We’re about a month away from the season premiere of Bones, and I am not excited. I swear. Season six was an embarrassment, start to finish, and this pregnancy storyline is just an atrocious piece of storytelling. I feel like …

Oh, holy God, this is adorable.

From the bickery banter IN THE MORNING AT HIS APARTMENT WHERE THEY SLEEP to the sweet puns (“Due this November!”? Pinch me!), this promo suggests that this season is going to be absolutely freaking adorable.

Seeley Booth as a daughterfather? Temperance Brennan as a hormone-crazed pregnant woman? I’ve wanted this since season one, episode two! (What? It took some convincing.)

My concern is — how far can this baby carry the show? Will he or she (she, most definitely) be enough to redeem the wrongs of last season? Or will this baby just be a constant reminder of the out-of-character, almost-cruel-to-patient-fans leap forward these writers made last spring?

I feel like this could be good, actually. The time jump and the enormous (har har) shift in Booth and Brennan’s partnership will immediately distance season seven from its predecessor, and that’s a good thing. But I’ll be curious to see if longtime Bones fans can put the past behind them.

I think I can, if that counts for anything, although I reserve the right to roll my eyes with some frequency. (Brennan’s going to go into labor at a prison during a lockdown? EYES ROLLING SO MUCH.)

Booth and Brennan arrive at a crime scene, where Brennan is dressed in her typical Jeffersonian jumpsuit—pulled tight over her huge baby bump. Booth is, as expected, doing a pretty good anxious father routine, complaining about her traipsing through the woods. Brennan is, as expected, using anthropology to refute his concerns: women have been squatting in the woods popping out babies for centuries. Booth is, as expected, traumatized by all discussion of squatting.

“I’m never going to be able to survive this pregnancy, I’m telling ya.”

It’s predictable, it’s not particularly clever—but it’s also freaking adorable.

I mean, you guys! Booth and Brennan are having a baby together! They are opposites and they are having a baby together! They have been will-they-won’t-they-ing for six seasons and they are having a baby together!

Question is, after the novelty of squatting conversations wears off, what’s left? Well, then there’s the actual baby, but then what? The writers seem certain that skipping the first six or so months of Booth and Brennan’s romance will allow them to beat the Moonlighting Curse—which, until they actually paired them up, they swore did not exist—but I maintain that good stories can be told whether the characters are together or apart, and bad stories can be told whether the characters are together or apart.

The challenge they have to deal with this season, in my opinion, isn’t writing an interesting post-hookup Booth/Brennan, but rather writing good stories—period. Maybe it will give them a fresh burst of creativity—it sure did for Friends back in the day—but they’re only going to be able to rely on cute baby cuteness for so long.

Last thing—do you want to hear my theory? I think episode six—the last before Emily Deschanel’s maternity hiatus kicks in—will end with a “Booth, I’m in labor” cliffhanger. And it’ll probably happen at a really inopportune time. Maybe it’ll even be related to this season’s serial killer. Booth thinks squatting in the fields to birth a baby is an unsavory idea? See what he thinks when she starts having contractions in a killer’s dungeon lair or something. Then they can decide when they get back if they want to:

(A)   Say it was false labor and get Booth and Brennan the heck out of that dungeon lair!

(B)   Start right back in the dungeon lair and have Booth deliver that messy baby by himself, all the while holding a gun on the killer!

(C)   Skip more time to where the baby is born and fine and like three years old!

Good times all around.

(Leaving more space in case you clicked here from Twitter and don’t actually want to know.)

As if there were ever any question about the sex of this baby.

It’s a girl!

In the script for episode two, a suspect gets fresh talking about Brennan, to which Booth does not take kindly. Sweets tells the suspect to take it easy: “The little girl she’s carrying is his daughter.”

Booth is going to be a daughterfather. Commence squeeing and universal “I told you so”s.

