History YMMV / Bones

* CreatorsPet: Pelant. The writers really seemed to enjoy writing him, as they used at least one AssPull just to keep him one step ahead of the Jeffersonian team.[[note]]The Pelant saga feels like it was originally going to end with "The Future in the Past", but instead the crew decided to keep him around for another season.[[/note]] Fans however got annoyed at Pelant being built up into an overpowered InvincibleVillain. He was given the role as the main antagonist of ''two'' season finales, and other characters were also very quick to call Pelant brilliant and even say that he's smarter than them. It wasn't until season 9 that his arc finally ended, and that didn't stop him from showing up posthumously over and over throughout the following arc. He even showed up in the next few landmark episodes--an honor they wouldn't extend to ''Sweets''.

*** The writers kind of realized this and joked during the Paley Center interview that they thought about giving Hart Hanson, his wife, and son a walk-on part at the end of the birth scene as the "Wisemann" family.

** [[spoiler:The Gravedigger, true identity [[KillerCop Heather Taffet]], is a dark cross between a SerialKiller and a serial kidnapper. Taffet's modus operandi is to sneak up on victims, knock them out with a custom-made stun gun, and bury them in a hidden container with 24 hours of air; either the ransom is paid, or the victims die. The Gravedigger's [[EstablishingCharacterMoment introduced]] doing this on Dr. Brennan--not because Brennan is a threat, but just because. Taffet also traps Dr. Hodgins at the same time, cutting the available air to around 12 hours, just because he witnessed the kidnapping. When reappearing, Taffet then tries to similarly bury Booth alive to destroy evidence, plus tries to kill Brennan and Booth again. Taffet also kills a private investigator with a stun gun because the former thinks that there's a chance that said investigator might find her in the future. Several of the other victims are also sought, with the cruel circumstances behind them all played up. In the end, Taffet admits to [[ForTheEvulz just enjoying killing people]] and the effects that BuriedAlive has on victims; the ransom money was immaterial]].

** It might have been interesting to have an episode where Booth and Hannah went after whoever it was that shot her over her story in the subplot of ''The Bones that Weren't''.

** For some people, the beginning of Season 7 is this for skipping past the Bones/Booth RelationshipUpgrade. After years of WillTheyOrWontThey, they become a couple off-screen during the TimeSkip, because... baby.

** Brennan is very against the idea of anything not scientific, whether it be supernatural, magic, religion, etc. ...And then they did a {{Crossover}} with ''Series/SleepyHollow'', in which the team meets a man born 200 years ago who is partnered up with a modern-day police officer. To top it all of, [[spoiler: Brennan shows a document that no one at the Jeffersonian absolutely can explain scientifically.]]

** In Sweets' first appearance in "The Secret in the Soil", Booth says, "He's just a kid. The worst thing that's ever happened to him is probably losing at Mortal Kombat." One season later, in "Mayhem on a Cross", Sweets is revealed to have had an abusive childhood, something Booth and Bones both relate to.

** Sweets wears a ''Franchise/StarTrek'' red shirt costume to a sci-fi/fantasy convention in season 4. RedShirts always die in that series. Five seasons later, he's killed off.

** For one about how evil a one-time villain was, in [[spoiler:''The Source in the Sludge'']] was [[spoiler:Derek Johansen]] recruited by the terrorists out of discontent after being unable to re-enlist in the army due to mental trauma from the bombing of [[spoiler:a prison he was guarding, which allowed several prisoners to escape]]? Or was he bribed into committing treason before that [[spoiler:While serving at that prison]], and perhaps even an accomplice in that bombing?

* AcceptableEthnicTargets: It would seem as though no one in England has even heard of a decent cup of coffee.
* AcceptableProfessionalTargets: Factory farming gets dragged over the coals in "The Tough Man in the Tender Chicken" for the awful way chickens are treated after the company abandoned free range farming and for the toxic and nauseating odors that come from the plant and ruin people’s health and enjoyment of the air. Even the employees, save for the AssholeVictim, hate the place, and one innocent employee half-seriously asks to be arrested as a suspect to get a few days away from her demeaning and disgusting job.

** Seasons 7-9: Christopher Pelant is a [[HollywoodHacking genius hacker]] and a brutal SerialKiller. His first murders his guidance counselor after forging a recommendation for him to go to Stanford. In his adult life he was under house arrest for hacking UsefulNotes/ThePentagon; he later escapes and retaliates against the government with a new killing spree. Always one step ahead of the Jeffersonian team, Pelant is not afraid of using brutal tactics against them, and proudly takes responsibility for his actions. Pelant would later [[FrameUp frame Brennan]] for the murder of a friend and pulls strings to keep her friends from interfering. In a later appearance, he [[SadisticChoice forces Hodgins]] to forfeit all his money or else he'll [[WouldHurtAChild destroy a girls' school]] in Afghanistan with a military drone. He also cripples and later kills FBI agent Flynn, and brainwashes a girl into killing three FBI agents. When he [[StalkerWithACrush develops an intellectual infatuation with Brennan]], he coerces Booth into calling off their wedding, and not to tell her why, or else he'll continue to kill innocent people. When finally cornered in his hiding spot, Pelant takes to holding Brennan at gunpoint in a last desperate attempt to win. Intellectual, [[ItsAllAboutMe egotistical]], controlling and vindictive, Pelant proves to be a dangerous enemy to the Jeffersonian team with his love for playing people like pawns, and killing those in his way.

** In Season 7, Cam forges several college applications in her adopted daughter's name in order to stop her from following her boyfriend to a state school. While this was already seen as questionable at the time, it looks even worse in the wake of the 2019 Varsity Blues scandal, where dozens of people were caught committing fraud to get their kids into elite colleges. Downplayed with the fact that Michelle ended up rejecting the fraud offers (thinking it was Cam's SecretTestOfCharacter) and chooses to take a gap year and apply to better schools on her own.

