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1[[WMG: How can someone that unaware of her own emotions write novels?]]
2* I guess it's possible, as TV!Brennan is more inspired by Kathy Reichs than Book!Brennan, but c'mon. How is that going to be convincing fiction?
3* Still, a novelist should at least be capable of writing realistic dialogue, while Brennan is often shown to be incapable of any thing other than SpockSpeak, and is thrown by common expressions.
4** It also seems just outright bizarre that an accomplished writer seems to have basically 0 familiarity with pop culture?
5** Well, she at least had help with the sex scenes, who knows, maybe she had some help with the dialog as well.
6* Could be a case of TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes.
7** Seems likely. She is intelligent, but you wouldn't guess it if you didn't already know.
8* Or maybe the readers in the show's 'verse really like dry, emotionless stories about anthropology.
9** This troper has read some of Kathy Reichs' works, and while it's not really dry or emotionless, the character writing definitely takes a backseat to the science and mystery. It could be that TV!Brennan's books are meant to be similar.
10* Tolkien was writing a work about his own language-geekdom. Sometimes people are at their best when they are just left alone.
11* Despite the obvious flanderization, reality is unrealistic. If Brennan is based on Reich, this is obviously at least somewhat realistic. More than that though, writing dialog is far easier than understanding people talking to you. When you write dialog you ''know'' what the other character is implying, you don't have to work it out. Brennan is quite capable of understanding everything she misses, she just doesn't pick up the social cues that let her know its actually happening.
12** I can vouch - I is pretty sucky at all things social in 'real time'. But is aware enough to be able to pick up those same missed cues and what have you when reading, writing, and other instances where time is not an issue.
13** On the one hand, Brennan's lack of emotional awareness goes well beyond missing cues. Even when she has he cues explained to her, she still often doesn't understand the emotion underlying them. On the other hand, she wouldn't be the first bestselling novelist who couldn't write actual characters.
14*** On the other, other hand, this is steadily becoming more true, and wasn't really that true at all in early seasons. Fanon has decided, probably rightly, that Brennan is subconsciously shaping herself to be what Booth expects.
15*** To put it another way, you don't need to feel like a serial killer to 'figure out' or understand why they do what they do. You may not feel the anger or loneliness that someone feels in order to kill or understand how someone can allow that emotion to make them do stupid things though you may understand why they they did those things from a rational standpoint. In short, 'I know why people do bad things but I do not understand how they can do evil things'. And conversely, for positive emotions.
16*** Actually, at one point she says she understands killers better than mothers, so maybe she could write that kind of book... plus apparently the sex scenes are very, very hot.
17*** More broadly, there exists in reality things like psychopathy and Aspergers, among other things, that can inhibit or outright prevent empathy and emotion. Psychopaths (of which about one percent of people are) can generally fit right in because while they're pretty bad at emotion (if any), they're 'just good enough' to get by in most situations. They learn how to mimic other people and outwardly show emotion. While the idea of someone not really understanding emotion is odd to most people, it's not some realm of fantasy.
18* Judging by the writing Brennan reads out in "The End in the Beginning", she can understand and use metaphors and literary language.
19* Maybe her books just aren't that good? Bound with literal red tape? Ugh.
20* Amazingly this was finally addressed in the show. Angela is basically Brennan's Unofficial Editor and she's the one that comes up with the good characterization and the really hot sex scenes.
21** Some of which she bases on her own experiences. Notably, Hodgins recognizes his own "handiwork" in the latest book.
22* A lot of this is also a relatively recent development in Bones. Back at the start of season one she was much more normal.
23** In "The Woman in the Garden," she clearly relates to and understands the struggle of the immigrant woman she's translating for, and emotionally pleads with Booth not to make her scare that woman by threatening to take her baby away if she doesn't talk to them.
24* What I find kind of funny is that there's all this talk of "How could someone who's so focused on their own concept of rationality and cutting out emotion write novels?", when so many of the rest of the questions on this page boil down to "How come these emotional characters aren't behaving in ways I consider rational?"
25* The episode "The Shot in the Dark" suggests that Brennan's cold, emotionless behavior is largely an affect, which her mother urged her to adopt to avoid being hurt by people to whom she connected too much. Brennan wasn't always like this--she admits on multiple occasions that she was always aloof and distant, but her extremely rational and distant personality appears to have been a protective response to the life she was thrust into after her parents' disappearance (an "impervious substance," as she describes it). Everyone seems to be aware that Brennan has constructed serious walls around herself. And so it's wrong to suggest that Brennan just flat-out doesn't understand emotions at all, particularly not if she's been consciously suppressing them for her entire adult life.
26
27[[WMG:If they invoke the NoBisexuals trope with Angela, it will be ''very'' annoying. They did it to [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Willow]], let's hope this show is better at it.]]
28* Sucks to be you.
29** Oh wait, you meant... okay, it doesn't suck to be you
30* Wasn't there an episode a few seasons back when Zack and Hodgins are fighting over who a hot deliverywoman would go out with, and she chose Angela?
31** Now that the TNT reruns have rolled back to season one, the hints about Angela being bi are [[ChekhovsGun clearly sprinkled liberally]].
32** Remember the FBI Chick that Hodgins found hot? She agreed. She's bi.
33** "Hints" that she's bi? After she broke off her engagement with Hodgins, she hooked back up with her college ''girlfriend'' long enough to want to move in together.
34
35[[WMG:Despite the fact that Bones is a best-selling author, and has been on television more than once, someone thinks having her undercover at a circus is even a remotely workable idea. Riiiight.]]
36* Yeah, something tells me that those guys don't read much.
37* Even if you've appeared in TV more than once, most people might not recognize you.
38* [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/your/extra/lynda_laplante.shtml Like this woman]]. Not only a best-selling author, but a producer of several TV series.
39* Look at people like J.K. Rowling. She wrote one of the biggest selling book series ever and even though I'm a fan of the books I wouldn't recognize her unless she told me her name. About the only author I would probably recognize straightaway is Spider Robinson.
40* WigDressAccent, people. Only she doesn't use the accent. Much. And in television, that's enough.
41* What does Kathy Reichs look like? Describe her without looking it up.
42* TruthinTelevision. TBH , there are people who wouldn't recognize the current vice-president of it's own country (even though indeed watch a lot of TV , especially the news channel.)
43
44[[WMG:This show has got to be one of the most anti-intellectual shows on television. No one, ''no one'' on this show with an education is either needlessly rude and abrasive or sad]]
45* Even Sweets is turning down the same path all the other Docs have gone down.
46** Angela's doing okay. Except for being a knucklehead with Hodgins.
47*** Angela's not a science type, though. Not that I can understand what the hell the original poster is trying to say here.
48*** Angela is actually hell of a science type, it is just heavily understated. From all the work she does, it is obvious that she is genius programmer and must have an extensive knowledge of forensics and physics.
49*** I think they meant to say "everyone", but I'm just guessing. That said, I personally wouldn't class Cam as any of the above, and in any case I just don't think a show in which most of the main cast and one of the leads are scientists--who regularly use their smarts to solve crimes and catch killers--can be said to be anti-intellectual. There ''is'' some TVGenius stuff going on here, but the "intellectual" characters aren't cast as antagonists.
50*** While not entirely anti-intellectual, the show does have a tendency to put 'traditional' values much much higher than anything else. In a recent episode for instance Bones talks about being a single mother via artificial insemination. -Everyone- that isn't Bones or the intern objects and -everyone- feels that Booth has to be a 'real' father by having sex and what not. The other single mother in the episode is shown poorly. Similarly, while Sweets is suppose to be comic relief, more often the 'joke' is that psychology is a bogus science rather than Sweets himself being funny or trying unconventional psychology. This sort of thing has happened in many episodes where Bones unconventional ideas are put more negatively than everyone else's values - and that she only 'gets it' and 'becomes a better person' by accepting traditional values. Similarly, non-traditional characters in the show are shown has worse, inferior (morally, intellectually, ethically), or just mischaracterized and heavily stereotyped such as the heavy metal bands, goths, roleplayers, ren fairs, and so forth. In other instances, divorce is always shown as preventable (which it is) but the solution to them usually is simply 'being strong' rather than actually working through the problems. Likewise, the fact that Booth is a divorced father is rarely brought up and when it is, it is -always- as a 'he is being responsible'... differently than any single mother divorcee.
51*** In their defense (with regards to the heavy metal, role players etc.), that's basically how every show ever depicts any group not in the mainstream. Not that this justifies it, but Bones certainly isn't the only one doing it.
52*** Booth isn't divorced. He was never married to Rebecca.
53*** The cast objected to Bones being a single mother (well, it's more like open-mouthed shock) because a) it's a decision that comes very literally out of nowhere and b) anyone who's spoken to Bones for five minutes is probably going to have misgivings about her parental abilities. Likewise, anyone who knows Booth is likely to work out that he isn't going to be ''able'' to just provide the sperm for his partner's kid and then not get involved, even if it's what she wants; he's just not built that way. Skepticism about these two people making these decisions was totally warranted; it doesn't necessarily transfer over to ''all'' such situations.
54*** What's more, the main objection as I read it isn't to Bones being a single mother, but rather to the idea that Booth would be happy to not be a part of his child's life. Bones expected him to be, no one else agreed.
55*** And whatever happened to Brennan not wanting children? In The Bodies in the Book, didn't she say that, due to the nature of her work - which takes her to crime scenes, mass graves in third world countries, and archaeological sites often in harsh climates - it would be irresponsible for her to have a child at this point in her career? (Or has she just given up on ever going out of the country again because of how, seemingly every single time she's tried in the last three seasons, the trip has been derailed by an FBI investigation?)
