Bones, Bones, Bones
Jan. 21st, 2009 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI just finished washing season three of Bones. The bonus material for season three is…the first four episodes of season four. Okay, I know you had the writer’s strike, but really? Nobody else felt the need to do that. In any case, I have a few wee issues about how they ended season three and started season four. I’ve seen up through "The Finger in the Nest," so spoilers for that.
Just before the end of season three, I was thinking about how much I truly enjoy the interaction between Hodgins and Zack. I was glad they brought him back for season three—I was sure that the end of season two meant they were writing him out. And Zack and Hodgins are so cute together with their little conspiracy theories and their experiments and their jockeying for king of the lab.
And then we got “Pain in the Heart” and just—what? That didn’t even make sense to me. I’m not even so mad at them for character assassination of one of my favorite characters. Their point about Zack being open to amoral actions because of his reliance on the rational is valid. He is always someone who has needed guidance as to what is normal human behavior. So I could buy him getting involved with eugenics or white supremacists or someone like Robert Singer—anyone who could argue their position logically from first principles that Zack agreed with.
Here’s my problem. Even if Zack bought Gormigon’s arguments, he would not act directly against the people at the Jeffersonian. He may be a weak personality, but he had a support network. He was surrounded by people who he respected and listened to—Brennan in particular. And all those people had been talking about how awful and brutal Gormigon was. I don’t believe that Zack would be motivated by a desire for the grudging admiration Hodgins showed Gormigon—Zack never seemed interested in that before. And if he is so weak of character, all that talk by Brennan and the others about Gormigon would have had far more weight with Zack than Gormigon’s arguments. Not to mention that Gormigon tried to kill Brennan and Booth. I don’t think Zack would have listened to Gormigon long enough to be persuaded, given the circumstances. Since he is so logical, he would have followed protocol after first contact and reported it.
Zack is also so literal that I don’t think he would have been capable of the duplicity he needed to pull off conspiring with a wanted killer for so long. If he honestly believed that what he was doing was logical and moral, he would have tried to convince the others, not hide it. He respected his coworkers; he would have expected them to agree with him if he was so convinced he was right that he would murder someone.
Even ignoring all of that, I do not believe Zack capable of the murder of the lobbyist, not the way he’s been written. If he did believe that this person needed to die, he wouldn’t have killed him in the brutal attack we saw. Zack was not a creature of rage, and he was quite a bit smaller than the other guy. He wouldn’t have left it to chance that he could overpower the man. If he was going to murder someone, it would be a well thought-out ingenious trap that left nothing to chance, not an attack with a knife.
All of this leads me to believe that the writers were heading somewhere else with that storyline, perhaps leading to Sweets being the killer. (Don’t get me wrong, I like Sweets, but he’s far more viable as a suspect. As an aside, Sweets is also a total yenta. He was created to have an excuse for Booth and Brennan to talk endlessly about their relationship in front of an audience that sees that they're OMG soul mates. For all that, it's pretty amazing I like the character at all.) And then the writers strike happened, and maybe the actor who played Zack wanted to leave, and they realized they couldn’t make Sweets the killer since they needed him to round out the cast with Zack gone, and they retconned in this ridiculous storyline.
They couldn’t have had Zack get involved with Gormigon but hesitate from taking a life and be killed for his trouble? I’m as fond of surprise twists as the next guy, but only when they actually fit. This didn’t.
The downside of having an onscreen OTP is that you know the PTB will never let them stay together. For some reason they think there’s no drama in long-term relationships. So I’m not terribly surprised that they broke up Hodgins and Angela. That doesn’t mean I’m not pissed, though. Not just that they broke the two of them up, and I love them together—getting Hodgins man-pain might be a consolation for that. But how they did it.
The conversation that led to the breakup was based on completely false assumptions. One—that the only reason Hodgins could not want Angela’s ex around is because he thinks she’ll sleep with him. Two—the only reason Angela could be upset about Saroyan sleeping with her ex is because she still wants him. And three—that being in love means never having mixed feelings or a moment of doubt. That’s not the way love works, and that’s not the way people work.
For the first—Angela’s ex is, on paper, the perfect man. Even if he doesn’t doubt that Angela has chosen him, Hodgins can’t help but wonder if Angela made the wrong choice. Especially with the rest of their friends looking at Grayson like a greek god and Hodgins as the booby prize, it’s no wonder he wants the guy gone. It doesn’t have to mean he doubts Angela, though it probably means he doubts that she made the right choice.