** In Season 7, Cam forges several college applications in her adopted daughter's name in order to stop her from following her boyfriend to a state school. While this was already seen as questionable at the time, it looks even worse in the wake of the 2019 Varsity Blues scandal, where dozens of people were caught committing fraud to get their kids into elite colleges. In addition, Cam is later subjected to a distressing amount of identity fraud herself.

** In Season 7, Cam forges several college applications in her foster daughter's name in order to stop her from following her boyfriend to a state school. While this was already seen as questionable at the time, it looks even worse in the wake of the 2019 Varsity Blues scandal, where 53 people conspired to bribery and fraud to get their kids into elite colleges.

* {{Narm}}: The birth of [[spoiler:Booth and Brennan's baby]]. Slow-motion in a ''manger''.
** The writers kind of realized this and joked during the Paley Center interview that they thought about giving Hart Hanson, his wife, and son a walk-on part at the end of the birth scene as the "Wisemann" family.
** "I don't know what that means." Bones having {{No Social Skills}} is one thing, but her using that same exact phrase ''every single time'' someone makes a pop culture reference got old extremely fast.
** [[BilingualBonus Knowing Norwegian]] and listening to the prologue dialogue of "[[Recap/BonesS4E21MayhemOnACross Mayhem on a Cross]]" will have you laughing as it's so grammatically wrong. And "Absolutt", despite being more or less the same word as "absolutely" is not used in the same situations as English works differently. Also, Deschanel's hilariously wrong pronunciation of "skalle"(skull) which sounds more Swedish than Norwegian and her correcting the others who actually say it ''[[SurprisinglyGoodForeignLanguage right]]''. Lastly, the police acting nothing like Norwegian police is the cherry on top, which makes it an episode hard to take seriously. One can actually see the Norwegian actor wanting to say it's wrong, but not daring to.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: In Season 2's "The Girl in Suite 2103", Hodgins and Zack accidentally set off a small explosion in the lab that leaves Hodgins on the floor, though he quickly gets up and laughs in off. [[spoiler: Season 10 would see Hodgins paralyzed from the waist down by an explosion, while the series finale would blow up the entire lab.]]

** "The Girl in the Mask" features a subplot where the Jeffersonian crew try to figure out if a visiting anthropologist, who is non-binary, is male or female. While played for laughs there now it comes off as highly offensive.

* IdiotPlot:
** Pretty much the entire Pelant arc requires the team to be complete morons in order to work. For one thing, the team discover that Pelant can hack anything with a net connection, so what do they do? They leave the cameras, Angela's computer, and everything else the way it is. Then they leave their bank accounts untouched so Pelant can steal all their money instead of withdrawing everything they have and closing their accounts. This is just the tip of the iceberg as to the idiotic things the team has to do to keep this villain from being shot dead within 2 episodes. Worse, if the team had taken these precautions another unrelated plot arc around the same time involving Cam's identity theft couldn't have come to pass.
** Even if you ignore that Brennan, despite being a regular expert witness, doesn't seem to know proper court procedure; doing things such as think the prosecutor is talking directly to her. "The Fury In The Jury" is a RogueJuror plotline that takes her InsufferableGenius mentality up to eleven. Brennan is on the jury for a case against a major soccer star, Peter Kidman and even though the jury is unanimous in thinking Kidman murdered his wife, Brennan can't vote guilty because she has reasonable doubt and convinced everyone else to vote not guilty as well. Afterwards she has a MyGodWhatHaveIDone and the rest of the episode is spent proving that he killed a potential witness.
** Not the team, but the culprits in many of the cases involving accidental death. They take actions that would be considered assault at worst (such as throwing a stapler at someone's head), only for the victim to die due to either a medical condition or plain bad luck. Do any of these people call the authorities and explain, stage a mundane accident, or even just leave the body and let people assume the accident was caused by the victim's own error (as in the case of the victim who stepped back into his plane's propeller)? Nope, they dispose of the body in a variety of bizarre and gruesome ways that inevitably bring the remains to the attention of the FBI and the Jeffersonian.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** [[spoiler:Zack Addy. Early on in season 4 he reveals to Sweets that his killing of the lobbyist was only MetaphoricallyTrue, and [[CharacterRerailment he hadn't actually committed the murder]]. This makes Zack's only crime being an accessory to murder]].
** After Pelant [[spoiler: coming in between the engaged Booth and Brennan]] in the Season 8 finale ignited fans' rage, the writers decided to quickly wrap up the plotline, [[spoiler:killing off]] Pelant in episode 4, and having Booth and Brennan tie the knot in episode 6.

** Vincent Nigel-Murray charmed even Brennan. His enthusiastic reciting of facts earned him the spot of "favorite intern" with the fans.

** "The Girl in the Mask" features a subplot where the Jeffersonian crew try to figure out if a visiting anthropologist, who is non-binary, is male or female. While played for laughs there now it comes off as highly offensive.

** Even if you ignore that Brennan, despite being a regular expert witness, doesn't seem to know proper court procedure; doing things such as think the prosecutor is talking directly to her. "The Fury In The Jury" is a RogueJuror plotline that takes her InsufferableGenius mentality UpToEleven. Brennan is on the jury for a case against a major soccer star, Peter Kidman and even though the jury is unanimous in thinking Kidman murdered his wife, Brennan can't vote guilty because she has reasonable doubt and convinced everyone else to vote not guilty as well. Afterwards she has a MyGodWhatHaveIDone and the rest of the episode is spent proving that he killed a potential witness.

** Amy Cullen might have only been in one episode, but the tragedy of her situation and her tender interactions with Angela make her a well-remembered guest star.