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    Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/temperance_brennan.jpg
Played by: Emily Deschanel

  • Abusive Parents: Well, foster parents. One of them locked her in a car trunk for two days for accidentally breaking a plate while washing it in scalding water.
  • Action Girl: She beats up more people than Booth. She takes on an armored knight (or at least one in a pretty period-accurate costume complete with chain mail) with a sword while barehanded and fresh out of a car crash. AND WINS TO THE POINT OF HIM TURNING UP WITH HIS ARM IN A SLING. And appears not to break a sweat. The woman is a stone-cold BADASS.
  • Aesop Amnesia: In most episodes, Bones is having to learn something that is common knowledge among everyone else. And by episode's end, she has learned that lesson. Unfortunately, by the next episode, some new issue has reared its head, and she's back to being as stubborn and intransigent as ever.
  • Age Lift: Inverted. In the books, Brennan is significantly older.
  • Agent Scully: No matter how insightful or useful Sweets is, she tends to dismiss his insight. Even treating previous accuracy as "coincidence" because of her dismissal of psychology as a science. She has a similar attitude towards anything even vaguely supernatural.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Keep in mind before this happened Booth had already declared his love to Brennan and she turned him down one of the reasons being she doesn’t want to lose what they already have (a great friendship) and she wasn't emotionally ready. Finally after a case gives Brennan a different outlook on life, she almost gets hit by a car, Booth saves her, she declares her love to him, he then rejects her as he’s now in love and in a serious relationship with someone else.
  • Animal Lover: She has this in shades. She nearly attacked a man after learning he killed his pet Siberian tiger.
  • Badass Bookworm: Catching crooks by examining bone fragments and other evidence.
  • Berserk Button: Bones flips out whenever Booth is hurt or threatened. In The Wannabe in the Weeds, she grits her teeth, screams, and guns down a middle-aged stalker who shot Booth. Booth later faked his death so that he could go deep undercover for exactly the first ten minutes of the following episode. When he came back, she was so upset, she hit him. She also smacks the Gravedigger with a metal briefcase.
  • Brainy Brunette: A highly intelligent brunette forensic anthropologist.
  • Brutal Honesty: Her mouth basically has no filter.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Though she lacks people skills (ironically in a job that deals with studying people and the culture), she's very great at her job and is one of the few board-certified forensic anthropologists in the country.
  • Cannot Tell a Joke: Due to lack of social skills, she can't tell a conventional joke. Not that she doesn't have a sense of humor, though.
  • Character Catchphrase:
    • "I don't know what that means."
    • For a while there was also "Don't call me Bones," but she soon learned to accept (but not embrace) the nickname. Well, she deals with bones, so it had to happen.
  • Character Title: She's the titular Bones.
  • Composite Character: Downplayed. From the books she is obviously Dr. Temperance Brennan, but in the show she also gets the cultural anthropologist part of her best friend Gabby. The rest of Gabby — the sociable, compassionate and artistic parts — became Angela Montenegro.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Her parents disappeared when she was 15 and she had no idea what happened to them until the end of season 1. Also had a very, very bad time in the foster system.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: At the start of the series, she is an extremely aloof and asocial scientist who only thinks by logic and never wanted to marry and create a family. Thanks to Booth, she learns to open up to emotions and eventually they have a daughter and a son together and become Happily Married.
  • Did You Think I Can't Feel?: During the investigation of a girl who's deaf and mute who killed someone, Arastoo noted she was showing her emotions more than usual; she angrily points out her policy of remaining emotionally detached is so they can focus solely on the evidence. It does not mean that she doesn't feel for all the victims and wishes she could express her emotions the way other people do.
  • Ditzy Genius: So intelligent at solving crimes and yet so clumsy with social stuff... Because her understanding of human behavior is more intellectual than intuitive, she forms conclusions that make perfect sense in theory, but are flawed in practice because humans themselves are flawed. It was heartbreaking when she told Booth she was going to adopt a dog that had been trained as a killer, only for Booth to tell her that the dog had been put down, because her protestations that the dog shouldn't have been blamed were right.
  • Embarrassing Middle Name: Word of God gives it as Beulah.
  • Expert Consultant: A forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian who consults for the FBI, helping them identify the skeletal remains of murder victims and solve their murders.
  • Friend to All Children: Even though she stated that she would never have children, until she later gave birth to her and Booth's daughter, Christine and their son Hank, Brennan has shown a surprising amount of tenderness towards them, especially ones that are abused. She even came up with a way to entertain babies: "Dancing phalanges!"
  • Friend to All Living Things: Brennan rarely loses her temper, but she does it every time an animal is hurt or killed out of sheer cruelty. Happens both with an attack dog that was used to kill someone and with a Siberian Tiger shot to cover evidence. Also, occasionally, with pigs.
  • Gratuitous Foreign Language: Comes out with words in different languages at times. Claims to know the word for 'skull' in every language.
  • Hates Being Touched: And may very well break your arm if you try.
  • Hard on Soft Science: A particularly weird example. She's hard on psychology, even though this is generally considered at least as hard a science as anthropology (her own field).
  • Hollywood Atheist: Zig-zagged. While she has the "being anti-religion" aspect, she certainly doesn't fit the "amoral Straw Nihilist asshole" part, as she actually has a rather strict moral code, such as refusing to lie even when it would be morally defensible. Doesn't stop her from basically picking fights with Booth over his Catholicism, or expounding on her atheism at a friend's funeral.
  • Innocently Insensitive: Often has no understanding of situations that require tact and is genuinely baffled when suspects respond with offense.
  • In-Series Nickname: Take a wild guess.
  • Insufferable Genius: Woe to any other scientist who does not meet up to her high standards. Or worse any scientist who practices what she doesn't consider a real science.
    • She also gets very touchy when people with similar skills cast aspersions on her own credentials, or when Cam pulls rank. In The Salt in the Wounds, the victim is entirely desiccated after being found in a DOT salting truck. Cam wants to rehydrate the body to perform an autopsy; Bones wants the flesh stripped to examine the bones, saying it's faster. Guess who wins and who storms off?
  • Last-Name Basis: With Booth. And Cam. And Hodgins (although, to be fair, everyone calls him Hodgins). And the Squinterns. Honestly, with everyone but Angela.
  • Literal-Minded: More than anyone who's not a robot should be. She's just so logic-driven that common metaphors often escape her.
    Bones: It's not a spaceship.
    Booth: Well, if it smells like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...
    Bones: Then it would be a duck, not a spaceship. Your point escapes me.
  • Mama Bear: Starts even before she has kids. In season 3's The Baby in the Bough she is furious at the killer of her foster charge Andy's mother for causing a car crash with the baby inside. Later, she will go after anyone who hurts her own kids.
  • Married to the Job: She can't give up her life with bones. When her boyfriend invited her to join him for a year on a boat, and everyone else gave her the thumbs up to do it, she turned him down. Even she thought it would be a good idea, but couldn't separate herself from the bones even for a little while.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • "Temperance" means "moderation or self-restraint in action, statement, etc.; self-control."
    • Even more meaningful is the fact that her name used to be Joy before her criminal parents changed the whole family's names to protect themselves from their former partner in crime; they eventually had to abandon Brennan and her brother to keep said partner from finding and harming their children. Many characters point out that Temperance's need for temperance is a direct result of her parents' abandonment and her subsequent experiences in the foster care system, before which she was much more carefree.
  • My Beloved Smother: Christine is barely out of the womb and she's already started, getting suspended from the Jeffersonian's daycare for interfering too much.
  • Mystery Writer Detective: A borderline case as her skills as a forensic anthropologist are far more important to solving crimes than any supposedly ability as a writer.
    • Especially as she only writes the technical aspects and twisted plotting of her novels. The characterization and steamy sex scenes are due to Angela's input. It takes them a long time to even realize this, as Temperance's writing process was to essentially write Michael Crichton-esque murder mysteries, then loan it to Angela to pre-read, who adds the sex and quips. Once they figure his out, Temperance splits the royalties with Angela. Back-dated.
  • Nerds Are Sexy: It helps that she's played by Emily Deschanel. She has no trouble finding mates. In fact, in the sixth season Valentine's Day episode, she turns down half a dozen hopeful suitors.
    • In a season 11 episode, when Booth temporarily has to wear glasses, she admits to finding them attractive on him.
  • No Social Skills: Not very social adept with people due to issues with Parental Abandonment, although he's not quite as bad as Zack.
  • Not So Stoic: It's frequently shown that her rationality is a façade to protect her from a big, scary world.
  • Opposites Attract: She's coldly intelligent, scientific, atheist, and hyper-rational, while her partner and eventual husband Booth is religious, more emotional, and more of a people person.
  • Parental Abandonment: Her parents disappeared in 1991 when she was 15. Her parents were reformed criminals who went on the run in 1978, then again in 1991 when someone from their past found them. In the latter incident, they had to abandon Brennan and her brother Russ. They would later reunite with their father, though their mother died in 1993.
  • The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Brennan's authorization password was "daffodil". When Booth lampshaded this trope by telling her her own password, she changed it. He immediately guessed the new password. Twice.
  • Pregnant Badass: She still stands up for herself and even goes into a prison riot while pregnant.
  • Raised by Grandparents: Her grandfather raised her after she was bounced from foster home to foster home.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Her pregnancies during seasons seven and ten.
  • Romance and Sexuality Separation: We have one Ambiguous Situation episode where the titular character dates two guys while being either this trope or simply not enjoying everything about either guy - finding only one physically attractive and finding only the other to have an interesting personality. She was regularly having sex with one man while going out to museums and whatnot with the other. She enjoyed the one guy's physicality and the other's brain. The whole thing got blown when they found out about each other in a Two-Timer Date situation. Sex Guy wanted to hang out with her and Hang Out Guy wanted to have sex with her. She refused to compromise for either, so they both dumped her.
  • Sarcasm-Blind: She often fails to understand sarcasm at first (if at all) and usually must use logical deduction (out loud) to detect it.
  • Sex Goddess: By her own admission, she's very good in bed and we get enough glimpses at her love life and the casual way she talks about sex, it's clear she's not just boasting.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She has plainly stated in one episode that she's attracted to good men, and eventually falls for Booth who is charming, kindhearted, and loyal.
  • The Spock: Brennan will always listen to reason and logic without fail.
  • The Stoic: She is always like this, as she effortlessly keeps her emotion in check.
  • Straw Vulcan: Frequently adheres to logic than emotion (which is a personal rule), but at the same time, it can slip and she becomes personally involved in her cases.
  • Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She is overly serious, professional and analytical, not wanting to let emotions get in the way of logic. She is also a kind and heroic person at heart, as well as loyal and caring to her friends and those she trusts.
  • Totally Trusting Love Interest: Subject of a mini-plot arc on Bones. Big Bad Palant blackmails Booth into not marrying Brennan, and he can't tell her why. He cancels the wedding and after angsting about it for an episode she decides to trust Booth, not demanding a reason. Angela isn't so trusting and starts hating Booth on Brennan's behalf.
  • Ultimate Job Security: Brennan gets away with being blunt and downright rude to basically everybody because there is not another forensic anthropologist out there who can replace her.
    • When she leaves the Jeffersonian between Seasons 10 and 11 and the number of unsolved cases has gone up, she takes this as a sign of slipping standards and takes her old job back like nothing happened.
    • In one episode she punched a sexist man, and in the next episode she thought she would just get a slap on the wrist. The head of the FBI disciplinary panel tells her if Booth's meeting with them goes the way hers did, she would no longer be allowed to help out the FBI on cases.
  • Vocal Evolution: At some point in the later seasons, Brennan (Emily Deschanel) changed her speech patterns slightly, taking more pauses and speaking more slowly.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: She once commented, "I find it interesting that I'm only afraid of snakes when Booth is around to be jumped upon."