56*** Brennan's decision to have children makes absolute sense given Brennan's character. She made it clear in earlier episodes that she didn't want children (in '''The Woman in the Car''' she outright tells the TV interviewer "I'm not going to have children.") She then gathers several seasons worth of additional data on the issue and makes a rational decision that refusing to pass her genetics on to a child is selfish. Note that, unlike everyone else that knows her, Brennan doesn't think that she would be a ''bad'' mother, just that having children isn't part of her life plan.
57*** Brennan decided to be with Booth, and this meant that she could have been able to continue her professional life, leaving her daughter with her partner/husband, especially that she doesn't seem to have problems with leaving her child in creches, day cares and similar institutions.
58** I'm with the OP here. The geniuses might be the good guys, but it's pretty clear that the writers think higher education and social skills are mutually exclusive.
59*** No, they think genius-level intelligence - not higher education - and social skills are mutually exclusive.
60*** You know, having rewatched quite a few episodes, it seems more like Social Skills Do Not Exist. Almost no one they meet is ever convincingly polite or friendly.
61*** Angela springs to mind, as does the random guard from "The Doctor in the Photo".
62*** I'm with the OP as well. When you look at other shows where "science is crime-solving magic" (CSI, Criminal Minds) there is usually a wide variety of personalities on the team and even the nerdiest ones are still emphathetic and have basic social skills, even if they are kind of akward at times. For example, on Criminal Minds, every cast member is brilliant and most of them have had nerdy moments. In that group we have nerdy Reid and Gideon, smooth ladies' man Morgan, stoic family man Hotch, charismatic if distant Rossi (who replaced Gideon), tough and principaled Prentiss, motherly small-town girl JJ, and quirky, vivacious, flirty Garcia. And even Reid and Gideon are far more empathetic than most of the Bones cast, and Reid is awkward but at least tries not to be. I could illustrate the point with CSI:NY (the one I'm most familiar with) and probably CSI: Las Vegas as well. On Bones, however, most of the "sciency" characters have three personality traits; smart, and varying degrees of awkward and insensitive.
63* I completely disagree with the OP. They don't have 'no social skills', most of them have some social issues or quirks, but they're generally quite rational. Bones can be insensitive, but rarely intentionally, and she can also be sensitive and kind. She just has difficulty responding. Booth doesn't even deserve mention, he's really quite normal. Angela is very kind and sweet too, and empathizes well. She even struggles with her job at the Jeffersonian because she can't deal with the death and sadness (A Boy in the Bush). Hodgins, of course, has some quirks (conspiracy theories) and some anger management problems, but he gets over them, and turns out to be an interesting character and a great father. Zack, too, clearly has social issues (implied to be Aspberger's Syndrome) but even he empathizes (A Boy in the Bush, when he can barely work on the remains because they're so small). In the same episode, Brennan tells him it never gets easier, but he should try to 'put his heart in a box'. They clearly all care, they just deal with it differently, and especially in the case with Aspberger's Syndrome, his struggles with metaphor and normal interaction are perfectly acceptable.
64** It seems that the Bones is actually the only character that visibly merges abrasive character with high education level. Angela is extremely skilled socially, Hodgins knows how to fit in any situation and he is way more mischievious than arrogant, Fisher, Bray and Vaziri are obviously smooth talkers, same applies to Abernathy to some extent. Prior to Sweets' arrival, Camille doubled as a heart of the team. Wick wants to emulate Bones, but again, she is also level-headed and averagely emotional (to the point of being overenthusiastic initially). And Edison, although somewhat bossy at work, is shown to be completely laid-back guy who just wants to maintain the aura of professionalism at work. Even Wells is shown to be an InsufferableGenius, so it leaves only him and Brennan when it comes to showing little to no social skills. And remember that idiosyncrasies of main characters are necessary, as 'Bones' is basically a comedy show, not a serious, sombre procedural.
65* Later seasons have so totally torpedoed this. Sweets is pretty much part of the heart of the team, Bones learns more psychology and finds herself respecting it more, Sweets pulls some ''Series/CriminalMinds'' magic at times, and all of them have developed emotionally and it's been explained that all of them do their best to cut themselves off emotionally due to their line of work.
66
67[[WMG:The way they handled the explosives to scuttle the ship in the last episode with the Gravedigger REALLY bugs me.]]
68Let me count the ways:
69* 1. The explosives would have been placed against the hull, meaning the Booth would have had no access to them.
70* 2. These were 'professionally placed' demolition charges, not something the criminal rigged up, meaning that they weren't booby-trapped. HE COULD HAVE JUST PULLED THE WIRES OUT OF THE BRICKS OF EXPLOSIVES!
71* 2A. OR DISCONNECTED THE RECEIVER!
72* 3. Using WAY too much explosive to get through the bulkhead. Technically the ghost/hallucination did that, but that just raises further questions.
73* 4. The way the ship explodes at the end. What. The HELL. SCUTTLING DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!
74Also, earlier in the episode when the Gravedigger blows up the... plinth? with the suitcase of evidence on it, they don't even TRY to recover it.
75I'd say that whole episode bugs me, but seeing the way the Gravedigger gets served at the end (and beaned by Bones) leaves me with a fuzzy feeling inside.
76** That's your biggest issue with the episode? Really? Not the fact that, despite the Ghost being a hallucination, multiple parts required two people to pull off?
77*** Unless Booth also hallucinated ''the presence of those multiple parts'', and was actually just stumbling around at random when he thought he and Parker were cooperating?
78** The Ghost isn't a hallucination, or its a shared one, as it says hello to Brennan and she responds at the end of the episode.
79*** Or Brennan really interacted with some random passerby, and Booth hallucinated that the person ''looked like'' Parker.
80** Not poking around the plinth may have been self-preservation. If the Gravedigger'd already left one bomb there, the possibility that the perp might have double-rigged the plinth, and/or could be watching the site through a sniper rifle, surely occurred to them too.
81
82[[WMG: For a bunch of geniuses, they sure get thrown the IdiotBall a lot.]]
83* Examples: Not knowing that tetrodotoxin is used in "zombification" in Haiti, taking forever to realize a "black knight" could be wearing chain-mail rather than plate armor (and in the same episode, Bones forgetting to get the Black Knight's license plate).
84** What gets me is when they get handed the IdiotBall just to create some commercial break drama. Bones, queen of all science, doesn't recognize bioluminescent bacteria? In another episode, Bones wonders aloud, puzzled: "How could a person have two sexes?" After the commercial break, she's haughtily explaining to us plebeians that the victim was transsexual.
85*** This could actually be done on purpose to engage the viewers who would most likely know this and thus can feel like they solved a crime before the series' protagonists did this. It is a common technique in crime fiction, and in case of forensic show it sometimes drifts into the IdiotBall territory.
86*** I can offer some justifications for the above, She was just in a car accident when she fought the black knight, she didn't have any time to record anything. The commercial breaks can be her pondering to herself or the others then recalling aftewards (still annoying though)
87
88[[WMG: The whole "kei doctor" thing.]]
89* Firstly, it'd be ''visual'' kei. Secondly, did none of them stop to think that GEE, maybe this doctor was a transman or transwoman? And that futzing around over "ooh, is that a boy or a girl? A boy or a girl?" might be really offensive? I got the feeling they were trying to establish them as genderqueer, but didn't plain know ''how''. That whole subplot just felt so skeezily badly handled. Even for a crime show. Why does their sex even matter? I can see maybe Booth being a little weirded out, but the way the entire lab joined in seemed ridiculous.
90** Reality is unrealistic.
91*** It's a little easier to accept from people who don't have their anthropological interest hat on.
92** Given that Brennan can sex a half-denuded human skull at a glance, and diagnose a spinal condition by watching a young girl take a bow, why couldn't she deduce the doctor's gender from facial and jaw proportions, finger lengths, hip rotation while walking, etc?
93*** Brennan, at least as far as I remember, did not say anything in regards to Dr. Tanaka's sex. It was everyone else who was curious and unable to let it lie. Maybe they would have managed to answer it without Angela's 'hug' at the end if they had just asked Brennan. Likewise, it was probably meant to show culture clash - in Japan, it is accepted and no one would ask such a thing. In America, we want to know everyone's business and have a difficult time with leaving private matters private.
94** GEE specifically did not identify with either gender, which is why GEE avoided all questions regarding gender.
95*** Sweets from what I remember tried to tell the others but they didn't listen.
96* I think it might have more to do with cultural differences than anything. For many Americans, interfering with someone else’s gender is, for some reason, normal. Remember Pat from SNL? Also, Americans tend to be pretty ethnocentric, so while it is offensive, I didn’t find it at all surprising that they would be so curious about Dr. Tanaka’s gender. Plus, considering Brennan’s tendency to immerse herself in and accept other cultures as an anthropologist, it’s also not surprising that she was so accepting of Dr. Tanaka’s gender.
97* This episode made me seriously dislike all the characters involved, to be honest. I was thinking they'd end it on a "wow, this is actually incredibly rude of us to be prying into something so personal in a stranger's life, we have seen the error of our ways and will be better people from now on" sort of note. Instead, they go with "Well, I'm just so darn curious I will invade the stranger's personal space to sneakily figure out which set of genitalia they possess, and now that everybody thinks that there is a dick in those pants, we can handily dismiss their chosen identity because them having what we think is a penis means that we think they are "a dude!" and there is nothing wrong with this at all." Also, the whole episode reeked of racism. I was not comfortable at all with the fetishization of Japan, anime masks and feudal warnings and the constant emphasis on "honour" or the oh-so-exotic Japanese belief systems of incense and kami. This show just doesn't handle subcultures very well, whenever they pop up.
98* I got the impression that they were attempting to examine ValuesDissonance from both sides in this episode, but didn't exactly hit the target. The characters didn't seem to learn that focusing on Tanaka's gender was as culturally insensitive as Tanaka referring to Angela as "your half Chinese woman" was to them.
