Television: Bones

My favorite television show had its season finale last night, so it's time to take stock yet again.

Basically the episode set up the coming season as a time jump of one year. This is because [almost] everyone found something else to do for a year--like summer vacation only extended. Brennan agreed to head an anthropological site on the island of Maluku, and Daisy was going with her, leaving Sweets behind. (He had the option to go with her and decided against it--also deciding against "waiting" for her, so it'll be interesting to see what happens there). Booth agreed to go back into the Army for a year to teach the troops some sniper and tracking skills. Jack and Angela decided not to hang around and wait for all their friends, so they were skipping town to spend a year in Paris. Cam and Caroline were evidently left to hold down the fort.

At the end of the episode, as Brennan and Daisy said their good-byes to everyone at the airport before flying off for Maluku, Booth turned up in uniform and made a pact with Brennan to meet at the Reflecting Pool near the coffee cart in one year. This makes the opening for next season painfully predictable in that a year will have passed and Brennan and Booth will be awkward with one another, having changed and yet not changed . . . Like seeing an old college buddy or something. OR, alternatively, one of them won't show. At that will set off some other thing, what-have-you. I'm hoping the writers will surprise me and that neither of these things will actually happen. Though I'm not sure what else could happen.

Meanwhile, I still have questions about the beginning of this season and Booth's brain and such. Apparently all of that was dropped without notice at some point. I mean, if Booth had been having trouble remembering how to handle simple plumbing jobs, can he remember how to shoot and track well enough to teach Army recruits? As for being in love with Brennan, well, they dealt with that in the 100th episode, though the idea of it being a false feeling generated by his brain was never followed up on, either. This is me throwing my hands up and saying, "Are we just pretending none of that happened?" That's fine by me if we are, since I thought all that was a bit hokey anyway, but I'd like to know for sure one way or the other.

Certainly, I think the idea of a year away is a good one. A lot of shows are doing that kind of thing lately, so it may seem that Bones is jumping on a bandwagon here, but they needed to do something to keep things fresh. Or rather, to refresh things. So here's hoping for interesting developments in absentia. See you in the fall.