about what a real alpha male is were, “You are not a loser.” That’s how I saw it, anyway.
That said, I’m still trying to completely wrap my head around why Brennan believed Jared so easily over the guy who has saved her life so many times and yes– maybe even more importantly– vouched for her. I think the key to it is that she didn’t care about Booth any less when she thought that he was a loser, she just saw the evidence that he was sabotaging himself, and it maybe even made her angry at him, and she had this moment of, “Why don’t you ever step up and take what you want? Why don’t you take your Rose Garden ceremonies? Why don’t you take me? You’ll save me from murderers but you won’t make yourself happy, what is the deal?”
But you’re right, even giving in to that moment, it was a betrayal– not that he’s never betrayed her, but I think this is the first time she’s betrayed him, and that’s a big deal. We’re all fallible, I guess.
here’s an attempt at explaining brennan’s being so quick to believe jared. i think this shows that she really cares about understanding booth. you’ll notice that she’s always quick to analyze any bit of information that he gives out about his private life.
thing is, in order to understand something, she needs evidence. she needs proof from a source that she deems reliable. she’s never had that before for booth, and she trusted jared as a legitimate source of evidence.
presented with the “evidence” that booth self-sabotages, she lets that override what she has come to know about booth’s psychology. this episode showed brennan struggling between her evidence-based philosophy and trusting her gut on someone who she has really gotten to know. i think her realization with the speech at the end, though slightly unsatifying, showed huge growth for her. and booth saw that.
I adored Seeley in this episode. I’ve always thought of him as one of the less developed characters in the show but after last night’s episode, I’m forced to eat my words. He was great but I disliked how he was so quick to forgive Brennan but then, I also thought Brennan was quick to forgive him for the Maggie Shilling fiasco. I was expecting a teary-eyed Brennan apologizing profusely (For me, “I’m sorry” would have been more than enough.) and then one of their guy hugs.
I, also, don’t understand why she believed Jared over what she observed over the years. I felt it was extremely impetuous on her part. She’s supposed to be rational and whatnot. It might have something to do with how little information Booth has offered her about himself. He’s really big on her sharing things about her family but we never see him opening up. As a result, Brennan takes whatever information she can get – and it happens to be in the form of Jared. That still doesn’t excuse what she did though. On his birthday, no less!
Giving her the benefit of doubt, we all make foolish mistakes sometimes and let our impulses shroud what we know is right. I suppose that’s too much of a stretch though.
Angela has been incredible this season. I didn’t think I could love her more and this season has proved me wrong. I love her interaction with Sweets but I also think the Hodgins/Cam stuff is sort of blase and boring.
Thanks Maura! That explanation helps me a lot. Because I was just terribly ugh at Brennan last night, though her shove of Jared was particularly awesome!
But I do have something to say about this portion: “she needs proof from a source that she deems reliable. she’s never had that before for booth”. What about Cam? Cam has known Booth for several years, knows his family, has worked with Brennan for awhile and should be seen as a reliable source.
I loved this episode, and I loved both Booth and Brennan in it. I think the reason that Brennan was so quick to believe Booth’s brother was because Booth is very closed off as far as the history/reasoning behind his decisions. As viewer, we get more information than Brennan has, and I still couldn’t tell you where a lot of his motivations arise. She has the ‘evidence’ of a lot of his actions, and therefore the goodness of his character (which she never doubted in this episode). But the only other information she has is scattered at best. So when someone who should know a lot about him (his brother) comes along and says something that makes sense as to the reasoning behind the results that she has seen, she (being so eager to learn about him) accepts it to be true. Selflessness is often misinterpreted as weakness, so it is an easy trap to fall into. And she showed how disappointed she was with her violent reaction when she learned the truth from Cam.
Anyway, her apology (admitting that anthropology got it wrong!) was stellar, and a public mea culpa. And, knowing that Booth had stopped talking to Cam after she confronted him about his brother, she still took the risk to talk to him about it. I think she knows the unique position she holds in his life.
I hope they give this “story of Booth” angle as much play as the “story of Brennan” we got previously. Any romance aside, I love their friendship, and the more they know about each other, the better that friendship will get.
Oh, I’m so glad all of you commented! I thought for sure you all would diss me. I’ve had almost an entire day to think about it. And i think I stand by my feelings for the most part. Maybe ‘total crap’ was a bit harsh re: her speech, but I still wish she’d answered his question on whether or not she thought he was a loser.
Well I started writing a comment way back when there were only two and then had to jet to finish something unexpectedly and now that I’ve had all day to think about it as well, I still don’t agree about the bad apology at all.
I was actually annoyed with Booth fishing for her to tell him whether or not she thought he was a looser. Frankly I think he should have told Brennan what he did when she confronted him. He usually does exactly what Jared said he does about not rocking the boat and doing what’s expected all the time. Sure they have an excellent work relationship, but it’s not like they just hang out to hang out and Both never talks about his family, so if Brennan has never seen him do anything outside of that then why wouldn’t she believe what Jared told her. Anything that she has really ever seen has been in relation to a case or when her life was threatened. Right now the only thing that I can think off that was not on the legal up and up is letting Russ visit his girlfriend’s daughter in the hospital and since he got to bring him in anyways it was still related to the overall case.