    Agent Seeley Booth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/seeley_booth.jpg
Played by: David Boreanaz
Dubbed by: Patrick Borg (European French)

  • Abusive Parents: According to Booth, his dad "wasn't exactly a contender for a Father of the Year award." He was an Alcoholic Parent that would often become violent and Booth would often take the worst of it to protect Jared.
  • Alcoholic Parent: Booth's father was an abusive alcoholic, as a result Booth is able to recognize suspects with a drinking problem even when they are sober.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: It didn't work at first. Then it did.
  • Atonement Detective: Booth was an Army Sniper before joining the FBI and he seems to have a scale in his head, weighing roughly how many kills he made as a sniper versus how many murderers he's caught.
  • Badass Normal: He's an FBI agent, but he's essentially a cop with a notch higher of a badge, and usually shows himself to be what you'd expect. He's also a former Army marksman who is badass enough to take down an entire elite Delta Force black ops unit with a few minutes of preparation time, lots of spare weapons and traps, a fair bit of improvisation, and a little help from Brennan right at the end. Albeit with near-fatal wounds. Compared to some of the more dangerous threats and criminals out there, that amount of capability is crucial given virtually every one of his associates in the "Squints" is not as fit for a fight as he is, besides Brennan of course.
  • Beard of Sorrow: Booth grows one during his prison stint between seasons 9 and 10.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Clowns. Even on ice cream trucks. He shot the clown music box on top of an ice cream truck and got sent to a psychiatrist for it.
    • It's a bad idea to mention that one of Booth's ancestors shot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head. Cam once says he’ll shoot if it happens.
  • Big Brother Instinct:
    • Towards his younger brother Jared, to the point where it's somewhat unhealthy for them both.
    • Also towards Sweets and Wendell.
  • Book Dumb: He's this, to contrast with Brennan's TV Genius; there is evidence that this is more an act of Obfuscating Stupidity on his part, so that the various Insufferable Geniuses he works with are less threatened by him, but we don't know the degrees in which these tropes are present. Probably he's just picked up a lot more from working with them than he lets on. Booth is usually presented as more intuitive with a high emotional intelligence which makes sense for someone who has suffered abuse. Several episodes generally present him (and others) acknowledging that within context of the team, his "specialty" is the emotional aspect of such cases. It comes up a lot less though because within the context of having to present a legal case and identifying bodies, gut instincts generally don't cut it.
  • Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: His father was abusive and often drunk but Booth is shown to be loving and playful with Christine and Hank.
  • Noble Bigot with a Badge: Downplayed, during the first seasons, he was shown to have a negative bias towards Hispanics; he eventually grows out of it.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Rather ironic. Booth is the empathetic, emotionally connected member of the duo, able to read feelings and intentions with ease, but he is almost completely incapable of approaching his own emotions/baggage with any sort of directness or honesty. This causes a lot of trouble in his relationship with Bones. It also annoys their friend, colleague, and therapist/shrink, Sweets, who eventually gets fed up with Booth's circuitous and denial-filled approach to getting Sweets' help that he threatens to jump out of a moving car rather than put up with it any longer.
  • Chosen Conception Partner: When Brennan decides she wants a child, she picks him. Later inverted when she decides that two kids is enough and she wants him to have a vasectomy (she backs off and they decide to stick to "regular" birth control methods instead).
  • Cold Sniper: His job in the Army. He has some guilt over that.
  • Control Freak: Spelled out explicitly by Gordon Gordon.
  • Deuteragonist: Second to Brennan.
  • Do Not Call Me "Paul": Doesn't like when Cam calls him Seeley in retaliation for calling her Camille.
  • Eagleland: Type 1, deconstructed. In The Proof in the Pudding, the group lampshades how naïve Booth's views of the U.S. are, as he believes the country has none of the secrets and lies Hodgins believes it does. The idea that the country is hiding information about the JFK murder almost drives him into Heroic BSoD. Sweets though mentions the possibility that he holds on to this view as a way to comfort himself for the deaths he has caused as a military.
  • The Face: He's an FBI agent surrounded by Lab Rats. While they do their geeky science thing, he's talking to witnesses and cracking suspects.
  • Fair Cop: Handsome FBI Agent.
  • Famous Ancestor: His ancestor was John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed Abraham Lincoln. He's not exactly proud of it.
  • FBI Agent: His job is to do the interrogating and arresting.
  • The Gambling Addict: He was addicted to gambling in his backstory, which apparently got him in trouble. He was in recovery at the beginning of the series. In the last quarter of Season 10 he goes to a poker game undercover as part of a case (which everyone told him was a bad idea) and naturally he relapses. His old bookie refuses to place bets for him so he chooses a more violent one that could threaten his family so Bones makes him move out of the house while he sobers up again.
  • Hidden Depths: In addition to being a jock cop, Booth can lecture and work as a hairdresser and dance instructor. His dad was a barber and his mom a dancer.
  • Holier Than Thou: There can be times when he shows No Sympathy towards somewhat sympathetic characters despite his own Dark and Troubled Past and occasional indulgences in Police Brutality.
  • Informed Attribute: We are repeatedly told he is Catholic. But we almost never see him do anything Catholic, or being deterred by Catholic moral teaching.
  • Jerk Jock: Booth is a mostly-mellowed version of this trope. While he has outgrown most of the trope's more noxious aspects, he still retains disdain for intellectuals and scientists (although it tends to be more good-natured ribbing with those he gets to know) and tends to bully around suspects.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Can be a bit short and snappy towards the squints, but definitely does care about them.
  • Last-Name Basis: He's rarely called by his first name Seeley.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Booth's trademark black suit and belt buckle, with occasional variations in the shirt, socks, and tie. When he's off the job, he usually wears a brown leather jacket, which he sometimes wears to crime scenes.
  • The McCoy: He's certainly more emotionally invested in his cases than Bones (usually).
  • Missing Mom: His mother Marianne left the family because of the abuse she suffered at her husband's hands. She and Booth would remain out of contact until season 8, after 24 years apart.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Letting Broadsky get away after his first episode when Booth had him dead to rights, and could have just shot him in the leg or something, proves to be a horrible judgment call, with devastating consequences for the team.
  • The Nicknamer: Calling Brennan "Bones", obviously. He also started calling Dr. Wyatt "Gordon Gordon", due to his habit of introducing himself as "Gordon, Gordon Wyatt." Subverted in that Gordon Wyatt revealed that his first and middle names are both Gordon. He also coined "Squints".
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Most of the cast has realized he's doing it by now, but Gordon is the only one that has straight-out called him on it. Angela in Season 4, outright tells Bones he's doing it.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Agent Booth once, in a moment of personal stress, drew his weapon and fired two rounds into a robotic clown-head atop an ice cream truck. Several seasons later, after he'd completed counseling, got reinstated and received commendations for his work, it still gets brought up by folks from other government agencies when they want an excuse not to trust him with sensitive documents.
  • Opposites Attract: Booth is religious, more emotional and more of a people person, while his partner and eventual wife is coldly intelligent, scientific, atheist and hyper-rational.
  • Papa Wolf:
    • Don't even think about hurting his son. While we haven't really seen this in action, he is on record that his protective instinct for Parker outweighs his faith in God himself, which is kinda a big deal.
    • It can safely be assumed that this now extends to Booth and Bones' daughter Christine and their son Hank.
  • Parental Abandonment: Booth's mother was often abused by her husband, until one day she had enough and fled, abandoning Booth and Jared to fend for themselves. He has a hard time forgiving her when she tries to contact him as an adult.
  • Police Brutality: Occasionally, especially when the suspect threatens Bones. In The Blood on the Stones, featuring the hunt for a cop killer also stands out, when he refuses one suspect's demands for a lawyer, and refuses medical treatment for another whose foot had been shoot off by the victim shortly before the episode, exerting pressure on her wound. The fact that neither is guilty of the murder makes this especially egregious.
  • Raised by Grandparents: His grandfather Hank saved him and his brother from their abusive dad.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Booth turns out to be an expert dancer.
  • Recovered Addict: A recovered gambling addict. He relapses in Season 10. But he gets better.
  • The Social Expert: You have to be when you're dealing with Brennan.
  • Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He's a tall, often brooding man who's prone to snarking.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He has a problem with clowns and it's played over the seasons. After he had his brain surgery, he forgot that he's supposed to be scared of clowns. To the point Brennan reminded him about it.

