There are some weeks where you watch an episode and really, really have nothing to say about it, like me last week with Bones. Thankfully, that’s what the CliqueClack e-roundtable is for.
Julia: Okay, it’s been 36 hours of struggling with what to say on this Bones column and I’m getting nowhere. I literally have nothing to say for the first time in, perhaps, the entirety of my life. Does anyone else have anything they wouldn’t mind stepping in and writing?
An: I tried watching the episode on Hulu this morning and I just couldn’t get through the first five-ten minutes. The gravedigger plot line was never my favorite. And, I hate to say it but a pudgy woman who glares evilly/smugly isn’t so scary. The Gormogon, who gnaws on human flesh, was scary. The Gravedigger … sure, she buries people alive, but, physically, she just doesn’t scare me in the Kathy Bates Misery/Anthony Hopkins Silence of the Lambs sense.
Ivey: Gravedigger was my favorite storyline until we actually met the Gravedigger. The first episode, with Hodgins and Brennan buried alive, remains one of my all time favorite episodes of Bones. But, you’re right An, the character never really fit the actor.
Excuse the pun, but I was blown away by the teaser. I had a feeling it was coming, but it seemed FOX ramped up the violence in this one. There’s a big difference between seeing decomposing corpses, and seeing a head disintegrate into red mist, even in the background. More than I’m used to seeing on network TV.
Julia: Really? I always found her deeply creepy on a psychological level. Like yes, she looks normal, but secretly she’s going to come for you in the night. I like when creepy people don’t look creepy because it intensifies their creepiness. They could be anywhere! We can’t spot them! They’re just lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce!
I liked her in general. I loved the trial episode, and I love how she’s still able to screw with Sweets even though she’s dead, though I didn’t really get why she effected him so much. Was it just because she said it and then died? It rang a little untrue, even though I did love what it led to with the Caroline scene.
Ivey: I see where you’re coming from, but I just never bought her as that menacing. Howard Epps, from the first couple of seasons, was so much more effective in the same way. She was ruined for me when she was first found out and tied to the chair. Her mean face was ridiculous. It was like watching my mom do a mean face … Too damn nice to be believable.
Carla: That was one of the most graphic assassinations I’ve seen on television. It was extremely well done.
Did anyone else think at some point that Hodgins paid someone to do it? I was surprised he was never considered a suspect. But, I am very glad it wasn’t him.
Julia: I think the thing that got to me the most was at the end of the episode with the lingering look-at-his-man pain face with Booth watching Brennan. Like, sir, you do not get to make that face anymore. You have relinquished your rights to that face. I feel no sympathy for that face. That bothered me more than any of the graphic corpses.
An: I think I have to agree with Ivey. When I think about it, I liked the Gravedigger until I met her. I hated the court case because it felt anti-climactic and a little boring. When I saw Sweets with the Gravedigger in the police truck I thought the entire episode could be intense or a total snoozer. I just didn’t want to watch another episode with people pretending her pudgy adorableness was actually frightening. Bates and Hopkins, pudgy? Yes. Sinister? Heck, yes. The gravedigger — meh.
Clacked by Julia Hass 
on Jan 30, 2011 @ 14:41 EST5EDT
Does anyone else think this is the season of humanizing Bones? The last scene with her ear to the shell her father gave her, the confession to Booth, even having Hannah as a friend seem to be taking Bones down a path we have not seen. Though I wonder the end result.
Boreanez is not a strong director and the Gravedigger not a great creepy villian. What I would have loved to see is more of Sweets dealing with his insecurities, the spot that Gravedigger found – one 5 minute session with Caroline even with her confession was not enough. If they need a new B story, why not that one?
Yeah, puppy dog eyes looks – that ship sailed. How much longer must we endure this story line? Does anyone know if the baby being born episode will happen this season or as an off camera/between seasons thing?
I feel no sympathy for that face. That bothered me more than any of the graphic corpses.
Yes. I was ambivalent about the episode until then (thought Grave Digger asking Sweets to be there was absurd but like Sweets dealing with it; reconstructions too ridiculous but good characterization) but that look sealed it for me.
That ship has definitely sailed and so has my sympathy for Booth and Bones with it.
I’m with Ivy, that first episode, with Hodgins and Brennan buried is still one of my favorites. But once, you met the villian, and the story evolved over time the whole thing was lost. Going back to that same early story, what happened to the background on Hodgins, in those earlier story-lines, he was rich and several stories were based on the family background, and how he was trying to keep it all from the rest. The last few years, that has also been lost, along with the chance to develop stories beyond the Booth/Bones/Hannah relationship, and the Hodgins/Angelea baby bit. For me, those stories are becoming too pat and boring.
There was an episode where Hodgins wealth gets brought up, and he says that most of it was lost in the global economic crisis (thats what the world gets for following American business practices), and that the financial dudes are working on restoring it, but until they do, he has no trust fund, which means the only wealth Hodgins has is what he makes at the Jefersonian, and all the property and material possessions he has.
Though yes, I do agree that the current path for Bones is putting the producers into a situation where the only story arcs they can have, without it feeling forced, is booth/bones and hodgins/angelea. There used to be so much more character development (though I felt booth was just a 2d twit. His character, the religous ex-sniper fbi who rejects anything that challenges his beliefs has not changed at all. He still does it. The JFK episode was the perfect one to enable Booth to grow, but instead because of the contraversy they left it alone. Its just yet another attempt to force guys into the ‘knight in shining armor” booth-model and girls into the “submissive love interest” model that Bones is starting to be forced down), now most of it has been lost.