99
100[[WMG: You can tell someone's nationality from their skeleton how again?]]
101* Teeth Fillings mostly.
102* Did they ever look at those?
103** The Norwegian authorities were able to ship Mayhem and his cross back to the US because they recognized his dental work as American.
104*** At a glance? Didn't realize that doctor was a dentist.
105* Yes? You can also trace particulates that are absorbed into the bone, which I seem to recall is how they actually solved that one. It's a real scientific practice.
106* Not to mention that basic race (Caucasoid, mongoloid, negroid) is a snap to determine with only basic forensic anthropological training (sometimes without even the skull), and a really GOOD FA can narrow ethnic groups down to sometimes-absurd degrees of specificity without even having to resort to destructive analysis on a chemical level. Throw in mass spec and DNA and you can pretty much tell exactly who they are and where they came from. (Heck, a female pubic symphisis will tell you, from the skeleton, if they've had a vaginal childbirth and how many.) Race, age, sex, it all goes to the bone.
107* To the above troper: there is no way to tell biological race from bone structure or in fact biologically in any way. Perhaps where or how that person was living at the time of their death but not Caucasoid, negroid or mongoloid mostly because race in those terms really does not exist. It's one of the things that most annoys me about this show. You cannot tell race biologically at all, only culturally, as it is nearly completely socially constructed. Race does not in any way go down to the bone, it just barely gets through the skin.
108** You are mistaking a 19th century concept of race that is used again today ('cultural race') with biological use of this word. In biology 'race' is a supergroup that basically divides the whole humanity into three basic types that can be easily identified due to differences in body structure, and several less distinct groups that can be differentiated due to less obvious but still discernible traits. The problem is that social sciences use ambiguous terminology what is exacerbated by lack of discipline in common use of terminology. Biological race, ethnicity, culture of origin and cultural identification are things that may or may not be completely unrelated in a particular case.
109*** Facial features, such as protuberant noses in Europeans or squared-off cheekbones in natives of the Arctic, certainly do have a basis in underlying skull features. Racial ''self-identification'' is a social construct, but every human being on the planet does, indeed, inherit distinguishing biological traits from one or more ethnic groups. Why else would hereditary ailments like Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, or sickle cell anemia be associated with specific ethnicities?
110* At this point I think its worth pointing out that, for all the obsession with "science" by this show, it's largely obsessed with the use of bone science by non-medical practitioners (Cam is actually the only person qualified to conduct these investigations). I've heard Brennan say the word "phrenology" at least once, and even barring that, the entire underlying practice of forensic anthropology is more pseudoscientific than Brennan's long derided psychology.
111* I remember hearing Angela say multiple times that she is making a guess when adding racial muscle structures and skin tones. In reality she would probably make a series of sketches for each possible race but TV relies on conciseness so we only get the final, sketch close enough to be identified.
112* One thing to be wary of is mixing up nationality, ethnicity, and cultural identity. An Asian-American who grew up among Italians for instance in the middle of Nebraska will have many different markers but some things may not show up at all.
113* They also look at the chemicals, minerals, and vitamins in the bones to find out where the victim is from. That, plus bone structure, could tell you if someone were, for instance, an Asian person who spent a considerable amount of time in Utah or something.
114
115[[WMG: Why is Hodgins scared of Angela's dad?]]
116* Seriously....sure, Angela's dad is made of awesome, and sure he's pretty scary, but Hodgins could afford to hire most small police forces with his freaking pocket change!
117** I likes to see it as a combination of Mr. Montenegro's Papa Bear tendencies, his ability to unnerve people, and the fact that Hodge doesn't want to piss Angela off by taking legal action of any sort against her dad...
118*** Angela's dad is not named "Mr. Montenegro", his name is Billy Gibbons.
119*** Actually, they never give his name and specifically avoid naming him. Probably because they want people to think he's a ''fictional'' musician from Texas with a long beard who has the same guitar (Pearly Gates) as Billy Gibbons.
120*** Angela's dad might not be Billy Gibbons but he's not Mr. Montenegro either. Montenegro is the last name Angela gave herself (along with the first name Angela) on her 18th birthday, because the name came to her in a dream.
121** Assuming Mr. Angela's Dad is who he appears to be (Billy Gibbons), then he could hire his own private army to combat Hodgins'. ZZ Top's still doing quite well for themselves.
122*** He is Billy Gibbons (in-universe) just a fictionalized version of the real-world Billy Gibbons. Like Wil Wheaton on ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''.
123* Sweets is also scared of him, partially because of some sort of Texas voodoo devil pact.
124** Sweets was making a ShoutOut to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd60nI4sa9A Crossroads by Robert Johnson]].
125* Hodgins and Sweets are both very puerile (well, the latter is very young) and insecure, so it stands to reason that they seem to be intimidated by extremely self-conscious older man. It is also possible that Angela's Dad is a great judge of character and after a glance knew what will seem scary to Hodgins and Sweets. He is shown to have a great, if unorthodox, sense of humour.
126
127[[WMG: The Portrayal of Britain in "The Yanks in the UK"]]
128* Even though I've never been closer to Britain that watching BBC America, I was somewhat offended by the ridiculously stereotypical portrayal of England in that episode. Partly because it was {{Flanderization}} of an entire country, but mostly because of the ViewersAreMorons attitude that the producers would have to have in order to assume that people would take that portrayal seriously.
129** Painful, painful, to me, an English-Canadian, but also a little bit hilarious. There came a point - it could easily have been the point at which the Welsh Oxford undergrad ate jellied eels because... No. Ugh. - where I figures that it must be a very clever satire of American views of England and that it ought not be taken seriously. My favorite was the elderly patrician woman telling B&B that her grandson had sex with the victim. If the writers had ever met an actual English patrician, they would know that anyone who talked like that would be thrown out of the "palace" (no comment) so fast they wouldn't know what hit them.
130*** And the butler? Hilarious. My grandfather is a peer, and the idea of a hereditary butler following him around and taking the fall for him ''killing'' someone is completely ludicrous.
131*** Also, is it really THAT hard to get a decent cup of coffee in the UK? I speak from an Australian perspective (where sitting down for a cuppa serves a similar cultural place to Britain and where coffee abounds). I don't know about when the episode aired, but a quick Google search turns up an [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/12033580/Mapped-the-spread-of-coffee-shops-across-the-UK.html article]] showing that in December 2015 there were over 5,000 coffee shops in the UK.
132*** It actually might be, as water differs regionally in the UK and this does affect the taste of hot drinks. It may not be that the coffee's bad, so much as it just tastes 'wrong' to an American for no truly discernible reason.
133** I always laugh when people from other countries (or just Europhile Americans) gripe about the portrayal of European countries in American stuff, because if Americans do anything but nod exuberantly in agreement to inaccurate/insulting portrayals of America we're regarded as fussy nationalistic idiots.
134
135[[WMG: Who played the Gormogon?]]
136* This has been bugging me for ages - the Gormogon made a full appearance in the last episode of Season 3, but went uncredited. Granted, he had no dialogue, and some actors can opt to not be credited in a given production (or have the decision made for them by their agencies), but come on! We saw the guy's face! It'd be nice if we knew who actually played the guy!
137** He was played by Laurence Todd Rosenthal.
138
139[[WMG: Bones isn't a very good anthropologist.]]
140She's a fantastic forensic scientist, but you'd think somebody who knows that much textbook anthropology would realize that in order for the science to work, people have to actually ''believe'' in the framework of their society. And yet she still insists on treating anyone she disagrees with as if they have some interest in learning how the world "really" works from her.
141** Mmm. I think if you consider the first season as a completely different show to the third season and beyond, with the second season as a sort of transition period, it makes more sense. (I know that sounds ridiculous.) First season, apart from some rather sharp sarcasm and a bit of ignorance of pop culture, Brennan is pretty much a regular person, and a good anthropologist. As we progressed, she became less and less like herself. Who knows why?
142*** Well ComicBook/SecretInvasion ''was'' just starting up around the time of the second season....
143She is a ''horrible'' anthropologist, as she seems to have zero understanding of human beings at all. What kind of anthropologist can't understand why people are grieving ''at a funeral''? She's [[InformedAttribute so incompetent at understanding human behavior that at this point it's just laughable]].
144*** This actually portrays her as really not that bright as she thinks she is. Sure, she can bring up trivia and use her vast knowledge when necessary, but she also seems to extremely slow thinker when she needs to make associations between the not so obvious facts. These traits are more common for people who predominantly teach rather than perform actual research.
145* Brennan is a '''Forensic''' Anthropologist, a subfield of physical anthropology and osteology that is solely concerned with the study of the human skeleton as pertaining to legal and criminal purposes or the elucidation of human evolutionary development. Anthropology is one of those subject with a such a wide preview that the term is practically meaningless (then again, when you define your subject matter as simply "humanity"...). Anthropology is actually composed of 4 more or less distinct branches: physical, archeological, cultural, and linguistic, each with its own level of scientific "hardness". Doing physical anthropology (the hardest branch) does not require one to believe in ''any'' of the preconceptions of the "softer" branches of anthropology (and it can be argued that cultural and linguistic anthropology is edging into humanities territory). And is would be perfectly in character for Brennan to look down on her cultural or linguistic brethens for their perceived lack in scientific rigor.
146** From what I know, the way anthropology studies are structured in the United States is that there are common general anthropology studies at first, and later on students specialize in one of the four fields mentioned above. Coupled with a mention in one episode how Brennan aced all her exams, she would need to have a good grasp on the "soft" side of anthropology as well.
147*** Brennan probably knows the soft anthropologies very well, but she mostly uses that knowledge to mock them more intelligently. Brennan seems to be a fan of ethnography (considering her constant reference to the behaviour of obscure tribespeople), the qualitative description of foreign cultures, which is part of cultural anthropology, but is mostly involved in data collection, and even when she invokes ethnography, she generally refrain from making value statements.
