BONES: Hart Hanson and Stephen Nathan Tease Pelant’s Return, New Squintern, A Familiar Return and More

Need more BONES spoilers? Sure you do!

Thankfully, BONES executive producers Hart Hanson and Stephen Nathan talked with reporters on a conference call today to talk about the return of Pelant, undercover episodes, family returns, and much more…

Pelant is coming back!

When I spoke with Hanson and Nathan a few months ago, they teased that Pelant would return in January, and sure enough, they’re sticking with that plan.

“The Pelant story will reappear in January,” Nathan teased. “Pelant is always going to be hanging over their heads in all the episodes, but he comes back in earnest — we’re actually shooting the episode now — and it will air in January.”

“It’s one of the biggest episodes we’ve ever shot,” Hanson added. “We’re starting to talk about what our season-ender will look like, and [Pelant] may or may not be a part of that.”

Regardless of where or when Pelant pops up after his January stint, he’s not going to be far from the minds of the Jeffersonian team.

“Pelant is not going anywhere,” Nathan said. “They know he’s still there, they know his threat exists. That’s a cloud that hangs over the entire season. I guess in a way, our people have their own version of PTSD. They’ve all been completely changed by this war with Pelant, and that won’t go away easily.”

The season is going to get a little bit tougher for Brennan.

While Brennan has been through a lot over the run of the series, an upcoming episode is going to put her in a rougher spot than normal.

“We have an episode coming up where Brennan has a near-death experience,” Nathan teased. “And that causes her to reevaluate her life and see things a little bit differently.”

Perhaps that episode will be the equivalent to season 6’s “The Doctor in the Photo”?

Sweets is sticking around with Booth and Brennan for a bit.

I teased a bit about Sweets’ time with Booth and Brennan in my preview post, and while on the call, Hanson confirmed Sweets will be sticking around for a bit.

“It started out as something we were going to play out through one episode,” Hanson noted. “When he busted up with Daisy, he let her have the apartment. So he’s been kind of a bit of a nomad since then. So they say, ‘Come on in, you can stay with us for a few days.’ And we were going to do that for one episode, but it was just too much fun. And if Stephen and I have one fault — out of many — if something’s fun, we’re going to stick there for a little while.”

Nathan specifically found Sweets and Brennan’s differing takes on psychology particularly fun to play with.

“It’s so rich because you have Sweets who’s a psychologist [and] Brennan who disdains psychology, now in a house together where Brennan can use psychology against her guest,” Nathan laughed. “She keeps reading his books that he leaves in the bathroom and comes out armed with all this new information which drives him insane.”

And while Carla Gallo (Daisy) had previously shared she was due to film another episode of BONES, Hanson reiterated that despite the “Swaisy” breakup, Daisy still had a place on the show.

“We have no plans to lose Daisy,” Hanson said.

Roller derby, ballroom dancing, undercover, oh my!

As we’ve previously teased, an upcoming episode of BONES features a death at a ballroom competition, and according to Nathan and Hanson, it’s an hour fans should be looking forward to.

“It’s terrific,” Nathan said. “We have [SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE’s] Mary Murphy and Tyce Diorio in it. It’s a lot of fun. Our undercover episodes are sort of gifts to the hardcore fans where we all get goofy. It’s sort of like doing shots every time someone says something — that’s what our undercover episodes are. We just have a good time. David [Boreanaz (Booth)] and Emily [Deschanel (Brennan)] just love doing them. And this one is no exception. It’s a murder at a ballroom dancing competition, and we find out in this that Booth actually taught ballroom dance when he was in college to make money. He thought he was doing that; Sweets points out he was probably just a gigolo for old women. We have that from Booth’s standpoint, and from Brennan’s standpoint, because of her phenomenal knowledge of kinesthesiology and anatomy, she believes as long as she can look at someone dance, she can replicate that exactly. And I can just tell you, that’s not true.”

Which, yes, means you should expect to see a good deal of dancing from B&B.