I think it makes sense that since she does thought that Booth deserved credit for the RICO case that she would question why he didn’t get any since it’s all he had apparently been talking about. She likes to understand why things happen the way they do and when Booth shut her down without really answering she accepted what Jared had said about him not taking chances. Booth knows that if she will consider all the information before making a final decision and he withheld his reason for doing what he did from Brennan. All the info she had was what she’s seen and what Jared told her so Both basically forced her conclusion.
After Sweets and Cam confronted Brennan she went for more evidence as any scientist would do and found out that Jared was wrong in regards to why Booth does some of the things he does. Also, I don’t think Cam and Brennan talk about Booth normally in any way that does not involve work. Brennan always refers to him as her partner and is not really concerned with discussing other aspects of his life, and Cam usually tries to keep things professional so I don’t think that they would have ever talked about it before. Plus their discussion did make Brennan go confront Jared about why Booth didn’t get any credit so she was willing to consider more evidence about the situation even after what Jared said.
I think her apology was totally in character for her. Brennan holds such a belief in science and Anthropology that for her to say that it’s wrong is huge. She always puts things into anthro terms. I’ll grant you that she maybe could have also said “I’m sorry” privately, but I didn’t really think it needed to be said out loud.
I think the Hodgins/Angela/Clark scene was cute but I hope they don’t drag out a will they/won’t they storyline.
Ducking for cover now 😛
I too was angry with Brennan at the end of the episode especially when she should have immediately denied thinking that he was a loser, he’s with her all the way and we never doubt that, do we? I think that is the angriest we’ve ever seen him at her and I found myself not breathing during that exchange. Part of me understands why she didn’t apologize to Booth, it probably didn’t occur to her to do so. Yes, the character is growing but there’s a reason they say ‘That you always hurt the ones you love’, she probably assumed that Booth knew she didn’t see him that way and that what he was really upset about was the RICO case. I also agree that her speech was out-of-character but I appreciated her acknowleding that he’s the quiet man who is always there – calling him invisible was a little low…
DB was friggin’ fantastic in this episode, every once in awhile they let him do things in a small way, like in The Girl in the Gator, and it has a huge impact – much more than him being the goofy cop and I personally hope to see more of these controlled but powerful performances over the rest of the season. I can’t wait for his storyline to unfold!
Few things:
– not enough Sweets this episode (but I never can get enough)
– Angela and Hodgins have totally lost my interest
– I don’t hate Cam right now – that is subject to change
– The last line of the night and its delivery just about broke my heart
and the promo for next week??? Whew (sigh) If the woman doesn’t get a clue soon, I vote we get Booth a girlfriend 🙂
Ah, Jenn…no worries. I’m glad you said what you did, and you bring up good points. The main problem with me is that I just love Booth too much. So I got a little defensive on his behalf haha. But you are right that from the outset, Brennan’s not 100% to blame, as Booth was secretive, etc.
and hey smurfs! uh, yeah, next week? who knew Booth had a thing for sexy librarians!
Raise the roof for my girl Cam!!
First off:
1. Jared tells Bren he bets Booth never had the guts to kiss her. She heartily agrees. The GOOD thing about this is that she didn’t find the notion apalling or too far out of the realm of belief. She didn’t say, “Oh, we’re just partners, there’s a line, blah, blah…”….she said, “Nope.”…almost as if she WANTS it to happen, but knows Booth won’t take the risk.
2. How much did we love Cam? Huh? HUH? Yeah…..after her little talk with Booth (concerning himself with Bren’s curfew), she reminded him that he had said that he didn’t mind that Bren and Jared go out together, and gave that little eye roll. She knows! I mean, we all assumed that all the squints know, but she OFFICIALLY knows! Not only that, but she basically told Booth she knows in that conversation! It’s spilling out folks….
3. Angela thinking that sex with Booth’s brother wouldn’t be right…good. Thank goodness. And made sure Brennan knew it too. Again, Cam was in on that convo. Thank you.
4. Why the hell does everyone see this guy and automatically assume that it’s Booth’s brother??? I don’t get it.
5. Outside the interrogation room, Booth yelling at Brennan with that look on his face..that LOOK!…..Let’s just say that Brennan’s lucky I wasn’t there for that one. We would have totally scrapped.
6. Brennan’s intervention with Cam and Sweets. Again…Cam…WOOT! Well, they tried anyway. I love this: “I like him very much.” Yeah, well, cut it out!” Cam in this motherly role, taking care of everyone. I knew she had it in her.
7. Brennan shoving Jared off that stool ALMOST makes up for the fact that she doubted Booth so quickly and so fully. I mean, really….this is a guy that plucked you out of sand. NOT a loser, and she should have NEVER doubted that.
8. The whole shootout at the end was just insane. I was like, “Whoa, wait…what – hold on!” But the image of Bren grabbing Booth’s gun out of it’s holster….incredibly hot.
9. Booth shouldn’t have to shine a light on himself. Brennan should be shining it on him.
10. I really thought after that piss-poor speech that she was taking him outside for a little kiss. Silly me.
11. Clark….growing on me. So weird. First Daisy, now Clark. I actually found him quite enjoyable.
12. Poor Booth. Lost the Ricco credit, brother is ungrateful, no birthday kiss….and he has to SHARE that piece of cake. *sigh*
[…] renege on some of my original accusations (and if you want the full force, you can check them out here). But I will stay true to this thought, and that is that Brennan should have apologized to Booth […]