"Squints"

    Dr. Jack Hodgins 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jack_hodgins.jpg
Played by: TJ Thyne

  • Affectionate Nickname: Has a penchant for calling both Bones and Angela 'baby' on numerous occasions, even slipped up once and called Cam 'baby'.
  • Agent Mulder: He believes in the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
  • Berserk Button: Both the Gravedigger and Pelant piss him off to nearly murderous levels.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: A conspiracy theorist who dislikes the government and has anger management problems, but he excels at his job as an entomologist.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: He refers to any of the associated paranoia as simply having all the facts. It gets dialed down considerably after Zack is exposed as an accomplice of the Gormogon, whose pathology was partially based on theories about secret societies, though it begins to re-emerge in season 7.
  • Disappeared Dad: It's established that Hodgins's parents have died long before the events of the series, but they are never discussed beyond that.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: In spades as he copes with life as a paraplegic in season 11.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: He is seemingly able to touch and analyze the bones together with Bones, Dr. Goodman and Zack in the first two seasons, even after stating that he is not good with bones, later seasons limit his work area to the main platform and his room.
  • Friend to Bugs: He's the Bug and Slime Guy. One of his doctorates is in entomology. How much does he love bugs? Enough that at one point he willing hosted a parasitic botfly larva in his neck because he wanted to follow its life-cycle.
  • Friendly Rivalry: Although there is initially more than their fair share of animosity between the two, this eventually develops between him and Dr. Goodman. This culminates in "The Woman at the Airport", where Goodman confesses that he admires Hodgins' willingness to stand up to him despite his position of authority.
  • Genius Cripple: His paralysis pretty much makes him this.
  • Give Geeks a Chance: The object of the trope, being the "bugs and slime guy" with Angela, his eventual wife.
  • Happily Married: To Angela. Not so happily since he became paralyzed and started directing his bitterness about it towards her, but they get better.
  • Hates Everyone Equally: Has misanthropic tendencies but did learn to cope, albeit with a big setback brought on by his paralysis.
  • Hot-Blooded: When it comes to bugs and slime...
  • I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: As he states when he expresses his refusal to believe in the supernatural, he's a conspiracy theorist, not a crazy occultist.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: More so towards the beginning of the series, although he still has his moments later on (namely, when he acts like a jerk to new members of the team and when he gets paralyzed and acts like a jerk to everyone for a bit.).
  • Last-Name Basis: Even his wife rarely calls him Jack.
  • Long-Lost Relative: Discovers a brother, Jeffery, who was hidden in a group home by the family due to mental illness.
  • Mad Scientist: Seems to think of himself this way. In The Daredevil in the Mold (Season 6, Episode 13, original airdate February 10, 2011), he tells Angela, "I've always wanted to be a mad scientist."
  • Missing Mom: Hodgins's parents are long dead, and he only mentions his mother once, remarking in "The Heiress in the Hill" that his long-lost older brother Jeffrey has their mother's eyes.
  • Non-Idle Rich: He's fabulously wealthy until season 9 and becomes a millionaire again a bit later, but still pulling long hours at the lab because he loves his job.
  • Odd Friendship: Although he really doesn't like Daisy at first, the two wind up spending a lot of time working together after a while
    • Although it begins very contentiously, he also ends up having this with Finn Abernathy to the point that they even end up going into business together
  • Official Couple: With Angela.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: He is the go-to guy for anything that isn't related to forensic anthropology.
  • Panicky Expectant Father: He spends most of The Change In the Game frantically asking Angela if it’s time every time she talks to him. When it IS time, he stays calm until she yells at him to get the car, then resumes being panicky.
  • Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: When he's given the choice between saving his fortune or saving a school for girls from getting bombed by a drone, he chooses the latter.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: A serious problem of his, considering that he works in an FBI-sponsored forensics lab. Booth gave him an earful about this.
  • Secretly Wealthy: And hates it or at least will go to any length to keep it a secret, so he can keep his life as just being the "Bug and Slime guy" of the group. Pelant took care of that in Season 8's "The Corpse on the Canopy"; later on he starts making money by inventing a new form of rubber.
  • The Smart Guy: Will usually end up doing the most hard science in a case.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: He has become extremely bitter and caustic and acts even more like a jerk than usual since being paralyzed and it's starting to erode both his camaraderie with the team and his marriage to Angela. The Murder of the Meninist ends with him yelling at her for trying to encourage him, with him telling her in no uncertain terms that she's just going to have to sit there and take his crap when she calls him out for it. Thankfully, he gets better after several episodes.

    Angela Montenegro 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angela_montenegro.jpg
Played by: Michaela Conlin

  • All Women Are Lustful: Keep her from hooking up with some guys for a long time and she goes into this mode.
  • Asian and Nerdy: Angela is half-Chinese and works as a forensic artist. She proudly and intentionally makes it clear she's not as nerdy as the others.
  • Best Friend Manual: For Bones. She often gives others tips on interacting with Brennan.
  • Catchphrase: "Awkward, awkward, very awkward."
  • Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: For both Brennan and Hodgins, occasionally.
  • Commitment Issues: At first, due to her "living in the moment" attitude to life. Sweets tells her flat out that it's why her relationships fail.
  • Embarrassing First Name: Her name is actually Pookie Noodlin Pearly-Gates Gibbons. It's no wonder she changed it.
  • Establishing Character Moment: In the very first few minutes of the pilot, we see her be snarky with airport staff, flash one of them to get his attention when he's deliberately ignoring her, and immediately cheering up when she finally finds Bones, complete with a hug and calling her "Sweetie".
  • Ethical Slut: Angela really likes sex, and has no reservations about letting people know it.
  • Good Bad Girl: She loves sex and is easily one of the most moral characters on the show.
  • Happily Married: To Hodgins. Less happily after he became paralyzed and started taking out his frustrations on her. The Murder of the Meninist ends with her being chewed out just for encouraging her husband. They get better.
  • The Heart: Often serves as a counterpoint to the team's rational and scientific assessment of a case or victim. Makes sense as she's the only one without any scientific training. Hodgins even calls her this in The Man in the Cell, which comes back to bite them when Howard Epps sends her a human heart.
  • Historical Character's Fictional Relative: Angela is the daughter of Billy Gibbons, guitarist of ZZ Top, who guest stars as a fictional version of himself.
  • Lovable Sex Maniac: She frequently has sex on the brain, but she's playful and respectful about it.
  • Mirror Character: More in common with her best friend, Brennan, than might first appear: they both have a rigid code of beliefs and morals, both are incredibly stubborn, and both had a lot of difficulty committing to a long term relationship and both call their husbands by their last names.
  • Missing Mom: Her dad's an occasional guest star. Her mom, however, goes unmentioned.
  • Nice Girl: Likely the nicest of the bunch.
  • Odd Friendship: She and Brennan have opposite views on most things, yet are great friends.
  • Official Couple: With Hodgins.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: It's ironic, because she's the only squint who's not actually a scientist, and appropriate, as she gets married to Hodgins, who is both a scientist and omnidisciplinary. She can do almost anything techy or artistic that you ask her to, thanks to the magic of the Angelatron.
  • Oops! I Forgot I Was Married: Her first marriage with Hodgins is interrupted by the fact she's already married, to a man in Fiji on a forgotten-in-a-drunken-haze island marriage. She didn't even remember her husband's name at first, but has to track him down to get him to sign the divorce papers.
  • Really Gets Around: To the point that Sweets convinces her that it keeps her from forming stable relationships. One episode reveals she has never gone 6 weeks without sex since she lost her virginity.
  • Relationship Upgrade: After a few seasons of an on-and-off relation with Hodgins, they finally get together for real.
  • Sensitive Artist: Angela Montenegro works in the Jeffersonian as a forensic facial reconstructionist, making use of her artistic skills (she was a former street artist) and technological know-how to recreate faces for the team. She is much more sensitive, empathetic, and in-tune with herself and her emotions than the rest of her coworkers, who are desensitized to their circumstances (at least outwardly). She is one of the characters who frequently has to take a moment to leave the scene and take a breather when dealing with corpses, murders, and other heavy topics, as she is much more prone to emotionally attaching herself to her work than the others.
  • Sex Goddess: Almost every episode a moment where her sexual expertise come up in a conversation. She even gives the rest of the team sexual advice and once boasted to Zack to "reap the benefits of my sexual wisdom".
  • Shipper on Deck: She ships Brennan/Booth.
  • Super Identikit: From skeletal remains, not witness descriptions, but the improbable level of artistic accuracy is the same. Works with both traditional media and computer graphics.
  • Team Mom: Angela was once described as the linchpin of the group, which is not inaccurate.
  • Twofer Token Minority: Angela is Asian-American and is revealed to be bisexual in The Skull in the Sculpture.
  • Unfortunate Names: Her real name is so embarrassing to her, that she chose to go as Angela Montenegro. Finally revealed in season 10, it is Pookie Noodlin Pearly-Gates Gibbons.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Caroline calls her out for being angry at Cam for playing by the rules when Pelant tries to frame Brennan for Ethan's murder. She points out that by doing that, Cam was the only one whose actions didn't play on Pelant's plans and became the biggest threat to him, who was trying to get all of Brennan's friends off the case.
  • Women Prefer Strong Men: Played With. While she married the 'bugs and slime guy', she expresses admiration on occasion for Booth. For instance, when he goes into 'alpha-male-get-shit-done' mode, she once exclaimed, "Sometimes he is like... whoa."

    Dr. Camille Saroyan 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/camille_saroyan.jpg
Played by: Tamara Taylor

  • The Alleged Boss: Cam may struggle—and occasionally succeed—at maintaining her authority, but it doesn't always work.
  • Amicable Exes: She and Booth dated in the past.
  • Big Good: The closest thing the show have of one: She is the one who makes the laboratory run efficiently, which is lampshaded by Hodgins, and guaranteeing that everything is done in such a way that things can still work on court, such as letting Wendell go when he started using medicinal marijuana, though they find a way to bring him back and working outside of Pelant's plans by playing by the rules, which is lampshaded by Caroline.
  • Benevolent Boss: Much less imposing than her immediate predecessor, although she can still crack the whip if she needs to.
    Cam: What I'd really like to do here is a meeting of the minds, but, if you insist on an organizational pyramid, I'll be at the top.
  • Black Boss Lady: Is a firm hand with the team but also knows that they know what they're doing and their quirks often help them do their work.
  • Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Part of her unwritten job description, for pretty much the entire lab.
  • The Coroner: Having worked for the New York Police, she's the most comfortable with the fleshy part of the team's job.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Her reaction to the antics of her employees or irritating suspects/people brought in for questioning is usually a dry quip spoken with a perfectly straight face.
  • Do Not Call Me "Paul": Doesn't like when Booth calls her Camille. She retaliated by calling him Seeley, knowing it annoys him.
  • The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: With her sister Felicia, though they do have each other's backs.
  • Happily Adopted: In season 4 adopts Michelle, the daughter of her ex-fiancé of two years ten years prior, after he is murdered. Is generally seen to have a good relationship with her. In the series finale, she reveals that she and her new husband Arastoo are adopting three boys.
  • Happily Married: As of the two-part series finale.
  • Moral Myopia: Fires Wendell when she finds out that he's using medical marijuana to treat his cancer because the Jeffersonian is a federal institution and its use is illegal; this is especially egregious when you consider the previous antics of the others including Angela being held in contempt of court for being uncooperative during Max's murder trial, Hodgins stealing evidence from the Gravedigger case which resulted in a judge ordering the whole team to stay away from the case, and then the team (including Cam) blatantly ignoring the judge's orders.
    • She did it not because it is something she opposes personally, but rather it may compromise any proof found by Wendell in court,as the defense could easily challenge the validity of evidence analysed by a person known to use a mind-altering drug on regular basis.
  • New Old Flame: To Booth in season 2.
  • The Nicknamer:
    • Hodgepodge for Hodgins, and Zackaroni for Zack. Oddly, she's one of the only people to call Booth by his first name, Seeley.
    • Vino Delectable for Vincent.
  • Not So Above It All: Occasionally enjoys Hodgins' experiments, not that she'll ever tell him, mind you.
  • Old Shame: In-Universe example. Her stint as an actress in a horror film.
  • Only Sane Woman / Straight Man: Given that Cam is the least eccentric scientist on the team, she spends much of her time corralling everyone and minimizing their conflict.
  • Only Sane Employee: By and large, the squints are brilliant, but their eccentricities sometimes gets in the way of them being as effective as they can be. Part of Cam's job is to get corral their conflicting personalities and get them working together as best she can. Hodgins lampshade that she makes them efficient.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: She almost always hears her employees out; she doesn't always let them do what they're asking but she'll hear what they have to say.
  • When She Smiles: Cam's always gorgeous, but that smile just makes it better.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Spiders. She’s freaked out at least twice by them.
  • You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: After they start dating, any time Cam calls Arastoo "Dr. Vaziri," it means she's upset with him. Significant because she uses last names with almost everyone else, but with him, she usually calls him by his first name.