I’ll take the first one: I told you so!

this was five episodes ago and now you are seven months pregnant. // fox promotional photo

The first spoilers for Bones’s seventh season are out, and they weren’t lying when they said they were doing a time jump. In fact, in this premiere, it’s three years later, and Booth and Brennan have a child. They got married, but it didn’t work out, and they are now divorced and splitting custody of their kid. See? They managed to keep the tone of the show exactly the same! They’re back to WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY, but with EVEN HIGHER STAKES because now there’s a child involved. DRAAAAAAAMA.

Just kidding. That’s not what happens.

Actual spoilers after the jump.

We pick up several months later. It is indicated that Brennan is “great with child.” It appears that she and Booth are maintaining separate residences, and at least on this morning, they’ve spent the night at Booth’s. Brennan is bitching about his apartment being too small; in reality, she’s just Aunt Marge-ing it up in there.

From the limited information we have, we know that the case, which involves a woman who lost her memory, will evoke memories for Booth and Brennan about their respective childhoods. Brennan in particular seems kind of moody throughout the episode, which is to be expected, since she’s still working on her feet all day while she’s hugely pregnant.

That’s pretty much all we know, but I feel pretty confident reaching the following conclusion:

By episode’s end, Booth and Brennan will have decided to live together, either at her apartment or at a new place that’s big enough to fit all of their tchotchkes and children. (Recall that Brennan slept on the couch in “The Hole in the Heart,” suggesting that there’s no spare bed in the apartment, even for Parker. Where are they going to put a second baby?) Brennan may also express to Booth her doubt that they can successfully parent a child, considering how crappy their own parents were. He’ll reassure her with lovely statements such as, “You’re going to love this baby so much.” and “Parker’s turning out okay, right?” and “Hey, at least you know what not to do.” They’ll determine that, at the very least, they’ll do better than their own parents did. Which, really, is a low bar to set, considering Booth’s dad beat him and Brennan’s parents preferred bank robbery to successful parenting. Bottom line is, this is the episode where they’ll decide to officially raise this baby as a family.

Michael Hodgins also makes an appearance, to which I say, Child, enjoy your time as the baby on this show, because you’re about to get upstaged but good in a couple months.

No word yet on whether or not B&B have been remanded to Sweets’s psychological jurisdiction or if there’s been confirmation that this baby will be female (she will).

Anything else you’re particularly waiting to find out about? 

s'gonna be one genetically lucky little girl. // fox promotional photo

Where We Started: Booth and Brennan return from their respective workcations. Brennan may have figured out that absence makes the heart grow fonder; unfortunately, Booth had sex with a skank under a fig tree and she’s followed him home.

Where We Ended: “I’m pregnant. You’re the father.” Yeaaaaah. That happened.

Outstanding Episode Along the Way: I’d say “The Hole in the Heart,” just for Angela’s faces when Brennan told her that she and Booth and shared a bed. On the flip side, though, now I’m just mad, because apparently Booth and Brennan had offscreen sex in this episode.

MVP: Angela. Not only did she carry an iffy-at-best pregnancy storyline to term, she was often the only voice of reason in a season of absurdity. And, as noted above, her facial expressions were pitch-perfect. She gets points taken off for ridiculous lines about her baby’s potential blindness (which we all knew would end up being a non-issue), but she still has many, many more points than her colleagues.

Best Payoff: As if Bones knows anything about payoff. Can we talk instead about all the things they never paid off?

• Booth threw Hannah’s engagement ring into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. For a guy who worries about his kid going to public school, that seemed like a big chunk of change to just throw away.
• Booth and Brennan each wrote down a hypothetical date when they’d be ready to start going out, then burned the pieces of paper. We can assume, I suppose, that they decided to screw that plan and just have sex when they felt like it. Okay.
• In the season five finale, Booth and Brennan agree to meet at a coffee cart on the National Mall a year from that date. Even though they came home from Afghanistan and the Maluku Islands ahead of schedule, it’s still annoying that they never followed through on that coffee date.
• Booth and Brennan agreed that the reasons keeping them apart were his anger toward the women who’d wronged him and her “imperviousness” in matters of the heart. Neither ever acknowledged that they had moved past these barriers before jumping into the sack.