(I also think it so odd that the whole cast treats this guy as a legitimate ex, like someone Angela would be broken up about leaving, when until a few months ago she had forgotten the incident entirely, and couldn't recall his name or what he looked like. That doesn't really scream true love to me. Previously, Angela talked about it like a joke, so it's odd everyone gives him the weight of a real ex-husband when he arrives.)
Setting aside that, just previous to this, Hodgins found out that his best friend, who he treated like a younger brother, was not only in over his head, but had murdered an innocent person. Zack had stabbed someone to death and then come into work the next day and played king of the lab with Hodgins and Hodgins hadn’t noticed that anything was wrong. Obviously, I have problems with this storyline, but taking it as is, Hodgins has to be doubting everyone right now. If he could miss something that huge—that the guy who has lived on his property for years, who he spends all day with every day, was a murderer—how could he trust his judgments about anyone? His doubting Angela could easily be an outside indication of his turmoil over Zack’s betrayal. And that Angela wouldn’t cut him any slack for that is ridiculous.
As for Angela being bothered by Saroyan sleeping with her ex, that doesn’t have to have anything to do with her designs on the guy. Saroyan is their boss. She slept with Grayson, admittedly, because she wanted to see what the fuss was about. She didn’t sleep with him just because she was attracted to him, she slept with him because she wanted a taste of what Angela had. That’s the vibe Angela’s picking up on and that’s why she’s reacting badly. Saroyan has made herself a sexual competitor with Angela, and as her boss, that is deeply uncomfortable. Not to mention that Saroyan has never been remotely interested in Hodgins; in fact, she’s often been dismissive of his appeal, so her going after Grayson is also an implicit insult to Angela’s taste.
It doesn’t have to mean anything about how either of them feel about the guy, because for Saroyan, it really wasn’t about the guy. If she had genuinely been interested in him and wanted to pursue him, she should have asked Angela’s permission first. Angela would have given it, I’m sure, and there wouldn’t have been friction.
The final problem with the breakup is this idea that Angela has that “true love” means never ever having mixed feelings about them. Let’s face it—Angela has a long history of running from commitment. She says she wants to settle down, but her history is against her. Delaying the wedding for a year allowed her relationship with Hodgins time to cool down a bit, to lose that new love luster. Angela is interpreting that as a sign—as if, if she finds the right guy, the relationship will always feel like it did when it was new. She’s set herself an impossible standard for any guy to meet, which gives her an excuse to end it while always thinking it’s the guy’s fault. What happened here is that Angela came close finally to being caught—given her rhetoric about being “owned,” she has clearly started to see her relationship with Hodgins as something tying her down. So when she has an excuse, she ends it. And that makes me hate her a little bit, which I don't want to do.
I’m not sure if the writers meant any of this subtext. It’s quite possible that they don’t and they think that this is actually a legitimate reason for a breakup. Or they were being lazy. But I think the whole way that it played out a disservice to both characters.
So, show, you make one of my favorite characters into a secret serial killer and take the romance I was watching it for and make it end in a crappy soap opera way, and you expect me to keep watching? When your actual plots are such crap? Okay, I’ll probably watch long enough to determine if they plan to bring Hodgins and Angela back together, but after that? Over.
Just before the end of season three, I was thinking about how much I truly enjoy the interaction between Hodgins and Zack. I was glad they brought him back for season three—I was sure that the end of season two meant they were writing him out. And Zack and Hodgins are so cute together with their little conspiracy theories and their experiments and their jockeying for king of the lab.
And then we got “Pain in the Heart” and just—what? That didn’t even make sense to me. I’m not even so mad at them for character assassination of one of my favorite characters. Their point about Zack being open to amoral actions because of his reliance on the rational is valid. He is always someone who has needed guidance as to what is normal human behavior. So I could buy him getting involved with eugenics or white supremacists or someone like Robert Singer—anyone who could argue their position logically from first principles that Zack agreed with.
Here’s my problem. Even if Zack bought Gormigon’s arguments, he would not act directly against the people at the Jeffersonian. He may be a weak personality, but he had a support network. He was surrounded by people who he respected and listened to—Brennan in particular. And all those people had been talking about how awful and brutal Gormigon was. I don’t believe that Zack would be motivated by a desire for the grudging admiration Hodgins showed Gormigon—Zack never seemed interested in that before. And if he is so weak of character, all that talk by Brennan and the others about Gormigon would have had far more weight with Zack than Gormigon’s arguments. Not to mention that Gormigon tried to kill Brennan and Booth. I don’t think Zack would have listened to Gormigon long enough to be persuaded, given the circumstances. Since he is so logical, he would have followed protocol after first contact and reported it.