    Dr. Daniel Goodman 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/daniel_goodman_7.jpg
Played by: Jonathan Adams

  • Actually Pretty Funny: Goodman silently smirks to himself after scaring Dr. Hodgins shitless.
  • Big Scary Black Man: Less due to any threat of violence, and more due to his authority and imposing presence paired with his low tolerance for shenanigans.
    • In 'The Man on Fairway' he even uses this trope willingly to intimidate Hodgins for his own amusement.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: After being a main character for the 1st season, Dr. Goodman disappears from the show and makes no future appearances without no reason given with the only mention of him being that he's on sabbatical, while Camille Saroyan replaces Goodman as the team's boss.
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    Goodman: He smells with his gut, what does he use his nose for?
  • Family Man: Has a wife and twin daughters and appears to be devoted to them.
  • Long Bus Trip: His sabbatical has lasted how many years now? 11 years, as of the finale.
  • The McCoy: His line of work involves a lot of conjecture and he tends towards a more emotional outlook. Oddly, he's this to Hodgins's Spock, not Brennan's.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Listens to his employees, even when they sound like loons. He doesn't always let them do whatever but he will listen and he does respect them greatly.

Squinterns

    Dr. Zack Addy 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zackaddy.jpg
Played by: Eric Millegan

  • Deadpan Snarker: "Apparently, all Angela needed was to hear her job description in a deep African-American tone."
  • Eskimos Aren't Real: He doesn't believe that pirates actually existed.
  • Face–Heel Turn: Whether or not it qualifies as a full turn is debatable, as Zack never becomes evil. He was merely manipulated by a serial killer.
    • Much later on, in season 11, the team was tracking a serial killer who would murder people, taxidermy them, and turn the victim into puppets that he would live with for six months before discarding them and moving on. The team then discovers that the killer has a hatred against them, their families, and anyone ever connected to the team, as well as a psychotic obsession with Dr. Brennan. By the time the team puts together a profile of the killer and realizes that it's very likely Zack, he's already kidnapped Brennan.
    • Actually He wanted Brennan to help him prove he wasn't the killer by injecting him with truth serum but she refused. After much detective work (and two red herrings) it's determined that Zack's doctor at the asylum was the killer and he was on the verge of killing Zack when Zack turned the tables — but couldn't even kill in self-defense, proving to Booth and Brennan he's really innocent.
  • Good with Numbers: Is able to perform large calculation in his head.
  • Hope Spot: Was posing as a neurosurgeon to give Hodgins hope he could walk again, essentially hoping the Placebo Effect would cure him. When confronted by Hodgins he admitted the therapy had only a 1% chance of success and he feared all he was doing was putting his friend through unnecessary pain (after accepting his condition Hodgins' pain disappears).
  • The Mole: Was working for Gormogon. Though he was manipulated into it.
  • Moral Pragmatist: After Season 3 Finale, where he revealed to be the Gormogon's Apprentice. He justifies his actions, arguing that the strategy of the killer is the logical means to achieving a better society. Dr. Brennan points out a single flaw in his logic and he immediately abandons team evil and gives the good guys everything they need to defeat his former mentor.
  • No Social Skills: He's been shown to be extremely blunt to the point of rudeness with people he doesn't know well.
  • Older Than They Look: Millegan is actually two years older than Emily Deschanel.
  • Photographic Memory: Is said to have one by Hodgins.
  • Put on a Bus: After The Reveal that he was Gormogon's apprentice, Zack had to go to a sanitarium for rehabilitation.
    • The Bus Came Back: Returned and featured prominently in The Perfect Pieces in the Purple Pond, even befriending Sweets.
    • Returns again at the end of the season 11 finale in the worst possible way as he was feared to be "the Puppeteer" serial killer the team was hunting, and kidnaps Brennan.
    • Returns again in A Day In The Life, the pentultimate episode of the series, where the life sentence is thrown out. He does have to serve a year more on aiding the killer though.
  • Revenge by Proxy: Averted; was framed by the Puppeteer.
  • Scars are Forever: Thanks to the explosion that led to him being outed as Gormogon's apprentice, he has permanently scarred/disabled hands and took to wearing gloves to cover them up after he was placed in the institution. Also his forehead scar when he self harmed after the death of Sweets.
  • Sanity Slippage: Averted as of season 12 episode 1
  • Totalitarian Utilitarian: The logic he follows from the Gormogon.
  • Walking Spoiler: As of the season 11 finale.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: As the apprentice to Gormogon.

    Vincent Nigel-Murray 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/vincent_nigel_murray_36329362810_1.jpg
Played by: Ryan Cartwright

  • The Alcoholic: Drank heavily for a while but eventually enters recovery.
  • The Atoner: As a recovering alcoholic, he has to make amends to the people close to him for all the ways he's wronged them. After his death, the team realizes that if the minor things he feels so guilty for were the worst things he had done, then he was quite a decent guy.
  • Attention Whore: Can't seem to appear in a scene without taking center stage, however briefly.
  • Can Not Tell A Lie: In The Babe In The Bar, when he, Sweets, Cam and Brennan lie about knowing that Angela's pregnant, he starts whimpering, covers his face and says "Please, I beg of you, don't look at me directly. Just say what you came to say."
  • Chekhov's Skill: His tangents and knowledge can hold valuable insight about a case on occassion. Once he mentions how low of a percentage of Americans have passports, then quickly says this is relevant to the case as everyone looks exasperated again, pointing out the victim had a sex change operation abroad that would have required a passport, and can help the man narrow down who it was. Another time his knowledge about how common conjoined twins are is relevant to the case, even if it doesn't play a role in identifying them.
    Vincent: All fact are useful. It's just the context that shifts.
  • Cloud Cuckoolander: Spouts off various Little Known Facts no matter what he's in the middle of and seems oblivious to how that irritates anyone who isn't Brennan.
  • Cursed with Awesome: He ended up winning Jeopardy! with his compulsive declaration of facts.
  • Dead Guy Junior: Hodgins and Angela's baby, born the episode after Vincent's death was given the second middle name of "Vincent."
  • Deadpan Snarker: Much like Zack, Vincent doesn't snark often but when he does, it's quite spectacular.
  • Insufferable Genius: Though he's unaware of this, his tendency to spout off facts at random drives everyone who isn't Brennan up the wall.
  • Kill the Cutie: The creators came right out and said they "killed him for heartbreak."
  • Little Known Facts: His are actually true, but no more useful for all that.
  • Motor Mouth: Once he gets started on one of his tangents, it is very difficult to stop him.
  • Nerds Are Sexy: "If I killed everyone who looked at me lustily, I wouldn't have made it out of school."
  • Nice Guy: Even during his Atoner stage, his "sins" were quite minor and he's almost always got a sweet disposition.
  • Verbal Tic: His random facts seem to be a compulsion and increase when he's stressed.

    Daisy Wick 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/daisy_wick_6.jpg
Played by: Carla Gallo

  • Ascended Fangirl: Doctor Brennan is her hero and working at the Jeffersonian is her lifelong dream. She will never let you forget that.
  • Attention Whore: A milder example, but still. She always makes her role in a discovery extremely, extremely clear.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Her quirk being that she never shuts up.
  • Genki Girl: Loves working at the Jeffersonian and rarely even tried to downplay her happiness at any given moment.
  • Goofy Print Underwear: Wears "day of the week" panties.
  • The Knights Who Say "Squee!": She is efficient, but eccentric and overexcited is an understatement.
  • Motor Mouth: Talks a mile a minute, especially with Sweets and Brennan.
  • The Nicknamer: Lancelot for Sweets
  • Odd Couple: When she and Sweets sit to talk about their interests they discover that they don't have that much in common, but their bond is strong enough that this doesn't bother the mother too much.
  • Official Couple: With Sweets. At least until his untimely death in Season 10.

    Dr. Clark Edison 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/clark_edison_9.jpg
Played by: Eugene Byrd

  • Black and Nerdy: He's African-American and works as a medical examiner.
  • The Comically Serious: His shtick at first was his refusal to share anything from his personal life with his work life. Then he went and took it in the other direction.
  • My Greatest Failure: "The Stiff in the Cliff" reveals that he once covered up a mistake his lover made during an excavation before he joined the Jeffersonian staff.
  • Named After Someone Famous: His full name is Clarke Thomas Edison.
  • Not So Above It All: He loosens up considerably by the middle of season 6.
  • Only Sane Man: He can feel more intuitive on the job than the others and doesn't get dragged into a single much chaos as the rest of them.
  • Shipper on Deck: Whenever he did start opening up about it, he was the most enthusiastic shipper of Booth and Brennan among the Squinterns.
  • Stylistic Suck: With a healthy dose of Shaped Like Itself, the book he wrote in the ninth season.
    Death had never looked so dead as the death now in front of them, all life drained, only death covering the dead.
    Cam: Ya think the victim was dead?

    Wendell Bray 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wendell_bray.jpg

  • Academic Athlete: An inventive Squintern who is also a star player on Booths hockey team.
  • The Everyman: Came from a humble background and has had a lot of less sophisticated jobs.
  • Romantic Runner-Up: He's Angela's replacement for Hodgins and later Roxie when they break up but ultimately, the First Guy Wins.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Downplayed, as his dad died of lung cancer, and he only holds a cigarette (without lighting it) when he's trying to think like him.