148
149[[WMG: The holograms]]
150* Here's a show with supposedly a modern-day real-world setting and they have absurdly futuristic holograms that everyone just accepts. Okay. But not only do these holograms defy all modern projection technology, but they are also capable of generating lifelike CGI figures and creating unique, fluid animations for them in real time on command.
151** I just resign this to a HandWave called Alternate Reality. Their reality has the Jeffersonian and better holographic technology.
152** It's actually possible, in fact I've seen a couple of "future tech" type shows that have demonstrated that sort of holographic tech already exists, even if it's far too expensive and impractical at this point. (I can't remember what the shows were called though).
153
154[[WMG: Is it a spoof show in part?]]
155Am I the only one who can't take it seriously? It seems to have a heavy satiric tone clinging to it. It actually makes me feel uncomfortable, because I cannot figure it out.
156* Serious-ish. It doesn't take itself extremely seriously, [[RuleOfDrama just enough to preserve the drama]].
157* Ever watch Film/EvilDead2? Is it a horror movie? Is it a comedy? It's both! Bones is what is called a dramedy. Not to the same level as ''Series/{{Psych}}'', but pretty close.
158
159[[WMG: How is it that nobody has called Dr. Brennan on her default hate of psychology?]]
160** A scientist who (correctly) recognizes pseudo-science for what it is? In its current state, the field of psychology is NOT A SCIENCE!
161*** Yes, psychology is a very soft science at the moment, but this troper (and assumedly OP) is more peeved about her dismissing it for that reason alone, when compared to Brennan's own work it has an equal or better track record of uncovering evidence in the cases.
162*** There's an irony to saying this when there's more pseudo-scientific garbage floated by Brennan's field of work we see Sweets ever propose in an episode. Profiling can be somewhat nonsensical voodoo, but that's got nothing on the stuff we see in basically every episode of Bones.
163* There's an entire cast of intelligent, fairly perceptive people, none of whom have ever brought up the fact that when Dr. Sweets proposes a psychological solution to the problem of the week, he's usually correct. Yet Dr. Brennan continues to dismiss psychology as a pseudo-science. Then she says she's being rational.
164* Sweets did call her on it once. When one of his predictions (which of several suspects was the killer) proved true, she asked him how he'd known. He refused to tell her, saying that she'd just refuse to believe it anyhow.
165** This has pretty much becoming a running gag by season six.
166* I always found it pretty weird that an anthropologist would hate psychology so much for being a “pseudo-science.” Her forensic work is very much hard science, but anthropology is maybe not as soft a science as psychology, but it seems to me that at the very least, there is a strong connection between the two. She understands the gender roles of some obscure aboriginal tribe, but doesn’t acknowledge that gender roles in her own society might have a role in a murder? How is anthropology not just large-scale archetypal psychology?
167
168** To answer the question, there's a lot of crossover, but the main difference (in grossly simplified terms) is that while psychology is primarily concerned with the individual, applying general trends with some tweaking for individual circumstance, anthropology primarily works at the level of societies, and is very, very careful about generalising between cases. Anthropologists may draw analogies or point out similarities between cases ("Oh, this group does things this way, which is very similar to that group, even though they're in totally different physical environments!"), but that's about as far it'd go most of the time, since the ideal is that each society is measured and examined on its own basis.
169* It's probably boils down to InterdisciplinaryRivalry between anthropology and psychology (and Booth is a macho man who takes Brennan's side)
170* And with character development, yet another headscratcher bites the dust.
171* It should also be noted that Brennan is a forensic scientist and her work is focused on providing an irrefutable evidence in court. Sweets' psychological knowledge, although useful in the process of apprehension of a criminal, carry much less weight in court, what only contributes to Brennan's condescending view of this field.
172** Brennan isn't actually a forensic scientist (most forensic evidence is pseudoscientific garbage anyways but thats neither here nor there). If we really want to examine the scientific validity of things, in any one bones episode we can see: Identifying race via skeletons (at most anthropologists claim this is an approximation, but the actual notion of ethnic bone science is largely pseudoscientific garbage), making improbably precise determinations as to what sorts of motions caused fractures, and an absurd amount of leaning on bone evidence and rarely ever relying on the actual medical evidence Cam could be bringing.
173
174[[WMG: What the hell was up with that subplot involving Cam's sister]]
175* In "Intern in the Incinerator" Cam pretty much guilts Booth into pretending to still be her boyfriend to impress her father. Cam's sister kisses Booth just to piss off Cam. When Booth reveals this to Cam, Cam is only mad at her sister, with Booth trying to referee things between them. When Cam's sister reveals she only made out with Booth to piss off Cam, Booth is a little pissed off about this and when he tries to call her out on this they both flip out on him and walk off into the sunset. And this is played for laughs.
176** TheUnfairSex.
177
178[[WMG: Anybody else disturbed by playing the severe depression of one of the interns for laughs?]]
179* Personally I was very uncomfortable when they seemed to be joking around about the guy being in the hospital due to sleeping 20 hours a day and constantly alluding to suicide, having dealt with severe depression and suicidal ideation for years myself.
180* To an extent but as the intern mentioned, he never tried to kill himself. Depression, yes, is serious. Depression in this one particular instance maybe not so bad.
181** This troper, who suffers from a depression roughly as severe as the character depicted, finds the character portrayal largely realistic, and is optimistic that someone with severe depression can hold a job in a respected field. The character is predominant enough and realistic enough to give viewers who have never had to experience this enough information to know what people with a mental health disability go through. It had to be played for laughs, or it would be way to serious. (Note: the character alluded to suicide, but never actually tried co commit it.)
182* Also, 'Bones' is largely comedy based on black humour occasionally sliding to pure gallows humour. Using disease or psychological disorders for laughs is only to be expected. It should also be noted that it is never made clear when Fisher speaks seriously and when he uses his gloomy persona just to mess with his coworkers.
183
184[[WMG: Anybody else annoyed in "The Bones That Weren't" when Booth says at the end, something like, "When a woman kills a man, there's -always- more than just money" or some such and suggests the victim and murderer had a sexual relationship?]]
185* It came across as... wrong. That women only kill out of sex or love. That they can't be greedy or just nasty or whatever. :/
186** Booth has been wrong before.
187* Most murders are about Sex/Love, Revenge, or Money. No matter the gender.
188
189[[WMG: "The Doctor in the Photo". The victim is suppose to represent Bones... but they note, quite bluntly and often, things like the victim being alone, socially inept, etc etc etc.]]
190 While ostensibly true, the comparison is a poor one. Because we've -seen- Bones being quite social and while single with no kids, has many friends and romantic/sexual encounters. So the victim could have been like this as well and/or the comparison and implication is flat out silly. More so because Bones -knows- that while she may not have a family per say in a traditional sense, she most certainly has one in any other definition of the word.
191* You realize that this is pointed out by every person in the episode, repeatedly, except by Brennan herself, right?
192* Brennan doesn't have a family, she has a cadre of close friends. There is a difference. The season five finale/premier was pretty much made of showing this. It also showed that Brennan really doesn't value any of these relationships anyways, or at least only thinks of them in selfish terms. She gets to leave for a year and just figures everyone will wait for her. But why should they? On a whim she might decide not to come back because of another offer. Life moves on. Booth coming back with a lady illustrates it quite well also, even if we did all know that relationship would be axed to get back to the UST.
193* The similarities were better than people seem to want to give credit for as well. The victim wasn't socially inept, she had a man who'd have loved to have been with her but she couldn't be assed to cared (Booth, by comparison, even with Hannah). She had plenty of colleagues who knew her fairly well (Dead on). The idea was that she represented where Brennan was heading. She's been getting more and more withdrawn as the series goes, which this ep seems to show was at least intentional this season. Yeah, she wasn't just like the victim in every way. YET.
194** Indeed, the whole way she solved the "murder" was that they were similar enough. She saw what she could become in time, and deduced what she would do in that given circumstance. People don't just start out as withdrawn as Brennan. This case was supposed to be a warning to her.
195** Utterly unrelated to the discussion of the episode at large, but... how did they get the ENTIRE TREE intact into the lab?
196
197[[WMG: Booth ditches Angela and Hodgins' announcement of her pregnancy to have sex with Hannah]]
198I found this incredibly out of character and just plain jerk-ish. Granted, everyone knew what was happening, but it still meant a lot to Hodgins to have all his friends there and Booth just blew it off for sex. All together now; WhatTheHellHero?
199** Hodgins is a bro; he wouldn't stand in the way of Booth getting some.
200
201[[WMG: Booth has no problem poking fun at Voodoo or Wicca, but when Bones uses logic and facts to point out that some things Booth believes may not be accurate, he gets pissed off.]]
202* Um, you ''do'' know this happens in real life too, right?
203** Yeah, it bugs me in real life, too.
204*** Oh no, characters are behaving realistically, next they'll be eating and using the bathroom!
205* Booth is the standard well-meaning jock. He's your average American, Christian, somewhat conservative and very easily confused by big words or new concepts, but he means well.
206* To put it this way , people never really treat their own believes and other's believe at the same level of respect.
207(Booth poking fun at Voodoo , because he don't believe it (it against his believe) , not because he is using logic and facts to think about it. And when his believes being challenged , he of course not going to be using reasoning and logic.)
208
209[[WMG: The way Booth consistently condemns alternative lifestyles and how Bones always eventually agrees with him.]]
210I can think of two episodes right off the bat: the pony play/BDSM one, and the recent polygamy one. Bones tries to correct his biases and misconceptions, but always agrees with him in the end that these people are weird and should stick to the social norm. On a related note, I'd like to see episodes like the two mentioned where the alternative lifestyles ''wasn't'' what got the victim killed. [[UnfortunateImplications Just saying.]]