“I watched David Boreanaz learn how to rumba in five minutes,” Hanson marveled. “He’s gifted. He’s a physically gifted guy.”

A little bit down the road — and after a vague tweet about roller derby — Nathan teased fans should expect an episode set in that arena later in the season.

“There’s murder at a roller derby team,” Nathan said. “It’s just another world we’re entering into that we’ve never been in before.”

And it turns out, one of our own has a little experience in the field: “Angela has a little bit of experience in this area,” Hanson teased.

“Angela has been rollerskating a lot more than anybody knew,” Nathan added. “So she is helping out in a case in a way that she wouldn’t normally otherwise. This is somebody who has been a little frustrated with her job, somebody who…is living her life a little too safely lately, and she wants to break out a little bit. So getting slammed into a wall in roller derby seemed like a good way to let that happen for her.”

But don’t worry, BONES fans: Michaela Conlin (Angela) isn’t going anywhere.

“We have no plans to move Michaela off the show,” Hanson stated. “This is [Angela’s] season to start to think that her life was meant to be bigger than recreating crimes and living a life of murder. She’s feeling antsy, but I’m very speedy to say we have no plans to diminish Michaela’s involvement in the show.”

Family time.

Hanson and Nathan have long wanted to introduce some more family of our core characters, and when I asked whether we’d be seeing any new faces this season, the answer was affirmative…kind of.

“We’re actually going to see someone we don’t expect to see; a family member of Brennan’s we would never expect to see,” Nathan teased. “We’re prepping that episode now. We will be seeing other family members. We haven’t worked those episodes out, we’re in the process of working those episodes out. But hopefully we can deal with Booth’s mother this season.”

Given how much of Brennan’s family history is a question mark, I questioned whether this was someone we’ve seen in the past, and Nathan’s answer was only slightly more clear: “We saw her in passing in the past.”

You know what that means, BONES fans? If you don’t have any ideas, you might need to go back and rewatch the old seasons. (Just write it off as research!)

A new squintern (may) be coming.

“We’re developing another intern now as well, and that script is being written, so we’ll have to see how that turns out,” Nathan said. “But we definitely do want to add another face on the show. And we also have some people who we haven’t seen in a while we want to bring back, too.”

Aside from creative reasons

“The pilot season’s coming up, and the normal squinterns, we always have scheduling issues around pilot season with them,” Hanson noted. “So it behooves us to have one more in our quiver.”

Brennan is going to indulge in a little competitive parenting.

While baby Christine is clearly adorable, it seems Brennan may be a little unhappy with how her daughter is progressing academically.

“We’re doing [an episode] now where Brennan is a little concerned [Christine] isn’t developing quickly enough,” Nathan previews. “But it’s not a serious concern. It’s Brennan being competitive with other parents.”

“Brennan wants her baby to be a genius, genius, genius baby,” Hanson explained. “[Christine] may take after Booth.”

But in case you were worried there was real case for concern, you shouldn’t be. Brennan’s agitation “revolves around [Christine’s] ability to enjoy peek-a-boo, so you can tell it’s not that intense,” Nathan noted.

Dream reunion?

Have you been dreaming of a BUFFY/ANGEL or FREAKS AND GEEKS reunion on BONES? Turns out, the idea has crossed the mind of the BONES writers.

“Stuck up on our walls are things like, ‘What if we got back a bunch of the FREAKS AND GEEKS [actors] to come [on]? What if we got the BUFFY people to come? What if we got a bunch of the ANGEL people to come?'” Hanson teased. “We just haven’t done that yet. It’s in the bin, on the wall, but it just hasn’t happened yet.”

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BONES returns Monday, November 5th at 8 PM on Fox.

Related:

BONES: ‘The Method in the Madness’ and ‘Patriot in Purgatory’ You Ask, I Answer
BONES: ‘The Patriot in Purgatory’ Photo Preview
BONES: ‘The Method in the Madness’ Photo Preview – Including Sweets Staying at Booth and Brennan’s Home!

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