On the other hand, this whole baby situation was foreshadowed in the season four episode, “The Critic in the Cabernet,” arguably one of my favorite episodes of the series. Booth agreed to give Brennan some sperm in the event of his death while having brain surgery, but when he survived, the matter was never mentioned again—until now. So if you consider this cliffhanger a payoff of that years-old follow-through crap-out, then THAT’s the best payoff.

Quote of the Year: “I messed myself.” God bless Patricia Belcher for delivering this line with the seriousness required, and not the immature chuckle that I still can’t help, months after the sniper took out the Gravedigger.

Worst Storyline: Is it even a contest? Congratulations, Ms. Hannah Burley. In all seriousness, imagine if Hannah had been a non-issue and Booth and Brennan had gotten together earlier in the season. It might not have felt so out-of-left-field, so “DON’T LOOK AT ME. BLAME EMILY AND HER FETUS” for Booth and Brennan to be facing down parenthood this summer. As it stands, the major storyline stall caused by the introduction (and subsequent, inevitable exodus) of Hannah put a big damper on the season, and ultimately makes the otherwise juicy cliffhanger feel like too little, too late. Even if we know this little baby’s going to be super cute.

Spend the Summer Wondering…: … how in the hell they’re going to deal with this. Having just gone through a season-long pregnancy storyline with Angela, do we think they’ll drag this out another 22 episodes, even if these nine months involve our lead characters, not our second-stringers? Also, wouldn’t that mean that they’d have to downplay Emily’s real-life pregnancy at the beginning, only to put her in a prosthetic belly once she’s back from maternity leave? Seems logical to me that they’d skip some time in there and have Brennan deliver just before Emily goes on leave, but it’s Bones, after all. And you know what that means: logical schmogical.

I’ll also be wondering how Hart Hanson is planning on responding to the hate mail he’s about to receive for cheating the viewers who’ve been watching for six long, sexless years out of the consummation of Booth and Brennan’s relationship. Even for him, that’s low. Also, if this doesn’t work out, let this please be a cautionary tale on dragging things out past the point of no return, and not on letting your main characters have sex.

Here’s how I feel. (Hannah: “I DON’T KNOW HOW I FEEL.”) Yesterday, I read this story about three boys who were lost at sea. Floating in a dinghy and out of food and water, they were incredibly thirsty. They were surrounded, of course, by saltwater, but they knew better than to drink that. (Everyone does.) Still, they couldn’t help themselves. And even though it tasted awful and ultimately resulted in the boys just getting dehydrated more quickly, it was satisfying. This baby is my glass of saltwater. It’s a terrible idea, but at least for a few moments, it’s going to be delicious.

god, that necklace must be giving her a terrible tension headache. // fox promotional photo

What a cheat! After six seasons of will they-won’t they, Angela got the goods from Brennan on did they-didn’t they, while the rest of us were left in the dark with Hodgins. Yep, Brennan told Angela what really happened during her late-night snugglefest with Booth, but the audience wasn’t let in on the secret. I expect that we’ll get our answer, either via rehash or flashback, in next week’s season finale. But what do I think happened?

Nothing.

Well, not nothing. But definitely not sex. For starters, he had to get up early the next morning to catch a bad sniper, so middle-of-the-night sex probably wouldn’t have been a good idea. Also, he was able to concentrate on said sniper! Do you think a Booth who had finally consummated seven years of sexual tension with Brennan would have been able to focus on work? Hell, I had to take a half-day after the Lost finale.

My bet is predicated entirely on Angela’s face in the scene where Brennan got the call that Booth sniped the sniper:

Booth and Brennan made an agreement that, while that night was clearly not the right moment, it’s time to address this once and for all. (Ten points for me if the argument “life is too short” was used.) They made a plan to revisit this conversation, and these feelings, once the sniper was taken care of. Angela’s face completely suggested that that moment was the shotgun going off, signaling the beginning of the race to the finish line.