211* At the risk of sounding un-PC, most of the time relationships like those DON'T fare well long term. You won't find many polygamists in western worlds with relationships that stand the test of time. There are many examples of it outside the western world, but those societies have much more misogynistic tendencies, to put it lightly.
212** YOU won't find many polygamists or BDSM practitioners at all, including the ones in long-term relationships, because most of them are in the closet and only tell people that they trust to be accepting what their relationships are really like. It's similar to how social censure kept a lot of gays from being open about their orientation even with their friends and family.
213** Speak for yourself, OP, this troper has many friends who are polyamorous and kinky.
214* I'd like to see a show that has a variety of murder scenarios instead of a white male killing another white male for white male reasons. Seriously, the show is about tracking murders, but as soon as people try to spice things up a bit in the motive department to keep it from being stale as hell there is a problem. Booth believes in monogamy. Angela doesn't. It's called character traits, and different ones for everyone make for watchable tv.
215* Also, The polygamy episode served to give a nice hotbed of other suspects. The father was supposed to be the twist.
216** There's also the fact that Booth, the lapsed catholic with a child out of wedlock, really isnt in any position to condemn anyone elses lifestyles as "immoral". But of course, since he's the straight, white everyman, he gets to always be right.
217*** Bones does point out that his out-of-wedlock child is probably very morally conflicting for him in an episode in season 1.
218*** [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy I'll just be on the veranda, since you're already on the cross.]]
219* It should be noted that Booth does not ''condemn'' other lifestyles, he simply sees his way of life as more 'proper'. This has the same attitude when it comes to his belief in state institutions and is usually at loggerheads with much more antiestablishmentary Hodgins on this subject. He considers members of many subcultures aberrant but does not treat them as worse or undesirable, what is pretty much consistent with his Catholic upbringing.
220
221[[WMG: How insensitive the team is to Lance Sweets in The Bullet in the Brain.]]
222Seriously? Lance gets covered in blood, brains and bones after [[spoiler:the Gravedigger gets sniped at her final appeal hearing]]and is obviously traumatised after the event. Booth just dismisses his behaviour since the [[spoiler:shooting]] as Sweets being "off his game", while Hodgins is too busy enthusing about how he feels to give the man time to think. I know the team aren't the most emotionally tuned of people, but come ON. [[spoiler:If it takes Caroline to make someone feel better, the guys are seriously lacking behind in the social skills department.]]
223* I think they are all insensitive to Dr. Sweets very often, dropping by his office without an appointment, dismissing psychology as a 'soft' science', not calling him "Doctor" Sweets, to name just a few examples.
224* I didn’t find them all that insensitive to him, they were all clearly worried about him but he kept insisting that he was fine so they decided not to push.
225
226[[WMG: The graft in The Graft in the Girl.]]
227If the bone was so degraded that it was immediately obvious even to J. Random Viewer on an x-ray, how the heck did it slip by the doctors and surgeons in charge of actually putting it in? Did they just not ''look'' at it or something? Seriously.
228
229[[WMG: Isn't the message of needing role models in "The Body and The Bounty" undercut by placing Bones in such a ridiculous costume?]]
230* She doesn't look like a real scientist to a kid; she looks like a lady in a funny suit. She could've easily done it without dressing up like a member of [[Film/TheKarateKid1984 Cobra Kai]] mixed with [[WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory DeeDee]].
231* It didn't make sense to me, either. She comes out in a weird costume and dances around a little bit... end of episode. They couldn't at least have given her a few lines where she starts talking about what she does?
232* Actually, it made sense to this troper - judging from the audience, most of the children appeared to be around the age of six to ten - a time when presenters can and do dress up on children's shows. Look at the set - zany, strange things appear to be the norm for the show. Besides - how well do you think Brennan would cope well without some sort of character on a show like that?
233* Possibly Brennan's appearance on the kid's show didn't end with the end of the episode itself. More likely, the in-universe show cut to a commercial, then resumed so that Brennan could actually teach the kids about her job ... possibly describing the excavation of ''livestock'' remains, not human, to avoid being too morbid for the age group.
234
235[[WMG: What denomination was the church in ''The Devil in the Details'' (with the horned body on the church altar) meant to be?]]
236It looked very Catholic (the church, the vestments) and Booth implied but didn't seem to outright state that it was a Catholic church like his at the beginning of the episode, but the pastor was called a pastor and he insisted that Satan and his minions were the sole direct cause of all evil. Catholicism doesn't have pastors, and they have a firm stance that while Satan is a huge influence, individual, mortal people are a huge source of the world's human evil. Was it a case of ChristianityIsCatholic? Was it supposed to be Catholic and they made a mistake (I would think Booth's actor would have noticed and corrected them)? Or was it some other denomination, or no identified denomination at all?
237* Catholic churches do have pastors. He would be the head priest of a parish.
238* Brennan states quite clearly at the beginning when she's bragging about her fancy voice-activated GPS that it's a Roman Catholic Church. I suspect they just didn't do the research.
239* Anglican maybe? Also, there are some splinter national Catholic denominations that reject the authority of the pope and while preserving basic tenets and rituals, may differ slightly in details of the rite.
240
241[[WMG: Um...how much did the writers and everyone in the show fail at basic math so badly?]]
242** OK, so Brennan's parents disappeared in 1991, when she was 15. They specifically say that was seven years ago, which would make her 22 at the end of the first season, and in 1998. These are specifically stated, yet so is the fact that she sifted through the debris at 9/11. If you follow the initial math, that would also make Brennan younger than Zach. Ironically, this would all work out if they hadn't said specific time spans in The Woman In Limbo. Why is subtraction so hard?
243*** Having just watched that episode: they said that the bones were found in 1998 and were then at the Jeffersonian for 5 years. I can't remember if they said there was any time in between them being found and being sent to the Jeffersonian.
244* It is specifically said that Brennan's Mom died in 1993 and disappeared two years earlier. Fifteen year back from 1991 would be 1976. Making Bones 25 on 9/11. The average age of graduate students.
245
246[[WMG: Booth and his sex life.]]
247Let me just quote the trope page where the issue is pointed out nicely.
248"...He also has an illegitimate son, from an old girlfriend. This is all made more surprising by the fact that Booth is frequently depicted as a very serious Catholic; while it's certainly not uncommon for Catholics to fall short of or ignore the Church's prohibition on sex outside of marriage, it never seems to even occur to Booth that there might be a problem, probably because the writers couldn't conceive of a "tough guy" character actually having a problem with sex... hence the trope. "
249So, yes. It's just such a blatant example of manly man=sex, regardless of whether or not it would contradict with the basic tenets of his faith. Do we even see him comment on it?
250* He comments on it a few times, mentioning that he ''wanted'' to marry the girlfriend. And he would very much like to have some legal standing in his son's life. But the girlfriend really, really didn't want to get married, and he can't force her to.
251** It's not so much the fact that he has an illegitimate son as it is that he has no qualms whatsoever (apparently) about having sex with women outside of wedlock, and that the religious implications of this are pretty much ignored. Basically, they explained really well why he didn't marry her after getting her pregnant, but not why he randomly ignores the whole 'no sleeping with someone unless you're married to them' them.
252** This "no legal standing" thing is also something of a headscratcher. Unless Booth specifically signed away legal rights, he does have legal standing in his son's life. He might have to go to court to get them, depending on how much Parker's mother wanted to make an issue of it, but he still has paternal rights and obligations (including visitation & paying child support). Granted, this troper is not a lawyer; [[http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/04/us/kansas-sperm-donation but vaguely remembers U.S. court case where a state required a sperm donor to pay child support, because the couple he donated to went through Craig's list and the donor ended up not legally giving up his paternal rights or responsibilities.]]
253* Not the most relevant thing in the world, but I think it's worth mentioning Booth is not necessarily the world's most devout Catholic. As he says in one episode, in reference to the story 'Abraham Tested' in the Bible, he would never kill Parker if God asked.
254** Moreover, Booth presumably did penance for his out-of-wedlock relations before the series began. If he's been absolved of his sin and put it behind him, he shouldn't ''need'' to mope about it all the time, now.
255** Also of note, not every Catholic follows every tenet of the Catholic Church, or necessarily believes in every one of the church's teachings. The Bible also says not to lie; Booth lies.
256* I'm sure Bones would gladly point out how Booth is just a perfect example of how impossible it is to completely follow any faith in the modern world, without isolating yourself from the modern world.
257
258[[WMG: How exactly did Brennan get to be so completely out of touch?]]
259This is, I suppose, somewhat related to previous {{Wild Mass Guessing}}s. I can forgive and understand someone being a pop culture idiot. I can understand someone having a strong interest and expertise in her work such to have limited knowledge of things outside of it. What confuses me is how someone gets to be so...out there...that she can barely comprehend everyday figures of speech, or is confused by perfectly acceptable or expected behaviors. Are we ever told ''how'' or ''why'' Brennan is like this?
260** Asperger's has been said to be a possiblity, but never confirmed.
261*** Brennan is way to emotional to even think she could have an Asperger Syndrome. If anyone shows any signs of AS, it would be Zack.
262*** People with Asperger Syndrome have emotions.
263** On a similar front, what annoys me most about Brennan is that she will talk about people like they couldn't hear her, like she's an announcer in a Nature Documenterty or something. She and Angela are at an African-American nightclub and she talks loudly about the "tribal" aspects. Fine, OK, she doesn't see that that could sound offensive - but why does she talk about it while they're in the same room, not five feet from the people she's talking about? A similar thing happens in "The Maggots in the Meatbag" - in order to intimidate a Guido she "throws the crab" but sumultaneously she '''talks about it''' calmly to Booth as if the Guido she's trying to intimidate won't hear. Does she not realize that doing stuff like that completely destroys whatever message she's trying to send to the Guido?