    Dr. Arastoo Viziri 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/arastoo_viziri.jpg
Played by: Pej Vehdat

  • Accent Slip-Up: His true American accent came out when he was feeling particularly emotional about a case.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Returned to Iran, despite the potential that he could be arrested for his activist past, in order to help and comfort his brother during some cancer operations.
  • Fauxreigner: To cut down on persecution for his devout beliefs, he pretended to be 'just off the boat'. He's truly from Iran but from a wealthy moderate family and spent a number of years in the Western Education System.
  • Humiliation Conga: According to himself, the canceling of the publishing of his first article was this: he wasn't meant to tell anyone, but he told everyone who he worked with and his parents, and his parents told even more people that his first article was going to be published, but he needs to tell everybody that it was canceled.
  • Nice Guy: He made Angela a mix tape to cheer her up after her breakup with Roxie back when he barely even knew Angela. Heck, he waited for Cam to agree to marry him and even decided to adopt since Cam's not certain she wants to get pregnant (for her part Cam knows how much he wants kids and that he'll be a great dad).
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After dealing with ignorant probes from the Jeffersonian team about his religion, and a misunderstanding from Cam about something he said, Arastoo finally (deservedly) tears into fellow intern Finn Abernathy while they are investigating the death of a 9/11 victim when Finn asks him if he'd be able to investigate this case due to his religion.
  • Surpassed the Teacher: Averted. Although Cam picks him to be Brennan's replacement, Brennan hurts his confidence by hijacking control of the lab on his first major case and pointing out his mistakes on other cases in her absence.
  • Tsundere: Type B; usually sweet and calm, but quick to anger, as seen in both several scenes where his religion is brought up,the episode in which he introduces Cam to his parents, and when a nosy camera crew filming a documentary won't leave Cam's personal life alone.

    Dr. Colin Fisher 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/colin_fisher_3.jpg
Played by: Joel David Moore

  • The Bus Came Back: After not appearing in season 10, he returns to the show as a full-blown doctor and as Bones' equal (in rank). He also appears in season 12.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's one of the more eccentric squinterns but no less brilliant than the others.
  • The Eeyore: Clinically depressed.
  • Kavorka Man: Has slept with around a hundred women.

    Dr. Douglas Filmore 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dr_fillmore2.jpg
Played by: Scott Lowell
  • Beware the Silly Ones: Subverted. After Sweets tells him "You're in America now. It's okay to get pissed at Dr. B." he unleashes on Brennan all the fury of an angry Canadian podiatrist.
    Filmore: You are brilliant. But you are also close-minded and a thoughtless person.
  • Break the Cutie: Whenever he's with Dr. Brennan, she will constantly belittle his field of expertise and dismiss any of his forensic discoveries. He rarely defends himself due to his extreme politeness, but his Conversion Disorder often displays that her words really do get to him.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Although he eventually earns a doctorate in forensic anthropology, he is first and foremost a forensic podiatrist and gets unusually excited when he has feet to study.

    Finn Abernathy 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/finn_abernathy_1.jpg
Played by: Luke Kleintank

    Jessica Warren 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jessica_warren.jpg
Played by: Laura Spencer

  • Attention Whore: Just like Daisy; ironically she states that Booth probably doesn't know her name (he doesn't, he calls all of them "Squinterns".
  • Beta Couple: With Aubrey. Until their breakup in the finale.
  • Foil: Uses her gut feelings in place of Brennan's logic.
  • Insistent Terminology: She grew up in an educational cooperative, not a commune.
  • Mad Scientist: Played for Laughs, she's always happy to help Hodgins with his latest crazy experiment.
  • Nice Guy: Brimming with confidence, but in a very positive and infectious manner.
  • The Nicknamer: Calls Aubrey Superman and Hodgins Curly.
  • Red Is Heroic: A decidedly noble young woman with vividly red hair.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Daisy (she even sleeps with Sweets), possibly due to Carla Gallo (Daisy) being pregnant.

    Dr. Oliver Wells 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/oliver_wells.jpg
Played by: Brian Klugman

  • Agent Mulder: Is a lot more open minded than the other characters to fantastical idea such as genuinely and sincerely positing the idea that two murder victims of different ages but similar skeletons are the same guy from two different time periods. However, this leads to him overlooking the more obvious explanation; in the above example, the victims were actually father and son.
  • Complexity Addiction: During his debut episode The Fact in the Fiction, Wells was so fixated on the idea that the two similar bodies was the result of the victim perfecting his plans for time travel and being visited by his future self that he overlooked the simpler explanation; the older victim was the first victim's long-missing father.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: The bucket list Angela gives him in The Lady on the List to improve his behavior:
    1. Don't be a douche.
    2. Really, don't be a douche.
    3. Work and play well with others, so I'm not perceived as a douche.
  • Failed a Spot Check: Fell victim to this in his debut episode The Fact in the Fiction; faced with two badly burned bodies who were somehow connected to each other, Wells never realised that the bodies were father and son because he was caught up in encouraging the idea that the younger victim had perfected his plans for time travel.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: You know it's bad when even fellow geniuses who have been considered rude or annoying in the past—like Brennan, Daisy, and Jessica—don't like him. Fisher is literally the only character who does. A big part of the problem is that, while all of the Squinterns have some kind of personality quirk and some of are downright annoying, all of the other Squinterns have some sympathetic qualities as well that ultimately make them likable, or at least tolerable. Wells does not seem to have anything of the sort.
  • Good Is Not Nice: He's on the side of good and helps catch the killers, but is easily the least likable of all the Squinterns.
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: Implied by himself and invoked by Hodgins:
Oliver: What if I don't want to be one of you?
Hodgins: I think you do.
  • Insufferable Genius: Exaggerated; by far the worst ever seen on the show, making people like Zack, Daisy, and Brennan herself look tame by comparison. It's made worse by the fact that, unlike all the other examples of this trope on this show, Wells really doesn't have any sympathetic qualities aside from not being evil.
  • Jerkass: As a result of being a Narcissist and an Insufferable Genius, with very few likable traits.
  • Love to Hate: Discussed and defied In-Universe. Daisy complains to Hodgins that she hates Wells after he was especially rude to her, and Hodgins replies, "We all hate him, but eventually you reach the point where you start to enjoy hating him." Daisy then responds that she hasn't gotten to that point yet.
  • Narcissist: Is very arrogant and rude, and genuinely seems to believe that he is superior to everyone else.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Has high knowledge in physics, anatomy, forensic anthropology, and many other types of science, and also knows quite a bit about non-science fields like law and history.

    Dr. Rodolfo Fuentes 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rodolfo_fuentes_3.jpg

  • The Casanova: Flirts with Brennan, Cam, and Angela on his first day.
  • Chainsaw Good: Has an obsession with chainsaws as shown in The Flaw in the Saw.
  • Honor Before Reason: Risks everything to smuggle needed drugs into Cuba; when he's caught he's ready to accept responsibility and leave the Jeffersonian (and possibly the country). Brennan fixes things by using a CIA contact to handle the drugs.

FBI characters

     Lance Sweets 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lance_sweets.jpg

  • Abusive Parents: His former foster father left him with deep physical and emotional scars.
  • The Baby of the Bunch: He's considered this due to his young age compared to the rest of the team. Booth especially regards him as an annoying kid early on and keeps saying he's a 12-year-old. He was dubbed “baby duck” in one episode.
  • Butt-Monkey: A mild case, but yes, both Booth and Bones often treat him like this. Booth sees him as little more than a child, whereas Bones vehemently denies the usefulness of psychology and insults him about it.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: In the premiere of the tenth season, with no warning at all.
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    Sweets: You choked a man until he was unconscious?
    Hodgins: A bad man. And you're hinting that if I'd killed him, that would make me bad, too?
    Sweets: Hinting?
  • Dr. Jerk: Originally he was this, being less interested in Bones and Booths as his patients and more of case study, to the point that when Booth was ordered to fake being dead by the FBI as part of an undercover operation, he intentionally ignored his request to tell Bones just so he could see her reaction. Thankfully he got better, becoming an important part of the team.
  • Happily Adopted: His adopted parents are never seen, but observations by fellow psychiatrist Gordon Wyatt confirmed that he was adopted by an older couple when he was around four years old, having being subject to vicious abuse from his biological father, with Wyatt speculating that his relationship with Booth and Brennan led to him 'imprinting' on them as parental substitutes.
  • Hollywood Psych: Lots of All Psychology Is Freudian, with this guy. Among other things, it's no wonder Bones doesn't take his profession seriously.
  • Medium Awareness:
    • The Future in the Past:
      Flynn: I don't think you're being completely honest with me.
      Sweets: Then you have trust issues, stemming from... I don't know, a bunch of psychological crap.
    • The Secrets in the Proposal:
      Sweets: [to Caroline] Have you noticed that dead bodies always save Booth from confronting his demons?
  • Meaningful Name: He is a ridiculously Nice Guy.
  • No-Respect Guy: To both Temperance and Booth, and occasionally the others as well.
  • Official Couple: With Daisy.
  • Older Than They Look: He's in his 20s, but looks like a 14-year-old.
  • Parental Substitute: A big part of his relationship with Bones and Booth. His elderly, adoptive parents died shortly before he came to work with them.
  • Physical Scars, Psychological Scars: The one time he's seen shirtless, (in "Mayhem On A Cross"), his back is covered in scars. Apparently bio dad would whip him.
  • The Profiler: Serves this role to the team on several occasions, ranging from working out who might have committed this type of murder to working out who their victim might have been by analyzing the life of the victim's long-lost twin brother.
  • The Shrink: Especially to Booth and Bones, but almost everybody's had a turn with him at one point. It's a Running Gag that people wanting advice pop into his office with no warning. Usually, it's not a problem. Usually. Another Running Gag has a member of the cast questioning his ability to give useful advice... who then follows his advice.
  • Smart People Play Chess: Was a master in his college years, and a decade later still has the skill to outplay an entire club of chess pros.
  • Took a Level in Badass: One of the few times he steps out of the office with Booth results in him getting killed off but not without wounding his attacker in turn.

    Gordon Wyatt 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gordon_wyatt_2.jpg
Played by: Stephen Fry

  • Ambiguously Bi: Implied, in his youth, he used an alter ego to play rock called Noddy Comet, in his own words, "A bisexual spaceman with a taste for glitter, lycra and an exhibitionist disdain for underwear".
  • Berserk Button: Being called a "Fry cook? FRY COOK?!" after his retirement.
  • Hidden Depths: He's a fantastic cook. He's also an excellent guitarist according to Booth.
  • His Name Really Is "Barkeep": When he first met Booth, he introduced himself as "Gordon, Gordon Wyatt", to which Booth retorted that it's weird how he reiterated his first name. Gordon then clarified that Booth made that assumption without considering that his middle name could be the same as his first name, so he wasn't reiterating at all. This is what later made Booth start considering Gordon's advice, as he had assumed Gordon to be just another shrink.
  • Nice Guy: He's firm but gentle when dealing with his patients. He also gets Bones and Booth to be nicer to Sweets.
  • Old Master: To Sweets. He's older, been a psychologist for much longer, and was able to tear apart Sweet's thesis about Bones and Booth's relationship in less than a minute.
  • Put on a Bus: Went to work at INTERPOL, before retiring from psychology to become a professional chef. He made one appearance in Season 5 when Booth sought him for some personal help, and hasn't been seen since.
  • Odd Friendship: With Agent Booth.
  • The Shrink: Been at it even longer than Sweets.