Now, he’s taken care of. And Brennan, I believe, made it clear in last night’s episode that she’s not about to renege on that deal. She was excited to tell Angela about the progress they’d made, and she looped her arm through Booth’s at the end in a subtle demonstration of her affection. (For two people who’ve barely touched each other all season, that was huge.)

So maybe next week, we’ll see Booth and Brennan ready to have the conversation for which viewers have waited six years. Maybe they’ll kiss and agree that they’re going steady.

…But how does that fit with what has been teased about the finale?

Stephen Nathan suggested that the finale will take the show in a direction that’s a happy medium between what the gung-ho Booth/Brennan shippers want, and what the weird “I Just Watch for the Realistic Crime-Solving” fans want. I mean, what is that? Friends with benefits? (Please.) Sneaking around? (Doubtful.)

After at least three seasons of punting their finale cliffhangers, I’m not at all expecting these writers to actually have the guts to do the unthinkable and put them together. For all their chatter about the so-called Moonlighting curse, they sure as hell don’t seem interested in defying it, either. But I can’t say I’m not intrigued by the possibility that, after a season of mediocrity in which this show forever lost me as a more-than-occasional viewer, next season could actually show Booth and Brennan together. I’m also very optimistic about what could happen if showrunner Hart Hanson makes recent pick-up The Finder his full-time job, leaving Stephen Nathan to do the heavy lifting at Bones. No matter what happens, plot-wise, that could be a gamechanger.

Regardless, can Booth and Brennan please be forced to go back to couples counseling with Sweets? Along with chemistry and non-contrived plotlines, that’s been sorely missing this season.

pregnancy props already in use. // fox promotional photo

The body language in this photo, from next week’s sniper-centric “The Hole in the Heart,” makes it clear what’s going down. Brennan is spending the night at Booth’s apartment, because the sniper is ON THE LOOSE and this is a live together, die alone situation. He is offering her jammies, and she is offering to take the couch.

The fanfiction scene practically writes itself. Booth is like, “You’re a guest. I’ll take the couch.” And Brennan’s like, “But your back!” (He has a bad back, which they only mention at opportune times.) And Booth’s like, “Shut up and go sleep in my bed.” And Brennan’s like, “We are adults. We can share.”

There is ostensibly another bed in Booth’s apartment, since he has a Weekend Kid and all that, but that will be summarily dismissed with a dirty-sheets comment or something.

Now, Brennan could actually just take the jammies and sleep on the couch, but isn’t it better if they embrace the cliche? They start the evening clinging to the edges of the bed, but wake up entangled in each other’s arms, breathing into each other’s mouths, and they open their eyes with a choice to make:

(A) Awkwardly make breakfast and go to work.

(B) See below.

There are a lot more elements to this situation than just snuggling, though. I mean, the decision to sleep in the same apartment is a big enough deal–alpha male protective instincts and all that. Her sleeping in his clothes would be enough to keep a lot of my Twitter feed abuzz for weeks.

Lately, Bones hasn’t been taking advantage of the opportunities it has had to give Booth and Brennan cutesy-cute moments. While cutesy-cute isn’t necessarily their responsibility, it’s a task they performed mightily in seasons two through five, and it’s one they should probably get back to ASAP if they expect to get them together in the finale.

While that big-picture conversation is one for another blog, “platonic” bed-sharing would be seen by many as the final item on the checklist of ridiculata that will-they/won’t-they couples must endure before officially coupling up. Stuck in an elevator? Check. Unnecessary third-party love interest? Check, check, and triple-check. Pretending to be married? Again, many checks.

At the very least, it’s something modestly romantic to look forward to, which has been hard to come by with this show since, let’s face it, somewhere around the 100th episode.

were you too busy dealing with this corpse to come up with an adequate name for your child? // fox promotional photo

Got some pretty big spoilers for the Bones season finale–of course none on what everyone cares about, but these are definitely sparking some conversations on the interwebs. After the jump.