264*** Double plus, everywhere she goes she acts like she's a visitor to a PlanetOfHats. '''All''' Guidos do this. '''All''' Paraguayans do that. She should know better.
265*** Brennan is out of touch because she WANTS to be. One thing that has always been consistent about Brennan is that she has her own view of the world that in her opinion is logical and expects everybody to adhere to that view while dismissing anyone who points out that her views are ridiculous. She just outright doesn't ''care'' about pop culture nor if anybody takes offense at what she says, and she's the last to admit when she's wrong. In short, Brennan is far too arrogant a person to recognize her own flaws.
266
267[[WMG: Booth and Brennan are a couple now]]
268* Gah...RealLifeWritesThePlot what with Emily Deschanel being pregnant and all...but they just start living together and sleeping together on a '''regular basis''' because, in a fit of drunken lust, they had sex and made a baby.
269** This troper isn't too sure about the "drunken lust" part, since it's implied it's more of "comforting" each other after [[spoiler: Vincent Nigel-Murray is killed]], but seems slightly OOC (at least to this troper) for Booth to not stop or hold back when Brennan is very clearly emotionally vulnerable. With six years of them dancing around each other, it seems that the writers fast forwarded past some growing pains in their relationship. (Not that this troper wasn't jumping up and down now that they're together, but still...)
270** Also, maybe Sweets was right when he said that all they needed was a physical trigger (kissing) to get their relationship moving forward, but was wrong about the level of physical contact needed. This, combined with the fact that Booth would want to be there for Brennan once she told him she was pregnant, combined to move them forward. They had to skip some of the relationship due to the fact that Emily Deschenal was very visibly pregnant at start of season 7. I expected more growing pains in their relationship, but one could argue a slow growth during the time it took for the belly to grow.
271* And they seem to live a fairly cohesive domestic life from the very start, which I find to be a little OOC for Brennan. She's shown in the past to be uncomfortable and awkward in sharing physical and emotional intimacy--one would think she would feel rather vulnerable and affronted by living with Booth, who challenges that on a daily basis just by being him. Not to mention she's just spent several years living by herself and she enjoys her privacy and her independence. Plus her social awkwardness would make the move to living with someone else probably really hard. Add to that the stress of a new baby in the house? Their home life should not be as picture-perfect as it is.
272* I disagree that Brennan has problems with physical intimacy (and even emotional intimacy). The show has shown her to have several very sexual relationships, introduced us to current boyfriends as well as exes and she is in no way prudish. She approaches sex in a very matter-of-fact way, as an appetite that needs to be satisfied like eating or sleeping. She's not as sexual a character as Angela (who is almost omnisexual) but Brennan has even had what I would identify as significant romantic relationships over her adult life with men other than Booth. Her problem is not physical intimacy but that she is inept with reading social clues or understanding human motivation and behavior, especially with strangers or subordinates.
273* The question ignores that Booth and Brennan have basically wanted to be a couple for a long time and have kept finding an excuse not to be. The baby is the first thing that is unambiguously a good excuse for them to be ''together'' rather than apart. Bones could finally justify a long-term relationship with Booth to herself in an entirely logical way ("He'll wish to be extensively involved in the child's life, as will I, living together will allow us both to do so while sharing responsibilities"). Saying they had "a fit of drunken lust" as if that were their sole emotional interaction up to that point implies either a very new viewer or someone who's worse at picking up at emotional subtext than Bones is.
274
275[[WMG: Pelant is doing all of this...how? And why?]]
276* Some of the things he's doing are frankly impossible given the conditions of his house arrest. I can accept that he's able to somehow fool his ankle bracelet and sneak around. Creating an analog computer virus from bone scratches? Out there, but still somewhat believable. But the rest of the things he does to frame Brennan? Capturing and editing together audio clips from her cell phone? Manipulating security camera footage? All ''without access'' to any technology more advanced than a clock radio? Impossible. I don't care how much of an evil genius you are. You ''can't'' do all that. Further, what is his motivation for doing all this, exactly? Just to discredit the team trying to keep him under house arrest? Originally he was set up as a sort of WellIntentionedExtremist, using a gruesome murder to bring attention to an overlooked miscarriage of justice. Now he's just another serial killer with a grudge.
277** HollywoodHacking.
278** The bone virus one is maybe the funniest of the bunch: Pelant would need to somehow carve something improbably precise into the bone, beyond any humans mental or physical capacity for precision, without access to any sort of computerized tools, and do it all blind, without any idea what software Angela's computer used, and he would basically have 1 shot at the thing. There are many, many absurd examples of HollywoodHacking, but by god, that one takes the cake.
279* Or, we could look at it like this: Dr Brennan *did* kill that guy to protect Christine (and/or Pelant just thinks she did). Pelant is trying to make sure she gets punished; but everything he does will just make him look more guilty to Booth and the squint squad, since they think he's trying to frame Dr Brennan. This will eventually back fire on him where he is actually framed for the murder, allowing Dr Brennan to return to the Jeffersoninan. If she actually did kill that guy, allowing an innocent man to be punished for her crime will later on lead to another crisis/cliff hanger for Dr Brennan at the end of season 8.
280* This whole "invent a fake Egyptian person and get released" has so many things wrong with it that it makes my head hurt. First, nationality ''simply doesn't matter'' unless the person has diplomatic immunity. And there's no way he could fake that: the embassy would have personal knowledge of their diplomats. Without that, the only thing that matters is whether the person actually did the crime on U.S. soil, regardless of that person's name or whether he is Egyptian or American. Here, we would have ''many'' people, from the Jeffersonian, the legal system, the community, the place where he voluteered, and probably his previous work and school, who could identify him and verify that he at least went by the name Pelant. There are almost certainly physical photographs and other records if they do a little digging. And there's plenty of evidence against him. If there's an issue of identity, then that's a matter for a hearing before a judge, and there is no way the judge would simply dismiss the testimony of a federal prosecutor who has personal knowledge of him. But, preposterously, they are saying there is literally nothing they can do if the Egyptian government wants him released to their country.
281** Not to mention that with many criminal cases against Pelant who suddenly turns an Egyptian, losing his old identity, both American and Egyptian intelligence would be on high alert, especially given that Middle East was so unstable back then.
282* How exactly did Pelant manage to steal [[spoiler:all of Hodgins' money?]] I mean I get the basic principle but why didn't he have insurance or just report the fraud to the FBI?
283* Pelant is the CreatorsPet. Whatever the producer and writers want him to be able to do, he can do.
284* Season 8 episode 13, how, I mean he steals huge sums of money from at least 20 different banks, steals an active military drone that is armed and has to be on a mission, does all this by preprogrammed commands to the server of a private mercenary company. It is impossible, the banks would have noticed it was not Hodgins taking the money and would have blocked the transactions, the military would have shot down the drone the moment they lost control, and you cannot access military drones from anywhere but the military's control network, so unless he can get himself onto an army base in Cali there is no way for him to access the drone.
285** Strictly speaking, the drone was the property and responsibility of a Private Military Contractor. Contrary to popular belief, most PMC's have massive freedom above and beyond even some official militaries. Pelant hacked the PMC's servers, accessed the PMC's surveillance/attack drone, and modified its program so it detected the wrong location as it's actual target, as well as modifying its systems to require a new passcode. He also used the same servers to send a second signal to drain Hodgins' accounts. It's possible that the watchers from the bank were simply not watching the variety of Cantilever accounts constantly and the timing of the incident put it squarely in their not-watching period. Similarly, if Pelant structured it properly he could make it look legit from the outside, and even if Hodgins did report the incident to the FBI, or any other government organization red tape would mean months or maybe even years before he could even begin to get the money back. Not to mention the variety of stumbling blocks in his path. As to the military shooting down the drone as soon as they lost control: they were trying. However, they had no assets close enough to strike the target (the drone) before it could deliver its alpha strike payload and they weren't in control of the drone to begin with, the PMC that owned it were in control and requested military assistance in putting the drone down before it could deliver its payload. Pay attention to dialouge: they had between one and two minutes to destroy the drone, the nearest asset was five minutes from engagement distance and the drone wasn't responding to self-destruct commands. The banks can only stop what they know about, if they weren't watching the money'd be gone before anyone checked and even if they were watching, it's possible that Pelant rigged the system so that the bank couldn't freeze the transfer. While this would simplify retrieving the money for Hodgins, it would not necessarily block the transfer itself.
286
287[[WMG: Total lack of basic scientific training from someone with three doctorates.]]
288In Season 8, episode 7. Why in the name of heaven did Hogins put his head into the pod and smell deeply? Every scientist above eight grade knows to waft any unknown substance, to avoid, you know, inhaling poison and dying!
289* [[RealityIsUnrealistic Sometimes people do things that their training and better sense tell them they ought not to do]].
290** Basically, this. Go watch ''WebVideo/WhatTheFuckIsWrongWithYou'' and you'll understand.
291
292[[WMG: ''The Passenger in the Oven''. The flag state of a vessel only matters in international airspace (or waters). They're in China as soon as they enter Chinese airspace; it's not "U.S. territory until they land"!]]
293* Unless the aircraft is classified as a diplomatic vessel, that is. But this is clearly a regular passenger craft.
294* It's almost as if fictional crime dramas occasionally bend real-world concepts and laws on occasion to make for more interesting television. Weird.
295
296[[WMG: A few inconsistencies in season 6 regarding the character Sweets]]
297* First off, at one point while talking to Daisy, she says that she likes dogs, but his response is that he's allergic.  Yet he seems to be fine in the chupacabra episode while talking to the pet psychic who is holding a Chihuahua.
