BONES: Stephen Nathan Previews Cam’s Struggle Post-Identity Theft, Brennan on a Jury, Hodgins’ Family Drama, and More

Tonight is the night: BONES is finally making its Friday debut!

And it’s actually a pretty good time to be a BONES fan — not only do we get two new episodes this week, but as BONES executive producer Stephen Nathan teased on a recent conference call, there’s a lot of good stuff to come.

Take a look at what he previewed about what viewers can expect…

On tonight’s episode, which finds Brennan as part of a jury:

Brennan’s logical nature is going to make her an asset — and a maybe bit of a pain — when she finds herself on a jury in the show’s Friday debut.

“It’s something that we have kind of had in the file for years, and just finally were able to break it,” Nathan explained. “It seemed to us, somebody who is so incredibly logical and someone who would have the ability to uncover many more facts in a case [would be interesting to] be on a jury where their hands are tied, in terms of being an investigator, and they have to deal only with the information they are given. And Brennan, being supremely rational and logical, follows the judges’ instructions to the letter of the law, so that what she feels is utterly unimportant. She is only dealing with the evidence, and that gets us into a lot of trouble.”

“It is pretty funny having her around a jury, because she wants to be the foreperson, she is not the foreperson, if somebody asks a question in court, she answers,” he continued. “So, it really is Brennan going on a jury.  It really was a chance for us to integrate two murders in one story and have Brennan involved in both, even the one she is not investigating because she is on the jury.  That’s really complicated-sounding, and I just want you to know it really is complicated.  But, we hopefully do it in a way that won’t give anybody a headache.”

On Hodgins’ family secrets:

For years, the BONES writers have been teasing there is more to Hodgins’ family than viewers have been led to believe, and it seems that will finally be playing out this season.

“I actually think that might not air until February, but I could just say very briefly that Hodgins finds out some things about his family,” Nathan teased. “And he had a very close family. I mean, they were very, very wealthy, but he did have a very close family, but he is going to find out some secrets about that family that are going to be quite surprising to him.  And it is not going to be grand political secrets or anything like that. It’s going to be very, very personal.”

In the more immediate future, former GOSSIP GIRL star Kelly Rutherford will be popping up as someone else from Hodgins’ past.

“In another upcoming episode, Hodgins is somebody who is sent out into the field — something he always loves a chance to do — because there is a murder that revolves around a family that was close to his family when he was growing up,” Nathan previewed. “So, he is going into a world of wealth that he no longer enjoys.”

On the new serial killer out there:

Pelant may be dead, but before he left, he warned Brennan about a potential other serial killer out there…something that will be explored soon.

“That will be reintroduced in the episode that I was just talking about, when Hodgins goes back to an old family friend,” Nathan shared. “So, Brennan is the type of person who is not going to forget the words of warning that were given to her by Pelant, and that has been simmering for the past six episodes or so, and we will see that surface in a way that concerns Booth and the other people at the lab and is something they are all going to have to contend with, seeing how immersed and overwhelmed Brennan is by the idea of this new serial killer.”

“I think we have, in a strange way, gone in the opposite direction [with the new serial versus Pelant],” Nathan acknowledged. “We always feel that it’s best not to try to repeat ourselves.  So, Pelant was such a big bad, was such a huge presence in everybody’s life, such an enormous and personal threat, that it’s very difficult to do that again, and everybody is going to compare one to the other. So, we have another serial killer who is surfacing, one who has existed for many, many years, and who is anonymous, who we are calling, actually, the Ghost Killer…it’s a very ephemeral presence and sort of an evil that lurks in the shadows, someone whose identity we are not even sure of. When we find out the truth that many of these murders that have gone into limbo in cold cases are linked, we then have to find out really who it is. We are pointed in the direction, in the episode actually that we [just shot], that will be the first one back in January, but all that is happening is we are being pointed in a direction. And we also haven’t, let’s say, felt the end of Pelant.”

On learning more about the other supporting characters:

“We are examining a little bit more this season Cam’s life…and even the interns,” Nathan said. “We are doing quite an emotional story with Wendell coming up. So, we are going to see the sort of family of this show. Their lives hopefully become richer and a little bit deeper than they have been in the past.”

Up first will be Cam, who hasn’t exactly had the easiest year so far.

“Well, we are going to be dealing with the, for the next few episodes where we are highlighting Cam,” Nathan previewed. “We are going to be dealing with the struggle she is having with her identity theft, which also becomes an identity crisis. We are going to be dealing with that, because that is really an interesting [process]. Doing the research on that, that’s really fascinating, because most of the time the police do nothing. They can’t do anything. They don’t have the resources, and people are kind of left to fend for themselves and try to dig them out of a real horrible place. Fortunately, she has Angela. So, we will be dealing with that and eventually dealing with the person who has stolen her identity.”

The David Boreanaz-directed hour that the show is currently filming (with guest star Charlie Worsham) will also serve to shed light on Wendell.

“We are prepping that now, and it’s a terrific episode,” Nathan gushed. “[Boreanaz] is just going to kill with [directing] it.  He is simply one of our favorite directors, and this one is sort of a bit of a take on the [“Searching for Sugar Man”] documentary that was out. It’s the murder of an anonymous singer who we learn a lot more about as we uncover this case. This is also the episode in which we are going to see Wendell contend with something none of us want to contend with.”

As for the other squinterns, Nathan teased, “Clark now is going to figure in quite heavily in certainly the initial telling of the Ghost Killer story. Fisher is going to be coming back and might be hooking up with someone we know, and I think we’re really just trying to explore these characters.  We have loved writing all of them, and we kind of can’t get enough of them.”

On the return of Freddie Prinze Jr.’s Danny:

Booth’s old pal, Danny, popped up briefly in the season premiere, it seems viewers will have to wait until early next year

“Danny, we are working on [prep for] that [return] episode now,” Nathan said. “This will, again, be probably [airing] in February, and it will be an episode which sort of teams Booth and Danny in a common cause, but also causes Booth to question Danny in a way that hopefully will be very surprising.”

Any theories?

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BONES makes it Friday debut tonight at 8 PM on Fox.

Related:

BONES Moving to Fridays: Marisa and Sarah on Why This Could Actually Be a Good Thing
BONES: Country Singer Charlie Worsham to Guest Star
BONES: Sarah and Marisa Pick the Best Episodes That Have Aired in Each Time Period

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