    Caroline Julian 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/caroline_julian_2.jpg
Played by: Patricia Belcher

  • The Big Easy: She's from N'Awlins, Cherie.
  • Character Catchphrase: Cherie. Eventually, she starts shortening it to "cher".
  • Heel–Face Turn: Her flashback self was rather more politically motivated in her behavior, and accused Booth of the same.
  • Only Sane Employee: She is the one most grounded to reality among the group.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to all squints and Booth in season 2, accusing them of ruining the wonderful team they make for petty reasons.
  • Shipper on Deck:
    • She's actually the one who gets Booth and Brennan to kiss for the first time, due to her "puckish" side and a strategically-placed sprig of mistletoe. But episode 100 reveals that was actually the second time.
    • In season 11, she can see there's something going on between Aubrey and Jessica. She makes Aubrey do a background check on Jessica for no other reason than to put them together for a while.
  • Team Mom: Usually gives at least one member of the team a good talking to in each of her appearances. Bonus points for apparently being the oldest recurring cast member.

    James Aubrey 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/james_aubrey.jpg
"I helped bring down my own father, Mr. Dunlop, so bringing you down would be a piece of cake. And as my friends here can attest, I love cake."
Played by: John Boyd

  • Big Eater: He often surrounds himself with food, and is always willing to dig in if food is available. Most of his appearances in the opening credits are of him taking a massive bite out of some foodstuff.
  • Convenient Replacement Character: For Sweets.
  • Deadpan Snarker: One of the best in a cast full of them. He's especially great at the "deadpan" part:
    Booth and Aubrey knock on a suspect's door
    Booth: Now remember, Bones said the victim was in a fight before he died, so keep an eye out for any injuries on this guy.
    Guy opens the door, covered in bruises and cuts all over his face
    Aubrey: Hey, Booth, I think I might have found some.
    Booth: You think so?
  • Hidden Depths: Minored in Religious Studies and can literally quote chapter and verse from memory.
  • Maybe Ever After: With Karen. After breaking up with Jessica, she sends him some buckets of chicken to help console him and he asks her to join him.
  • Parental Abandonment: His father left when he was young. We find out in the Season 10 finale that his dad was a con man whom Aubrey personally helped bring down.
  • Taking the Bullet: The bomb shrapnel in this case, jumping on Hodgins and nearly dying in "The Doom In The Boom".
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Spiders.

    Sam Cullen 
Played by: John M. Jackson

A FBI Deputy Director who is Booth's friend and boss in season 1.


  • Bald of Authority: He is a bald man who fills the role of Da Chief with gusto.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He is never seen or mentioned after getting A Day in the Limelight late in season 1, although this is justified. In that episode, his daughter gets cancer that will almost certainly kill her, and it is likely that he retired or transferred to a less busy job in order to spend more time with her throughout her struggles.
  • Da Chief: He is in charge of granting approval for the Squints to help with cases early on, but makes it clear that he views them as nerdy civilians whose presence rubs him the wrong way despite Booth vouching for them.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: He may not like the Squints at first, but he eventually acknowledges that they can contribute a lot to investigations. He also (reluctantly) refuses to overstep jurisdictional boundaries during an It's Personal investigation into a corrupt medical supplier who sold his daughter (who was hospitalized from a snowboarding accident) a bone transplant that gave her cancer.

    Assistant Director Andrew Hacker 
Played by: Diedrich Bader
One of Booth's superiors, who is attracted to Bones.
  • The Cavalry Arrives Late: In one episode, when he learns that the team is being held prisoner, Andrew personally leads a SWAT team to rescue them. By the time he arrives, though, the situation is resolved.
  • Nice Guy: He's very good-natured and reasonable, is a considerate boyfriend to Brennan, and asks Booth if he and Brennan are dating before getting seriously involved with her after Booth says no.
  • Put on a Bus: He's never seen again after breaking up with Bones, although one later episode mentions that he's still Booth's boss.
  • Romantic False Lead: He dates Brennan for most of season 5, but he only appears in a handful of episodes before they break up offscreen.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man: He's always nicely dressed and even jokes that it's part of his job.
  • Soul-Crushing Desk Job: Upon hearing that Booth's latest case involves an Egyptian mummy, he comments that "you field agents have all the fun." Another time, he comments that his job is mostly just looking good and "kissing ass."

    Karen Delfs 
Played by: Sara Rue
A behavioral analyst who works with the team in the last two seasons and develops a bond with Aubrey.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She is good at her job, but can be a high-strung Motor Mouth, loses her badge sometimes, and has odd objects in her purse that even she sometimes forgets the purpose of.
  • Forgets to Eat: She sometimes accidentally skips meals while working on a case and then starts stuffing herself once it is solved and she realizes how hungry she is.
  • The Profiler: She analyzes the behavior of suspects in a case to give the team advice about how to treat those people and is insightful but not infallible.

Other characters

    Max Keenan 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/max_keenan_01.jpg
Played by: Ryan O'Neal

  • Affably Evil: Until his Heel–Face Turn, he was this trope, caring deeply about his kids and his late wife and giving off an extremely friendly vibe but was able to order a hit on a man who was a threat to his kids without batting an eye.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: He is friendly to pretty much everyone he knows and loves his family, but isn't above using violence to protect them.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Killed several guys with his bare hands to protect his grandkids. Sadly, the stress is too much for his heart.
  • Improvised Weapon User: While in jail in 1966, used a sharpened copper pipe to defend himself. It apparently became his signature weapon, though he largely abandoned it after being acquitted of murder in season 3.
  • Papa Wolf: Has been known to go to considerable lengths to protect his children, including committing murder; Sweets noted that he had a moral code that allowed him to justify any action, up to and including murder, if it was done to protect his loved ones. His last act of this was killing two assassins who were after his grandkids, after having a pacemaker installed.
    • Failed a Spot Check: Said pacemaker had a GPS that allowed the killers to track him to an FBI safe house.
  • Retired Badass: He is a former criminal who used to kill people on occasion. Now he bowls, although the 'cane' he carried in the episode where Booth had to fill in for him on League Night looked suspiciously like a shillelagh.
  • Shipper on Deck: Doesn't see why Booth hasn't gone after his daughter yet, and also bought his daughter a toothbrush-holder for two.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: He is not an evil man, but his total disregard for rules and laws that do not match his conscience has driven him to become a criminal. Even after he began to live by the rules, it is clear that he did so only because to do otherwise would destroy any chance of reconciliation with Bones.
  • Tear Jerker: His last words were recounting a dream he had of a pleasant family road trip with Brennan.

     Roxie Lyon 
Played by: Nichole Hiltz

  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: She made three appearances and was never mentioned again after her last one.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Actually, she's briefly mentioned in Season 3 by a detective Angela hires to find her accidental husband, Grayson Barasa.
  • Flat Character: Roxie was only introduced to bring in the fact that Angela was bisexual.
  • Like Father, Like Son: OK, rephrasing that - in her first appearance, it's revealed she became a painter like Angela.
  • Suddenly Always Knew That: Angela and Roxie were apparently a couple. They become this again but ultimately break up.

    Angela's Dad 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/angelas_dad.jpg
Played by: Billy Gibbons

  • As Himself: Played with since no one ever actually calls him by name. However, he shares several biographical details with Billy Gibbons, like being in a Blues Rock band. In one episode, he even played a piece of ZZ Top's iconic "La Grange". Whenever he appears, he is in full ZZ Top gimmick, beard, sunglasses, hat, guitar, the works.
  • Cool Old Guy: His advanced age doesn't deter him from protecting his daughter and putting the fear of God into Hodgins.
  • Deal with the Devil: Sweets legitimately believes that he has some sort of Crossroads-style deal with the devil.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Even though it's Billy Gibbons, no one ever actually calls him by name. He's just "Angela's dad".
  • Giver of Lame Names: Angela goes by Angela Pearly Gates Montenegro, but her given name is Pookie Noodlin, which he picked. When she's pregnant, her father tries to convince Hodgins to name the child Staccato Mamba, which he defends as being gender-neutral. Staccato does wind up as the kid's middle name, but it's Michael Staccato Vincent, and after the episode where he's born, he's consistently referred to as "Michael Vincent."
  • Oh, Crap!: When Hodgins asks him for (very strong-willed) Angela's hand in marriage, Angela's dad claims that Hodgins has thus put them both in mortal danger.
  • Papa Wolf: Absolutely adores Angela; will do whatever it takes to see her happy.
  • Secret Test of Character: Puts Hodgins through several of these before he accepts him.

     Jared Booth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jared_booth.jpg
Played by: Brendan Fehr

  • Aerith and Bob: Brothers Seeley and Jared.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: When Seeley is captured by the Gravedigger, Jared pulls out all the stops to find and save him, costing him his job and clearance
  • The Alcoholic: Gets pulled over for a DUI in his first episode. However, he eventually gets better.
  • Back for the Dead: After being absent for several seasons, he's unceremoniously killed off in the Season 11 premiere and he's burnt to a crisp that only his skeleton remains. And the Jeffersonian Team originally thinks he's Booth until Bones does a more detailed examination.
  • Bitch Slap: After Bones finds out the true nature of Jared and Booth's relationship (that Seeley had been boosting Jared up to his own detriment), she slaps him. Hard.
  • Informed Attractiveness: Bones says that his facial structure is even more symmetrical than Seeley's. In Bones-speak, that's her saying he's more handsome.
  • Never My Fault: Seeley had been bailing Jared out all his life, to the detriment of his own career. No only did Jared not think he needed Seeley, he called him a loser for not being more successful.
  • Not So Similar: Booth initially defends him helping Jared by comparing it to Brennan defending her father in court, but subsequently corrects himself with the realisation that Max won't kill again where Jared will just keep repeating his mistakes if Booth doesn't take away the 'safety net'.
  • Romantic False Lead: Went on a date with Bones on his debut episode. Bones only rejected him when she found out he had been taking advantage of Seeley's overprotectiveness.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: He broke several laws to save Booth from the Gravedigger, which sadly got him kicked out of his Pentagon job.