298** RealityIsUnrealistic. Not all allergies are instant-onset or instantly disabling. For something like animal dander allergies, it can be perfectly okay to be briefly in contact with an animal but misery-inducing to live in a residence with one. Things like concentration and duration of exposure matter.
299*** OP here, thanks. I just rewatched "The Man in the Mud" and noticed that he said in response to April's feelings about tropical fish that he's more of a dog person, and was about to add it to the original post, but it all makes sense with your explanation. (Either that, or [[WildMassGuessing his feelings towards dogs depends on who he's dating/breaking up with at the time)]]
300** Could just be that, despite his allergy, he likes dogs better than most other pet animals. This isn't an uncommon occurance.
301*** I can entirely back this up as my mother is pretty allergic to our guinea pigs, sneezing and scratching after touching them for more than a few minutes, but lovers them a lot and would never even consider giving them up.
302* Second, in one episode, Booth makes a Star Wars reference, and Sweets says that he doesn't understand, but a few episodes later, he mentions being a huge fan of it. (plus, with that fantasy-related episode from season 4, it really doesn't seem like that much of a stretch for him to be a fan)
303** First when he confessed to being a Star Wars Fan, he was interrogation with a suspect. He could have just been trying to manipulate her. Second, It was a Star Trek costume. Third, some fans don't get every single reference in the fandom.
304*** Actually Sweet quoted Star Wars in the fantasy episode when hold the sword.
305** This troper assumed that Sweets simply didn't understand what Booth was implying, not that he didn't notice the reference.
306
307[[WMG: 5 last minutes of season 8: Booth and the Idiot Ball?]]
308* First, he gets a phone call in the park and instead of telling Bones who is it, he just lies, when there is no point in lying at that very moment. And then he just does as the caller asked ([[spoiler:refusing to marry Bones]], hurting Bones and their relationship. Couldn't he, you know, tell the truth? Given the caller ([[spoiler:Pelant]]), I get that massive precautions would have to be taken, but it's not impossible! The mind, it reels.
309* RuleOfDrama, up to eleven. It's still messed up though
310* Along this same theme: (Also, agreeing Booth could have saved a lot of hurt Brennan feelings if he'd just been honest. And if he were honest, he could enlist the help of the squints and the FBI.) Since they knew Pelant was back, why not take the paranoid level up to eleven, Fox Mulder style? If Booth hasn't already had their house swept for listening devices (or even if he had), why not do it again?
311* One, Booth is the sort of hero who will try to solve everything alone if he can. He's the only one who can legally kill Pelant without repercussions and he will not allow Brennan or the Squints to do the deed if he can help it, even though all of them would love the opportunity, because he thinks the blood should be on his hands alone. Two, the writers are hoping we'll just ignore the gigantic hole in this plotline. If the backlash on the TV review sites (and especially their comment sections) is any indication, the fans are not taking this very well. While Pelant is right about this sort of senseless self-sacrifice being in Booth's nature, it stinks of WriterOnBoard.
312* Well, it is implied that Pelant has some kind of surveillance on Booth & Brennan and would know if Booth told her what was going on. I see it as him postponing the wedding until he can sort this out, not breaking her heart. Bottom line, the writers wanted to give the payoff of the wedding proposal accepted but delay the actual event and up the stakes by placing Brennan in danger. Personally, I think they could have put off a wedding until the final season. Raising a baby together is enough of a challenge in itself to give them material to work with. A wedding is just a shipper reward and would be a great way to end the series (which should happen in another season or two).
313** As many people have stated, grab a cab, go into the wilderness, ditch the cab, then talk to Brennan. I've seen this example given at least twenty times. The only way Pelant could track Booth in UNTOUCHED FOREST is by hacking a satellite. And while the writers will probably claim he can do that, you can't get sound from a spy satellite, only images. And that's what the tree cover is for. It's all-around bad writing that they really wish we weren't smart enough to see the flaws in.
314** Or a cave, a nice, deep, abandoned cave in the middle of no where. Pop in, talk, Pop out.
315** In fairness, given Bones' BadBadActing, letting her in on the truth would probably give it away eventually.
316** Not to mention the fact that, while there are many, many ways to get a message to Brennan, it's entirely, utterly, completely in character for Booth to take all the responsibility upon himself and not involve her. He's got a bit of a MessiahComplex like that. But for the sake of fun... he could've slipped a hand-written note in a lab report to her... or my personal favorite, take Bones to the Senate or House Chamber. No electronics whatsoever are allowed so civilians or even government workers with cell phones isn't an issue, the only microphones around are C-SPAN cameras which can't possibly listen in to a conversation (especially since they're specifically placed to NOT hear the galleries), and it takes advantage of the fact they're in DC, which the writers seem to enjoy.
317** It appears the producer is only interested in melodrama and dragging the the wedding out til the series finale. Any further speculation is likely pointless. Let's just hope he allows Booth to grow a pair and call Pelant's bluff before season 9 ends.
318* Looks like they did and he finally shot the guy.
319
320[[WMG: That's being rational?]]
321* I've got a few issues with the way the word "rational" is used:
322** Going with Sully is repeatedly called the rational decision. I don't get how spending a year with a man Bones has only known a few months is rational, especially when she'd be putting her two careers (which she enjoys very much) completely on hold.
323** Sweets at one point refers to Bones as being absolutely rational, then goes on to saying that part of that is being able to rationalize any situation. That seems like the exact opposite of being rational, since it's taking an irrational decision or situation and attempting to justify it.
324*** Rational and rationalizing are very different things. Also view how often on this wiki that people use "the rational thing to do" to refer to "what I think is the smart thing for those characters to do as I sit and observe from a perfectly safe outside viewpoint". And Sweets specifically calls Brennan "hyperrational"... basically he's saying she does what she wants and then comes up with a rules-lawyering explanation for why what she did was a perfectly logical thing to do, indeed perhaps the ''only'' logical thing to do. It's something a lot of people who define themselves as rational do.
325*** An example of her rationalizing her decisions is her insistence that Booth move in with her because that is how the Iroquois functioned. Booth counter-claims that other tribes have different practices and that her example isn't relevant because they are not part of the Iroquois tribe. Sweets and Angela both recognize that it stems from her own abandonment issues and she's just using the "rational" decision as an excuse.
326*** I don't know if you're agreeing with OP or not.
327* Characters constantly use words as laymen, not caring about the precise meaning. The most common offenders are 'rational' (this word can be used only when the frame of thought is known, e.g. making sacrifices to a rain deity is completely rational if a given person actually believes that this will cause rain to fall, it is irrational in case of modern scientist or an atheist) and 'logical' (something is not logical if it lacks internal logic, not if it contradicts other statements). Also, differences between 'unfeasible', 'improbable' and 'impossible' seems to elude most of the characters, save for Zack.
328
329[[WMG: Girl trying on a wedding dress? Let's jump to a conclusion!]]
330Upon seeing Daisy trying on a wedding dress in a store and give a guy a hug, both Booth and Bones instantly reach the conclusion that she's secretly engaged to him and seeing Sweets on the side anyway. No one thinks for a second that maybe she might be engaged to Sweets, or just trying a dress on for fun. They especially consider her hugging a guy to be the final nail in the coffin... despite the fact that if she's going for a traditional wedding, then he shouldn't even be seeing her in the dress, let alone helping her try it on. They just assumed "yep, clearly secretly engaged. No other possibilities." Seems particularly out of character for Bones, for whom leaping to conclusions is the last thing she does.
331
332[[WMG: Doesn't anybody check the FBI's mail?]]
333In "The Woman In The Car", a package containing a kidnapping victim's severed finger is handed to Booth as a threat to back off searching for the kidnappers. Aren't deliveries to D.C.'s secure government buildings supposed to be X-rayed and checked for chemical/biological hazards, to ensure they're not loaded with bombs or anthrax or whatever? Somebody should've noticed there was a human finger in that box long before it reached Booth's desk.
334* It could have been hand delivered to Agent Booth.
335* Even if it was hand delivered, wouldn't it still have to go through some sort of screening? At the federal building near me, the public (at least) had to go thru a metal detector, and have their bags go thru an x-ray machine - and had to even before 9/11. Presumably, additional procedures have gone into place since then. I'm assuming it's similar at other federal buildings where the FBI would have offices.
336
337[[WMG: Does the NSA even exist in this universe? Because Pelant's antics would surely piss them off.]]
338Seriously, a super hacker who can subject the entire infrastructure of DC to his will. That has "terror threat level red" written all over it. CreatorsPet arguments aside, how has Pelant NOT made an enemy out of America's entire intelligence community?! At least S9E1 implies Booth will have [[spoiler: his CIA buddy's help]] eventually, but still, there should be an entire NSA task force trying to hunt Pelant down.
339* Well, Dr. Clark Edison revealed to Hodgins in episode 6x10 (The Body in the Bag) that he worked a summer job for the NSA. That's as far as that little tidbit of characterization ever went, though.
340* Clearly, [[Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver they were too busy looking at dick pics.]]
341
342[[WMG: Confessions, Confessions, Confessions]]
343Geez, I haven't even seen the last season of Bones, and this really bugs me. Every time Bones and Co. figure out who the murderer is, he/she breaks down, often in tears, and starts babbling about ''why'' they did it ("He was cheating on me!"). There's no reason except to explain the motive to the audience and make it clear that they won't be getting off. It apparently never occurs to them that they should shut up, ask for a lawyer, and hope to defeat the charge in court.
344* Ninety percent of the people who confess commit crimes of passion. they're ordinary people who are confronted with incontrovertible evidence that they committed murder. They want to explain, to make them understand that it was an accident or they were just angry or upset. Nine percent are people who feel their crimes are justified and think that if the FBI knows why they did it they'll understand an let them go. The other one percent are psychos who just want to brag about what they did.