More script pages for the season finale leaked today–this time, for the doctor who delivers Hodgins and Angela’s baby. As expected, it’s a pretty stereotypical TV-character-in-labor situation. Screaming! Hand-crunching! Epidural-refusing!

There’s also some pretty serious tripe between Hodgins and Angela as they discuss the possibility of their child being blind and how much they love the sound of each other’s voices and the feel of each other’s skin and BLAHDY BLAHDY BLAH IT’S SO CHEESY I CAN’T EVEN STAND IT.

Let’s get a couple things out of the way quickly.

1. The baby is not blind. (Duh. As if they were actually going to go there. They dragged it out longer than I expected them to, but ultimately, we all knew this was going to be the outcome.)
2. The baby is of the male variety. That I told you seven months ago. Booyah.

Now let’s get to the goods.

The baby’s name is, I shit you not, “Michael Staccato Vincent Hodgins.” Which leads us to the other piece…

Obviously, Vincent Nigel-Murray is the one who get creamed by the sniper in the episode prior. (I speculated it’d be Wendell, but this is fine, too.)

This is going to cause some problems. People are crazy about Vincent Nigel-Murray. The man calls himself LOVELY. And he kind of is. I can’t remember any big plots he’s had, but he does wear a fun hat in the coma dream episode, so there’s that.

So VNM is sniped at the lab in the penultimate episode (hopefully taking a slug for Brennan accidentally), which leads Hodgins and Angela to oust Booth from his honorary middle name position and name their newborn son after the dead British intern. I’d say it’s hokey, but after reading these lines (“Every time you take my hand, I can feel your whole life vibrating with mine.” Gag me.), this barely even registers.

Also, I guess they’re humoring her father by including the Staccato.

All in all, Michael Hodgins isn’t such a bad name. He can live with that. Actually, when you leave out the musical articulation and the dead intern homage, it’s pretty boring. Blah.

the jacket's back. i should've known. // fox promotional photo

Emily Deschanel is pregnant. (Yay, squee, presents! Whitest baby ever!)

Let’s get to the goods. Will they write it into Bones? My short answer–no.

My long answer–here goes.

Exhibit A: They just spent a whole season on a baby storyline. They need time to rebound.

Exhibit B: The timing is pretty much perfect, with Deschanel due in September. My prediction is that they’ll film the finale, then go ahead and get a couple season seven episodes in the can before she gets very big. Then they can take a longer-than-usual hiatus, give her time to squeeze that sucker out, and get back to business by the fall.

Sidebar: So let’s talk about this possible scheduling scenario. If it goes down this way, the first season seven spoilers will roll in … pretty damn soon. They’d have to start writing the season premiere NOW.

Sidebar to the Sidebar: The bad news there is it doesn’t give them time to let viewers watch the finale, scream “WTF WERE YOU THINKING HAVING HANNAH COME BACK? DIDN’T WE TELL YOU WE HATE HER?”, and then reassess their plans for next year. (“Oh, you hate her? Never mind then. THAT WAS COMA DREAM, PART 2.”) They’ll have to go on gut instinct, and how far do you all trust that?

Exhibit C: Y’all don’t really want them to have a baby right now. Bones has jumped the shark more times than a professional shark-jumper, but getting Brennan crazypregnant with Booth’s baby in the finale would just be insane. Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that they’re hooking up in the season finale. Don’t you want to see them as an awkward new couple? Trying to hide it from the rest of the team? Sneaking around, having first fights, saying their first “I love yous,” telling Parker, telling Max, telling Pops? Telling Sweets? (HOLY GOD, TELLING SWEETS.) You’d lose all that if they tried to compound it on top of a yearlong arc of Accidental First-Try Babymaking.

(PS, Bones–you’re welcome. I just gave you seven episodes worth of material. FYI, there’s more where that came from.)