     Hannah Burley 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hannah_burley_8.jpg
Played by: Katheryn Winnick

  • Career Versus Man: Tends to choose career. However, she did choose the "White House beat" in order to be in DC with Booth.
  • Commitment Issues: The biggest issue in her relationship with Booth is that he's moving their relationship much faster than she's comfortable with, and she ends up having to reject him after he attempts to propose to her out of the blue.
  • Commonality Connection: She and Hodgins hit it off by bonding over media conspiracy theories. She and Brennance also bond over both being successful, independent woman that are proud of their careers.
  • Differing Priorities Breakup: She and Booth ultimately break-up over having different priorities in life.
  • Head-Turning Beauty: Brennan claims she's "mathematically attractive" and Hodgins gets Distracted by the Sexy by just watching her on TV.
  • Intrepid Reporter: She met Booth when she was working as a wartime reporter in Afghanistan.
  • Ms. Fanservice: She's a Head-Turning Beauty that spent a lot of her screentime in bed with Booth, usually in only a Modesty Bedsheet.
  • Parent with New Paramour: She's not good with kids and is terrified at the prospect of meeting Booth's son. When they finally meet, they're shown to get along fine, much to Booth's relief.
  • Rescue Romance: Booth meets Hannah in Afghanistan after saving her from a situation with terrorists and they hit it off soon after.
  • Romantic False Lead: She's Booth's Love Interest for Season 6, but ultimately turns him down when he tries to propose to her very early in their relationship.
  • Romantic Runner-Up: Booth is worried that she feels like this for Bones. However, she's confident enough to not be worried. The end result was mixed; When Bones gave a Love Confession to Booth he did pick Hannah but they then broke up and he got together with Bones a while later.

     Christine Angela Booth 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/christine_angela_booth.jpg
Played by: Ali and Susanne Hartman (seasons 7-9); Sunnie Pelant (seasons 9-present)

  • Big Sister Instinct: To Hank. Throughout the episode after her uncle Jared dies, Booth is fuming about the package containing his remains apparently going missing. At the end of the episode, Bones and Booth find that Christine had taken it in order to get a boost to get into the crib alongside Hank, something she often did to comfort him.
  • Dead Guy Junior: She’s named after her late maternal grandmother.
  • Little Professor Dialogue: Well, with Bones as her mother, she was bound to learn a lot of things that most children her age wouldn't.
  • Meaningful Name: She gets her first name from her maternal grandmother, and her middle name from her mother’s best friend.
  • Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Was born in Season 7 and turned 4 in Season 9.

     Avalon Harmonia 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/avalon_1.jpg
Played by: Cyndi Lauper

  • Creepy Good: She's on the side of angels and very sweet. She's also very creepy in that she knows things she really shouldn't, though she swears it's just the cards telling her what she and her friends need to know.
  • Dead Little Sister: Very literally. Her ill sister was taken in by a conman running a cult. He took their money, promising to build a paradise where they wouldn't be sick, then killed them.
  • I See Dead People: In addition to her cards, sometimes she claims to get bits and pieces of information from the corpse on the table.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Avalon swears it's genuine psychic ability and the insights from her tarot deck, but she's also very observant and in tune with details about human nature that the more science-minded cast can miss.
  • Police Psychic: When she shows up, she's got some uncanny insight on the corpse of the week.
  • Shipper on Deck: Of course, Booth and Bones are meant to be. The cards ain't lying.

     Michelle Welton 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/michelle_welton.png
Played by: Tiffany Hines, Dana Davis (young)

Villains

    Howard Epps 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/howard_epps_2x12.png
Played by: Heath Freeman

  • Ax-Crazy: Especially in his final appearance, where he burns one victim alive, saws another's head off while she's still alive and conscious, and goes to great lengths to try and kill the Jeffersonian team.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In his first appearance he presented himself as an innocent man on death row, until more victims are found getting him what he wanted anyways, a stay of execution thus allowing him to drop the pretense. He doesn’t bother with this in the rest of his appearances.
  • Criminal Mind Games: While imprisoned, Epps secretly works with an accomplice on the outside to commit copycat crimes for the sole purpose of making the FBI (and Dr Brennan, in particular) consult him on the case. He very purposefully leaves a trail of clues for the FBI to follow, most of which can’t be understood without talking to him and listening to the hints he drops into conversation.
  • Disney Villain Death: He falls from the balcony of Brennan's apartment.
  • Evil Genius: Claims to have an I.Q. of 180. According to Zack, however, he's overestimating himself.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Though he also mentioned that he wished she had been his first victim.
  • Freudian Excuse: His mother, a religious fanatic, washed his hands with ammonia (and made him take baths in it) and taught him that sex was evil. Needless to say, it didn't do his psyche good.
  • Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook: He could be a Manipulative Bastard all along, or maybe he learned it while on death row. When we first meet Epps, he's claiming to be innocent and trying to get exonerated, but it ends up he just wanted them to discover that he'd killed even more people than previously thought, so they have to keep him alive while they process the new bodies. When he returns in season 2, Epps is even more manipulative and playing serial killer games, leading the team on a merry chase with body parts as clues.
  • Monster Misogyny: Literally. Booth even theorizes that Epps hates Brennan because she's a smart, strong, confident woman.
  • Pipe Pain: Murdered his victims with a pipe.
  • Serial Killer: Of teenage girls. Fun guy.
  • Villainous Breakdown: In the last episode he appears, after being smug and confident for the majority of time he becomes visibly shaken and angry when he learns that Booth has arrested his mother. Then, when it seems like he's got Brennan dead to rights with a diversion to ambush her in the shower, she rounds the corner with her new revolver, and he immediately goes from confidence in his intent to backing away realizing she has every reason to fire.

     The Gravedigger aka: Heather Taffet 
Click here to see them
Played by: Deirdre Lovejoy


  • Asshole Victim: Has her head blown off by Broadsky in The Bullet in the Brain. No tears are shed. You deserved it, Ms. Taffet.
  • Break Them by Talking: Manages to make Sweets doubt himself for an entire episode in a two-minute conversation.
  • Criminal Mind Games: She relied on this during her trial in particular; her actual crimes depended on putting everyone in impossible situations.
  • Evil Redhead: She has red hair and she is a recurring villain (Seasons 2, 4, 5 and 6).
  • Hero Killer: None of the main cast, thankfully (although not for lack of trying) but she did murder a couple of other investigators who were after her, including a recurring character.
  • Killer Cop: State Attorney, really.
  • Samus Is a Girl: They worked off the assumption that it was a man doing it and she didn't actually appear until the second episode featuring her.
  • Serial Killer: Though the general MO is to kidnap for ransom, if they don't pay the victims are killed. The victims are buried alive in a container with limited air, and if the ransom is paid the location is given so they can be rescued.
  • Villainous BSoD: It's subdued, but present, after she gets convicted.
  • Would Hurt a Child: She has no issue if her victims are children. Such was the case of Terence Gilroy.
  • Your Head Asplode: The bullet to her head caused her cranium to literally explode, splattering Sweets with serial killer head goop.

    The Gormogon 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gormogon.jpg

  • Badass Biker: Either the Gormogon or his second apprentice makes an appearance attacking Bones and Booth on a motorcycle, and then leading Booth on an impressive foot chase.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: Is a vicious, cannibal driven by vague, likely nonexistent conspiracy theories.
  • The Corruptor: Looks for young, troubled, susceptible recruits to be his apprentice, and is implied to have been a troubled foster kid himself before being introduced to cannibalism, given the original Gormogons job as a social worker.
  • Eats Babies: While it doesn't fit the profile of their victims, Jason Harkness, the first apprentice seen on the show, claims to know what babies taste like during his interrogation.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Both the Gormogon and the apprentice eat other humans.
  • Karma Houdini: The original Gormogon was never caught and wound up living his days out at a nursing home.
  • Legacy Character: The Gormogon is training his apprentice to be the next Gormogon. The team eventually meet the original Gormogon, but he's a senile old man in a nursing home by then.
  • Looks Like Orlok: Especially since the first and only unmasked scene of the Gormogon shows him in an underground lair, eating his latest victim, and showing off artificially sharpened teeth.
  • The Mole: Zack Addy, the Gormogon's latest apprentice.
  • Red Herring: Sweets was introduced to be the Gormogon. However, he got downgraded to this due to the Writer's Strike.
  • Rule of Two: Always one Gormogon and one apprentice.

    Jacob Broadsky 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jacob_broadsky.jpg
Played by: Arnold Vosloo

  • Broken Pedestal: Booth initially refused to put him on the suspect list because he respected him as a mentor.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: An in-universe example. Broadsky is a sniper, and snipers are trained to go for high ground. However, with his right hand broken, he's incapable of pointing his gun downwards, meaning he's effectively useless when Booth realizes this and sticks to the ground.
  • Didn't Think This Through: His habit of using snipers and assassins for aliases makes for a pretty obvious trail to follow, plus the fact that he bought land in Booth's name meant that Booth could legally enter the property in question without a warrant.
  • Evil Counterpart: Fans have described him as the evil version of Booth, as they're both snipers but Broadsky has no issue killing innocent people to ensure he gets his targets where Booth won't even kill criminals unless he's certain that he has to.
  • Game-Breaking Injury: His second to last victim broke his hand. Learning this gives Booth the advantage during their final Sniper Duel.
  • Hero Killer: Despite so many close calls for six seasons, the first one to successfully kill a main character (albeit the wrong one).
  • Hypocrite: One of the worst in the show, due to seemingly Believing Their Own Lies. He is killing criminals, but he's also willing to take money from an even worse criminal to do so for at least one of his hits, and seems to focus on going after people who, due to the nature of their crimes or already being imprisoned, are far lesser threats to society at the moment than Broadsky himself is.
  • Lack of Empathy: Never shows a fraction of an iota of guilt over the innocents he kills as collateral damage.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: The guy thrives on being a sniper, but gets one hand broken before his final Sniper Duel and the other shot by Booth right before he's captured.
  • Never My Fault: When his girlfriend kills herself due to guilt about what he used her to do, he blames Booth.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: To Booth. This is pointed out by him and Booth's colleagues, which is a sore point for Booth.
  • Oh, Crap!: When Booth reveals he doesn't need a warrant because Broadsky purchased the land they're on under Booth's name (he tended to steal identities).
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: His specialty. He targets those who he thinks deserve it. No one shed a tear when he killed The Gravedigger.
  • Serial-Killer Killer: His targets are all criminals or serial killers. However, he's willing to kill innocents to get at the guilty party.
  • Sniper Duel: Season 6 is essentially a season long Sniper Duel, peppered with smaller ones in the meantime.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Believes he's doing good by killing bad people... the problem is, he will kill innocents if they're in his way.
    • Calling him this is an EXTREMELY generous interpretation of his actions and his character. For context, his second victim, while a criminal, was a nonviolent offender and the man who paid Broadsky to kill him was the drug lord against whom the man testified. The Gravedigger had also already been sentenced to death, and was facing a grim final appeal. Broadsky is really little better than people like Pelant and the Gravedigger, and seems to just want the opportunity to kill and get paid for it with a veneer of justification that Booth only buys due to his judgment about Broadsky being clouded.