345** I still call bullshit. Most people will STFU or proclaim their innocence, not braid the noose for the hangman.
346*** I vaguely remember that a lot of law enforcement personnel, if they're investigating a crime and interrogating their main suspect, they frequently try to get a confession, because that dramatically increases the odds of a conviction in the occasion when the suspect doesn't just plead guilty. So I figured that this was just the writers showing that Booth is really good at this and just sucking at it (let's face it, characterisation is not really their strong point, especially lately).
347** MANY {{Police Procedural}}s that don't focus on the trial portions end with a confession; I'm surprised we don't have a trope for it.
348*** I have this feeling we don't have a trope for it because that would mean the writeup would likely acknowledge that the reason it happens is that it makes for a more satisfying and conclusive end to an episode rather than the ambiguity and loose end of "It wasn't me!" and that this is a valid reason, and thus people would have less ground to stand on when they complained about it on every investigative show ever.
349
350[[WMG: Now that Pelant is out of the picture, will Hodgins get his money back?]]
351* I mean the guys [[spoiler:dead and buried]]. They must have all the bank accounts and things.
352** Most likely, it's just an issue of finding it and returning it to Hodgins' accounts. Might take a few weeks of digging thru all of Pelant's hiding places and encrypted accounts, but it will be done.
353** It's been several episodes and Hodgins STILL doesn't have his money back and is living off of his Hot Sauce sales and (presumably) his Jeffersonian budget. I doubt they'll really even mention it much at this point now that Pelant is dead.
354** They did mention it eventually. Angela found the money but Hodgins felt it was tainted and told her to donate it to various charities.
355
356[[WMG: Why did Brennan take Christine with her]]
357* When she was framed by [[CreatorsPet Pelant]] with doctored security cam footage, she decided to go on the run. OK, I understand that, considering that Pelant is pretty much a wizard who can do whatever he wants with computers, no matter how stupid it is, and being put in the system is a horrible idea. But why, WHY did she take her infant daughter on the run with her instead of leaving her with Booth? Did she believe that having the baby sleeping under bridges (which she admitted doing) was better than being in a safe, warm home with her loving, protective father?
358** Pelant was clearly a psychopath who was capable of anything. You don't see where she might have been scared he'd hurt Christine just to get to her? Remember, he'd already killed her friend playing his sick mind games.
359* A. She is going full "mommy bear" mode.(she is being emotional rather than rational.) B. Reasonably speaking , Booth , at that moment , was still a active FBI agent , he can't always put his eye on their daughter.(Even with the desk job suspension instead of being out in the field. It's not logical and possible for him to "take his daughter to office , and keep a eye on her" everyday and every moment. While she was on the hide/run , so it's easier for her to keep a eye on the baby by herself(and her dad) , than left it to Booth.
360
361[[WMG: Why did the US let Egypt take Pelant?]]
362* So Pelant manufactured an Egyptian citizenship from whole cloth. Fine. Computers are magic. But what's with the US letting him go? Nobody but the heroes suspected he'd pulled a fast one with his hacking powers? Besides, as far as I know we're not in the business of letting murderers just run home to their country of origin, unless maybe they're diplomats with immunity. And why did Egypt go to the mat on behalf of a psychotic murderer?
363** The point is , to Egypt official's point of view , "this man" is a innocent Egyptian citizen wrongfully arrest by FBI. And on FBI's point of view , they also don't have any solid evident to point at "this man" (anymore).(All the evident point to Pelant , who , is not "this man" according to all the still exist files) So , as a trying to avoid it became a international scandal or something. They have to let him go
364
365[[WMG: Is Cam a hypocrite?]]
366This troper is bugged by the recent episode where she basically fires Wendell, who is recovering from cancer, because he's taking medicinal marijuana as part of his chemo. While [[StrawmanHasAPoint Cam does raise a good point]], that keeping him on the case will result in any evidence being called into question during court, ''however'', a couple seasons back, when Pelant broke into Hodgins' home and threatened Angela and their son, Sweets requested Cam that she take Hodgins off the case because he is taking this too personally, and Hodgins being a victim will be a conflict of interest in court. Cam blows Sweets off. So.... wait... it's okay to keep a guy on the case, who is also a victim, but keeping a guy who is taking ''medicinal marijuana'' for chemo therapy (and not for recreational purposes), is a no-go? That doesn't make any sense.
367** That's typical of fiction though, shows that try and pretend to be realistic most of all. Things like conflict of interest are outright ignored unless the writers suddenly decide to make the characters pay attention to stuff like that. Ergo, Cam blows off Sweets about the above Pelant incident but raises hell over Wendell's medical marijuana use later. Cam looks like a hypocrite just because the writers decided to be inconsistent.
368** Remember, that Pelant's case, although serious, is only one case. Wendell's use of marijuana could endanger any case he works on. And it really doesn't matter whether use is recreational or medical, as the evidence can be challenged on the grounds that it had been obtained by a person using mind-altering drug. From legal standpoint, medical use is worse, because administration regime might be considered as chronic use. It is like any drug severely inhibiting reaction time - medicine or not, you cannot drive or operate machinery after taking it.
369** Also, Hodgins is irreplaceable-- no one can do what he does as well as he can, and with Pelant they needed the best possible team. Wendell is competent and good at his job, but he's also one of many interns. Losing Hodgins means not having a competent bug and slime guy on the case; losing Wendell just means having to call in the next intern on the rotation.
370
371[[WMG: Where were Brennan and Booth's brothers at the wedding?]]
372* Both brothers were completely absent from their only siblings' wedding, and it's not even mentioned.
373
374[[WMG: Why is Booth still pro-government?]]
375* Booth is remarkably willing, even aggressively, to excuse government actions, even though the government has turned on him on at least one occasion. Even though he, like every serviceman and federal agent, swore an oath to ''the Constitution'', not the government.
376** Booth is, in his way, very much an idealist, and he's also seen the things a government must sometimes do for the greater good. Him objecting to specific actions and being in favour of the government in general is entirely plausible.
377** It's also worth remembering that while serviceman swear an oath the Constitution at the end of the day the Constitution IS a piece of paper and what many of them are actually loyal to is in no particular order their brothers and sisters in arm, their nation both geographically and population wise and to some extent their leadership. Do we really need to go over the list of either blatantly unconstitutional things or highly questionable ones throughout history?
378
379[[WMG: Seven year internships?]]
380* Wendell, Fisher, Daisy, and Arastoo all started appearing as interns/Brennan's grad students in Season Four. They should have all ''long'' since obtained their doctorates and one assumes started working somewhere full time by now.
381** Fischer probably ends up with long breaks from his when obtaining mental health treatment. He has had enough stays in various mental facilities he begins rating them out of five. He also has conditions to his release.
382** Wendell also has issues funding his graduate studies. He may not be able to afford to get all his education done at once. And he may take leave for his cancer treatment.
383** Beyond Fisher's several stays in mental hospitals, he spent like two months sleeping 20 hours a day. That doesn't tend to lead to doing much. Wendell spent seven months between season five and season six working in a garage while Brennan was in the Muluku Islands. Daisy also had a baby while getting her doctorate and presumably took some time off. And it's mentioned in the last season that job positions in DC for forensic anthropologists are rare and few between, so many of them have stayed at the Jeffersonian.
384** This might be a somewhat bent TruthInTelevision, as they are working towards [=PHDs=]. Unlike going to medical school, where a doctoral degree is simply the result of completion of coursework, [=PHDs=] are meant for academic purposes, and require producing meaningful research as proof of your success.
385
386[[WMG: Minor quibble with the episode "The Tiger in the Tale"]]
387* The team uses a drone to inspect someone who may be trafficking animals. At one point, a camel and a zebra appear in the footage, yet Angela doesn't recognize them, and Daisy has to explain to her what they are. Like, really? Angela doesn't know what a zebra or camel are, and TheDitz has to tell her? It's such a strange moment.
388** Probably some writer going overboard with Angela's uber-quirky lol-she's-so-strange-and-delightful persona. "lol she doesn't know what a camel is who doesn't know what a camel is Angela doesn't that's who because she's quirkyyyyyyy!"
389
390[[WMG: Fisher's name]]
391* This is something that has been bothering me for a very long time now. Has Fisher's first name ever been said aloud on the show? Every online source from TV Tropes to the Bones wiki to my cable company's episode descriptions is in perfect agreement that his name is Colin, but I cannot remember him being referred to in any way other than a LastNameBasis on the show itself. When was the name Colin established? Am I missing something really obvious here?
392
393[[WMG: Why did they de-flesh Sweets?]]
394I know the show is about bones, but that seemed like overkill to me. Was there something on the bones that was needed to find his killer?
395* I remember in the last Pelant episode Cam saying about the body in the portrait not being sufficiently “degraded” for them to get the call. Unlike say in a show like CSI, they don’t get cadavers that still look like people they usually get half rotten bodies or just plain skeletons.
396* this could be applied to lots of episodes, where (presumably for budget or writing purposes, because only Cam can be doing any sort of medical examination), we end up randomly going from a mostly intact body with large portions of flesh remaining to just a pile of bones. was anything valuable on 95% of the body? good question! In this troper's uninformed view, how do more episodes not have people going "what happened to the rest of the body?"
397[[WMG: Is the biker who fails to kill the lobbyist in "The Knight on the Grid" the Gormogon or his apprentice? A man who visited the Gormogon's mentor rides a motorcycle, but the Gormogon had to have had ''some'' reason to view his apprentice as a failure and [[spoiler:kill him.]]]]
398* Gormogon was the biker and I'm fairly sure he only killed the apprentice so he could have Zack, because of the whole "there can only be two" thing.
399[[WMG: In "The Movie in the Making", which is meant to be a DocumentaryEpisode, we see Booth attending a Gambers Anonymous meeting.]]

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