bones: roadblock to babyville
damn this show for its commitment to diversity! // fox promotional photo
Having a new blog means I’m technically free from all of my old predictions gone horribly awry, correct? Even still, I’ll confess that I was way off my mark as Bones careened toward last spring’s season four finale. See, I argued that all signs pointed toward BABYBABYBABY. I thought it seemed way obvious that Brennan was going to find herself pregnant with Booth’s baby after a one-night agreement to give in to their biological urges/intense attraction/overt feelings of love for one another.
Turns out, you can’t get pregnant from hallucination!sex. Go freaking figure.
Although I am willing to eat crow here and admit that I was wrong, I can’t help but feel a little bitter about things. Because, dammit, the signs were pointing toward Babyville and I wanted to go to there!
Today, the delightful Leanne posted a deleted scene from “Doctor in the Den,” the Cam episode from season four that went down in history as the only episode from last season that didn’t end with the requisite Booth/Brennan End Scene of Fluff. Ask any Bones fan and they’ll tell you–episodes are nothing without the End Scene of Fluff.
Although the inclusion of this sweet scene probably would have raised the overall rating on this episode by at least a few points, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t see this before the finale, because I definitely would have considered it a roadsign to Babyville. Wouldn’t you?
Clearly, they spent the second half of season four building toward Babyville. In “The Salt in the Wound,” Brennan witnessed Booth instructing a young father how to be a man; the look on her face clearly showed she knew just what a good man and father her partner is. In “Cinderella in the Cardboard,” Brennan told Booth she wanted to believe that love is transcendent and eternal, something Booth promised her she would one day understand. And in “The Girl in the Mask,” Booth assured Brennan that the love he has for his son is worth all the heartache that might come along with it.
And yet, Brennan’s ultimate decision to have a baby in “Critic in the Cabernet” was based not on the evidence Booth showed her over the course of ten or more episodes (or four years, if you want to make that argument), but rather on split-second logic that she should give the world the impassable progeny of Dr. Temperance Brennan. Later, her decision to not have the baby was made just as fast. ”Fine, I won’t have a baby,” she told Booth, and that was the last we heard of it.
I understand that the ship has sailed on this baby thing, that we likely won’t meet Booth and Brennan’s superspawn until the epilogue tag on the series finale, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need better closure on this (or any) storyline. Especially considering that the pregnancy was part of Booth’s coma dream/Brennan’s novel, it needs better tying up.
And I am ultimately going to need to see that kid.
