BONES: TJ Thyne Teases Season 7

BONES is back!

After nearly six months between seasons — and with just as much time passing on-screen for the characters we know — things are a bit different on the show. Booth and Brennan’s relationship has definitely changed, Hodgins and Angela have settled in with baby Michael and everyone is still trying to adjust to Brennan’s pregnancy. Oh, and on top of those personal matters, the team will still be busy solving murders.

“I really love that we have this show that is so surrounded by death, and yet it’s nothing but light, laughter, fun and life,” BONES star TJ Thyne (Hodgins) told me. “We have babies and laughter galore. Who’d have thunk it?”

What else did he have to say about the new season, the changes in Hodgins and more? Read on…

You guys have already shot the episodes we’ll see this calendar year. How does it feel for them to finally start airing?
TJ Thyne: When we originally heard we weren’t airing until November, we were as heartbroken as the fans. We thought, “Really? We have to wait that long?” But I don’t know. There’s a part of me that is excited to see — now because I’m on Twitter a bunch and Facebook and things and it’s fun to see the countdowns and stuff. “Only X amount of days left until BONES premieres!” I find myself getting caught up and giddy as well. It’s pretty exciting. I like that we’re off on a little island ourself, premiering in November. It’ll be fun.

And you know how it goes. We shoot so many episodes back-to-back-to-back that it’s kind of excellent in that we sometimes, somehow, forget what we did, if you will. Or what order [they will air in]. And so when it starts to air, episode after episode, week after week, I sit there with my family and we watch it. My parents are out here now, my brothers and sisters, and we get together and we watch it. It’s kind of like seeing it for the first time ever, and that’s really fun for me.

You watch the show with your family? That’s so amazing.
TT: I watch it with them, but they’re hard critics! [Laughs] They’re amazingly supportive, but they’re awesome, too, because they will rip on me if they don’t believe me in something. They’re like, “I don’t buy that part!” They keep me on my toes.

I know they were with you at the Paley Center event honoring the show this past May. What did they think of “The Hole in the Heart”?
TT: They’re such huge BONES fans, it’s amazing. They love the cast so much. Ultimately, ever since I was a wee boy, these two have been incredible. They’re very, very supportive. They’re good at really schooling me if they feel like, “We see this, we see that.” They push me and challenge me. They loved that episode. They had a lot of fun at the event. That was a sad episode. That was a really intense and sad episode.

I always love that, though. I feel like our cast — there’s a lot of humor in BONES, of course, it’s very tongue-in-cheek at time and very playful, and we love that, and then every once in a while, we get these really intense, powerful scripts. And I feel like the cast members go, “Yep, this is what we signed on for.” And we leap forward to these stories, and….I don’t know. I love that. I love getting those kinds of scripts. Where you just kind of go, “Yep, this is going to be something different.” The Gravedigger episode and being buried alive. Losing Vincent — that was intense and powerful. And episodes where we get locked in together? We all get a little bit giddy and excited about that. And it’s not that we don’t love the comedy of it, because my God, we do, but it’s nice that there’s a blend on this show. There’s a mixture. It’s like some episodes we’re doing David Mamet and suddenly, the next week we’re doing Shakespearean [works]. It keeps us on our toes as actors.

Speaking of keeping you on your toes, how is it working with baby Michael? That kid is ridiculously adorable.
TT: Crazy cute, right? You have no idea. Michaela [Conlin (Angela)] and I go to set and it’s ridiculous. We are so uber excited when we know that little Noah is going to be there and we get to play with him and his brother. Those kids are just angelic. And to work with! We can only work for so long, but the entire time, they’re playful and sweet and smiling. I have a smile on my face, ear to ear, while I’m talking to you about them. I’m so excited. They’re precious, precious, precious babies and the most amazing costars.