Thing is, this HAS to be the end of the Will They Or Won’t They trail of fangirl tears. If this was season four, back when I was flailing over news of Brennan and Booth considering having a baby together, I would have DIED if real life had so beautifully coincided. (No, really. Defibrillation may have been required.) They would’ve been nearly FORCED to go along with my plan for season five–Booth and Brennan try to have a baby together platonically, with disastrously adorable and sexy results. But now? Y’all, they could ACTUALLY kiss this year, and you want to fast-forward to babies? I know that Hart Hanson makes fans feel like they’ll take anything they can get their hands on, but I have a feeling you don’t need to rush it anymore.

(This from someone who’s watched exactly two episodes this year and flailed over exactly zero.)

This is not to say that the show should be off the hook for giving them a baby eventually. One of these days, they’re gonna need a daughter.

can we agree that "snipe" is an excellent word? snipe snipe snipe. // fox promotional photo

Spoilers for this season’s penultimate episode of Bones are out, and there’s a something in there that means this season may be taking a pretty serious turn.

When the show introduced a really bad guy this season (Broadsky, the sniper), it seemed obvious that he would eventually take the life of someone we cared about. In fact, last summer, the producers were going around talking about how a recurring character was going to fall victim to this guy. When it turned out that that recurring character was the Gravedigger, and not anyone we actually cared for, I think people felt relieved … but also like it was kind of a cop-out.

I’ve actually been concerned for my favorite Bones character, Dr. Sweets, for some time now. Since Booth and Brennan stopped couples therapy, he hasn’t had a whole lot to do; meanwhile, John Francis Daley’s writing career has seriously picked up. Apparently, my fears were unfounded, however.

The second-to-last episode looks like it’s going to bring the goods that the sniper storyline has so far failed to deliver–the death of a squintern.

The script for this episode, 6×22, “Hole in the Heart,” contains the following exchange between Booth and another agent:

Agent Shaw: The kid who was killed at the lab…was he a friend of yours?

Booth: Yeah. He was.

Agent Shaw: I’m sorry for your loss.

Booth: Don’t be sorry. Just help me get a little revenge.

Whoa!

Now, obviously, the logical guess for Dead Intern here is Wendell, the only one who’s really Booth’s friend. (He’s also the only guy on the intern team whose storyline has gotten mixed up with the regulars’, considering his short-term dalliance with Angela.) But Booth could realistically say that about any of those guys, especially if, as I’m imagining…

The intern dies accidentally protecting Brennan.

I’m picturing a scene similar to the fifth season finale of The X-Files, where young chess prodigy Gibson Praise avoids being sniped by leaning away from the chess board and letting his opponent take the bullet instead. Now, the difference is that Gibson was more than just a chess prodigy; he could also read people’s minds, so he knew that if he didn’t back away from his pieces, he’d be toast. Brennan, smart as she is, does not have that ability. Imagine if the bullet is meant for her, but she unknowingly leans back from the exam table, leaving Wendell (or whomever) to take the slug.

Also consider that we’re likely to see a real “circle of life”-type situation in May, as Hodgins and Angela’s baby will probably be born in the finale. This combination of life and death could pack a greater emotional punch than almost anything we’ve seen before. (Well, at least on Bones. I’m not comparing this to Boone and Aaron or anything.) Unlike seasons past, where stupid plot contrivances push Booth and Brennan apart unnecessarily, this could be the impetus for them finally agreeing to put a stop to the madness and just get together already.

While their coupling-up will never be as romantic as it would have been if it had happened one, two, three seasons ago–when they actually seemed like they liked each other–putting it off beyond this season finale is, honestly, just kind of embarrassing.

Bonus points if Wendell’s dead corneas go to saving Hodgins and Angela’s blind baby’s eyesight. I’m sure this would involve some serious medical and ethical violations, but when has that mattered before? (Actually, I just Googled! Adult corneas can be used in babies, apparently. Now this has to happen. Thanks, Google!)

Also, now that Sweets seems to be safe, can a condition of the FBI okaying Booth and Brennan’s coupledom be mandatory couples therapy? I might actually enjoy that.