    Christopher Pelant 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chrpel.jpg
Played by: Andrew Leeds

  • Asshole Victim: As of Season 9, Booth finally kills him for good with a bullet square to the throat. The fans rejoiced.
  • Bait-and-Switch: In the Season 8 finale, everything in the case points to Booth being his next target, but as Angela finds out later, Sweets is the one who's actually in Pelant's crosshairs.
  • The Cameo: He appears briefly as a waiter in the alternate universe episode "The 200th in the 10th".
  • Cardboard Prison: He formerly had a tracking device intended to keep him under house arrest. It proved utterly useless.
  • Crazy Jealous Guy: Upon seeing Bones propose to Booth, he simmers for a good 30 seconds while repeating the recording at least twice, and later orders Booth to cancel the engagement.
  • Crazy-Prepared: He managed to spend a good two seasons pulling backup plans and escape routes out of his ass.
  • Death Seeker: As discovered by Hodgins first-hand, he actually enjoys the thought of being killed, primarily because of the effect on those responsible.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He thinks of everything in purely selfish terms - the concept of people acting against their best interest never occurs to him. This ultimately gets him killed - he takes Brennan hostage and threatens to kill her if Booth doesn't drop his weapon. When Brennan tells Booth to take the shot, even though it could mean her death, Pelant is dumbfounded, leaving him open. This also defines his warped 'love' for Brennan, as he's utterly incapable of comprehending why she fell in love with Booth and thinks he can 'change' himself to win her over.
  • Evil Counterpart: Can be seen as this to Angela. They are both people whose talents are focused on tech, but also have a great understanding and interest in art. Angela is the most caring and emotional individual on the main cast, while Pelant's interest on Brennan makes of him a Yandere.
  • Eye Scream: His right eye is intact, but the trauma of the bullet passing too close damaged it severely, leaving the organ discolored, bloodshot, and blind.
  • Fatal Flaw: His obsession with Bones is what ultimately leads to his death.
  • Formerly Fat: Was so back in high school, and it was another thing he used his technical skills to cover up to make himself look better in the public eye.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Booth manages to shoot Pelant in the head early in season 8. Plot Armor saves his life, but the entire right side of his face is a ruin of scars due to the bullet's exit wound.
  • Hollywood Hacking: Absurdly proficient at hacking every device imaginable. As of the season 8 finale, he seemingly has the entire electronic infrastructure of DC under his thumb.
    • In his first appearance, he inscribed a computer worm into bones, infecting the Jeffersonian computers when Angela scanned them.
  • If I Can't Have You…: Sweets noted that, as long as Pelant believes Brennan could fall for him, Pelant won't hurt her. The moment he realizes it won't happen, Pelant will kill her, himself and everyone that gets in the way.
  • It's All About Me: A big part of his insanity is a pathological need to be the center of attention.
  • Invincible Villain: For a long time, until pushing his luck too far and getting a bullet in the throat.
  • Irony: When Pelant does die, he's overplayed his hand so much that Booth barely seems to care. His death had no effect at all on his killer.
  • It's Personal: He initially was a Well-Intentioned Extremist of sorts, as, unlike the Gravedigger, he did not mess with the team directly. Only upon Brennan consulting with Ethan Sawyer, did he retaliate back. Later, after Hodgins nearly choked him, he went after his family and fortune. And then, after Booth shot him in the face, he set his sights on him and his relationship with Brennan.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: Booth finally kills him early in the ninth season.
  • Love Hungry: Basically applies to his obsession with Brennan, as he's determined to win her over.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Managed to trick Booth into getting himself removed from the original case by faking a distress call from Bones, provoking Booth into raiding his house without cause. He was hoping the Squints would also similarly screw themselves over to protect Bones, but that part of the plan failed.
  • Sadistic Choice: Likes to present people with these. They never work, because Pelant is completely blind to the idea of people not caring about themselves over others, and every single one is built on the theme.
  • The Sociopath: Narcissistic, entitled, manipulative and completly devoid of empathy.
  • Two-Faced: The left side of his face is normal, but the right looks like a stitched-together hamburger, probably because he sewed up his wounds himself.
  • Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Always has an escape plan when the team manages to get close to cornering him. This is because when he did get cornered, he died.
  • Villainous Crush: He becomes obsessed with Bones and some of his actions are an attempt to ruin her relationship with Booth.
  • Would Hurt a Child: As part of a Sadistic Choice, he forces Hodgins and Angela to choose between saving Hodgins' fortune as the sole heir to the Cantilever Group and stopping a hijacked predator drone from bombing a girls' school in Afghanistan. They end up choosing the latter, and it was an easier choice than one might think, given how Hodgins feels about being Secretly Wealthy.

     The Ghost Killer aka: Stephanie McNamara 

Click here to see
Played by: Kelly Rutherford

A mysterious serial killer with no particular MO, whom only Pelant knows about, and uses that knowledge to try to convince Brennan to work with him.


  • Abusive Parents: Her father used to lock her in a barn and leave her there. She tore out her fingernails clawing at the locked door, which is why she pulls out her victim's nails (to replace her own).
  • Attention Whore: To her father. Her first victim is her father's rape victim, who she believed to be stealing her father's attention.
  • Asshole Victim: She is killed by the man she falsely convicted for her first murder.
  • Body Horror: She tore off her victim's nails to put on her own fingers, because all her nails were gone.
  • Child Prodigy: Invoked by Cam when they find out that her first victim was killed when she was 15, making her the youngest serial killer in the series, since Pelant started killing at 16/17.
  • Cain and Abel: Her older brother was her last victim before she herself was killed.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Her father used to lock her in a storeroom, and she lost her fingernails trying to get out.
  • Freudian Excuse: All of her psychotic episodes started because of her father being a Control Freak.
  • It's All About Me: If she even has a motive, this would be it. She murdered a RAPE VICTIM, instead of turning her father (the rapist) into the police, because she was angry that he had paid attention to the girl, but not her and believed he would pay more attention to her now that she killed his victim. When he simply paid off the police to cover it up, she continued killing people in an attempt to make his pay attention to her, only to met with the same results. When her older, play-boy brother truly fell in love and wanted to marry a seventeen-year-old who was sailing around the world, she killed her for taking her brother away. Years later, she kills her own brother because his girlfriend's case was reopened and she was mad that he wouldn't just forget her.
  • Karma Houdini: She started killing during high school, and went on to murder various victims for 18 years, never being caught.
    • Laser-Guided Karma: The man she framed for her first murder comes back to kill her in the same way she killed her first victim.
  • Rich Bitch: As Stephanie McNamara.
  • Samus Is a Girl: Pelant points out that he believes that the Ghost Killer is a woman, the reason why is never established.
  • Serial Killer: With no particular MO or reason to kill.
  • The Unfought: By the time they caught her, she was the victim of the week.
  • Yandere: After her father raped a classmate of hers, she killed her, believing she was stealing her father's love. She murdered her older brother's girlfriend two years later when he intended to propose to the girl, therefore leaving her and their family. She claimed her brother as her last victim as he had become obsessed with his dead girlfriend again after her case was reopened.

    The Puppeteer aka: Mihir Roshan 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/puppeteer.jpg
Played by: Ravi Kapoor

A mysterious, unidentified serial killer. They get their name from the fact that they turn their victims into puppets that they dress up and play with before discarding them six months after the murder. They appear to have a strong hatred of the Jeffersonian team and anyone connected to them, including their families, and have been shown to have an obsession with Brennan as well as a connection to former team member Zack Addy.


  • Abusive Parents: Played with; the team believes that the reason he taxidermies and grooms his victims bodies is because he wants to have them as parental substitutes to replace the memories of his real parents.
  • Dead Guy Puppet: How he got his nickname.
  • The Dreaded: He manipulates multiple associates and they all are downright terrified of him. The creepy old guy who cared for the house where he lived with his victims bodies was so terrified of him that he decided to commit suicide to spare himself the agony of what The Puppeteer would do to him for being caught by the cops. The former criminal; whose puppet theater and workshop the killer rented for his base, only saw the guy once (and didn't even get a look at his face) but was so horrified by whatever he saw that he was permanently traumatized and erased it from his mind. It doesn't hurt that the team is even more scared of him than any of the previous serial killers, either.
  • Manipulative Bastard: He has manipulated multiple associates so that he wouldn't get caught, but Hodgins claims him as this for another reason. Once the killer focused on the Team, he began changing his pattern and manipulating the evidence to manipulate them to such an extent, in fact, that Cam and Hodgins believe that they cannot trust the evidence or take it at face value at all.

    The Son of Radik aka:Mark Kovac 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mark_kovac.png
Played by: Gerardo Celasco

Mark Kovac, the son of Josip Radik, who seeks revenge on Booth for killing his father.


  • Brother–Sister Team: He was in league with her sister, who pretended to be his wife.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Two occasions, to find out Booths's name. First, with Aldo, into whom he forced rats to burrow. Second, a victim of the week who used to be in Booth's army unit. When the latter failed to give up Booth's name, Kovac tortured and murdered an old woman to force him to talk.
  • Freudian Excuse: He watched his father get sniped down in front of him when he was six years old — at his birthday party.
  • Out of Focus: In the two-part finale, where his plan and actions are behind everything, but he himself only appears in person for a single scene, where he's too busy shooting at Booth and Brennan to trade threats or other dialogue with them.
  • Revenge by Proxy: He doesn't just want Booth to suffer. He wants to ensure everyone around him suffers, too.
  • Too Good to Be True: The first thing that made the team start thinking he is guilty is that he lacked any sort of mental disturbance of any kind according to his tests. Caroline even claims that only a complete psychopath is capable of this.
  • Villain Has a Point: Not him, but his sister, who was his accomplice, made a good one. When Brennan accuses them of killing her father, she points out that Booth killed their father first. when Brennan says that Booth did it out of duty, she says that patriotism isn't an excuse. While Josip Radik was indeed a war criminal, the fact remains that Booth killed an important general of a nation that wasn't officially at war with the USA.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Attempted. He orchestrated an attack on the safe house hiding Christine, Hank, and Max. Christine and Hank survive but Max dies in the attack.


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