And I think that originally, like in most television and probably movie scripts, you see babies and you think, “Oh, jeez, this is not going to happen.” Especially new babies. You can imagine there will be a lot of references to the baby and a stroller in the corner and you don’t see the baby. But these guys are so good and well-behaved and play their part so well that we can get all the reactions from them we need to, Michaela and I are so giddy over them, that they’re showing up more and more and more because we can’t help but be like, “Put them in more!”

How is it for you to play Hodgins as a father after all of these years? Obviously, he’s happy, but is it weird for you to play the changes in him?
TT: Absolutely weird, but he loves this. I don’t know, and I’ll always be curious about this, and I’ll always be poking [BONES creator] Hart [Hanson] about this — we still don’t really know Jack Hodgins’ story. We don’t really know what happened. We know his parents are dead, we know his whole family is dead, and we know he’s the sole heir of the Cantilever group, so he’s been left these billions of dollars all by himself.  I still believe his anger management issues from seasons 1 and 2 came from whatever happened to him as a kid. I also feel like some of his conspiracy theories must have come from something that happened with his family. But we don’t know any of that.

So for Jack to eventually fall in love — in mad love — and struggle for years to try and get Angela, and to finally, finally, be in a relationship with her and know that he gets to love her for the rest of his life, he’s just on cloud nine. And to think that now they have offspring together, he’s giddy. He’s going to be the perfect dad. And he’s going to mess up constantly, and Angela’s going to smack him upside the head constantly, but he’s going to do everything he does out of pure love for her and for that child. And he’d do anything for them. He’s just wildly excited by this kiddo. He’s the kind of dad, that when I go out in the world and I’m walking through a mall and stuff, you can tell those parents that have this gleeful excitement in their eyes when they’re looking at their children. And I think Jack is one of those guys. He’s the kind of guy where you go, “He’s a great dad.” He’ll mess up a lot, though, but it will always be for the right reasons.

Speaking of family, Billy Gibbons is coming back as Angela’s father. What’s he up to this time around?
TT: Billy Gibbons is, yes he is. He’s so funny. I have such a blast with him. I love Billy Gibbons coming in as Angela’s dad, because it immediately means Hodgins is in trouble. He’s going to be in hot water, it’s just going to be something that does not go over well. That man, Angela’s dad, is so difficult for Jack to deal with. [Laughs] And he’s terrified of the man. But it’s also that he thinks that he’s crazy! This guy is nuts. But he loves him because Angela loves him. Their relationship cracks me up. And Billy was great. We get to see Billy meeting little Michael for the first time and we have to go — we have a case to [work] — so we let Angela’s dad babysit. And Hodgins is oh so not comfortable with leaving the baby with Angela’s dad. Comedy ensues shortly after that.

Well, on the less comedic side, there’s a new serial killer in town. How is Hodgins dealing with their latest threat?
TT: Well, this is great. This new serial killer has got all of us on edge, because whomever the new serial killer is, they are extremely smart. And they’re challenging us.

We’ve had some challenging cases in the past, but this team of people — Dr. Brennan and Hodgins and Cam and Angela and Booth and Sweets, you get this team together, let alone with the interns — there are very few people who can get away with anything. But this particular serial killer has got us all stumped and is just possibly  — Hodgins would never admit this, but TJ is saying this — possibly smarter than our team. And that is frustrating as all hell to Hodgins. He does not like that. So all of us working together to try and get the guy… it’s going to be interesting. It’s going to be interesting as this continues, because we’re nowhere close to finding this person at this point. It’s pretty great. It’s going to be exciting to say the least.

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BONES premieres Thursday, November 3, at 9 PM on Fox. Will you be tuning in?

Related:

BONES: Hart Hanson and TJ Thyne Talk About Potential Crossovers to THE FINDER
BONES: Hart Hanson and Stephen Nathan Tease Cam’s Role in Season 7, the Status of the Bonus Hours, Plus a Tease for ‘One of the Best Episodes’
BONES: Hart Hanson Teases Season 7

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