Zack is also so literal that I don’t think he would have been capable of the duplicity he needed to pull off conspiring with a wanted killer for so long. If he honestly believed that what he was doing was logical and moral, he would have tried to convince the others, not hide it. He respected his coworkers; he would have expected them to agree with him if he was so convinced he was right that he would murder someone.
Even ignoring all of that, I do not believe Zack capable of the murder of the lobbyist, not the way he’s been written. If he did believe that this person needed to die, he wouldn’t have killed him in the brutal attack we saw. Zack was not a creature of rage, and he was quite a bit smaller than the other guy. He wouldn’t have left it to chance that he could overpower the man. If he was going to murder someone, it would be a well thought-out ingenious trap that left nothing to chance, not an attack with a knife.
All of this leads me to believe that the writers were heading somewhere else with that storyline, perhaps leading to Sweets being the killer. (Don’t get me wrong, I like Sweets, but he’s far more viable as a suspect. As an aside, Sweets is also a total yenta. He was created to have an excuse for Booth and Brennan to talk endlessly about their relationship in front of an audience that sees that they're OMG soul mates. For all that, it's pretty amazing I like the character at all.) And then the writers strike happened, and maybe the actor who played Zack wanted to leave, and they realized they couldn’t make Sweets the killer since they needed him to round out the cast with Zack gone, and they retconned in this ridiculous storyline.
They couldn’t have had Zack get involved with Gormigon but hesitate from taking a life and be killed for his trouble? I’m as fond of surprise twists as the next guy, but only when they actually fit. This didn’t.
The downside of having an onscreen OTP is that you know the PTB will never let them stay together. For some reason they think there’s no drama in long-term relationships. So I’m not terribly surprised that they broke up Hodgins and Angela. That doesn’t mean I’m not pissed, though. Not just that they broke the two of them up, and I love them together—getting Hodgins man-pain might be a consolation for that. But how they did it.
The conversation that led to the breakup was based on completely false assumptions. One—that the only reason Hodgins could not want Angela’s ex around is because he thinks she’ll sleep with him. Two—the only reason Angela could be upset about Saroyan sleeping with her ex is because she still wants him. And three—that being in love means never having mixed feelings or a moment of doubt. That’s not the way love works, and that’s not the way people work.
For the first—Angela’s ex is, on paper, the perfect man. Even if he doesn’t doubt that Angela has chosen him, Hodgins can’t help but wonder if Angela made the wrong choice. Especially with the rest of their friends looking at Grayson like a greek god and Hodgins as the booby prize, it’s no wonder he wants the guy gone. It doesn’t have to mean he doubts Angela, though it probably means he doubts that she made the right choice.
(I also think it so odd that the whole cast treats this guy as a legitimate ex, like someone Angela would be broken up about leaving, when until a few months ago she had forgotten the incident entirely, and couldn't recall his name or what he looked like. That doesn't really scream true love to me. Previously, Angela talked about it like a joke, so it's odd everyone gives him the weight of a real ex-husband when he arrives.)
Setting aside that, just previous to this, Hodgins found out that his best friend, who he treated like a younger brother, was not only in over his head, but had murdered an innocent person. Zack had stabbed someone to death and then come into work the next day and played king of the lab with Hodgins and Hodgins hadn’t noticed that anything was wrong. Obviously, I have problems with this storyline, but taking it as is, Hodgins has to be doubting everyone right now. If he could miss something that huge—that the guy who has lived on his property for years, who he spends all day with every day, was a murderer—how could he trust his judgments about anyone? His doubting Angela could easily be an outside indication of his turmoil over Zack’s betrayal. And that Angela wouldn’t cut him any slack for that is ridiculous.
As for Angela being bothered by Saroyan sleeping with her ex, that doesn’t have to have anything to do with her designs on the guy. Saroyan is their boss. She slept with Grayson, admittedly, because she wanted to see what the fuss was about. She didn’t sleep with him just because she was attracted to him, she slept with him because she wanted a taste of what Angela had. That’s the vibe Angela’s picking up on and that’s why she’s reacting badly. Saroyan has made herself a sexual competitor with Angela, and as her boss, that is deeply uncomfortable. Not to mention that Saroyan has never been remotely interested in Hodgins; in fact, she’s often been dismissive of his appeal, so her going after Grayson is also an implicit insult to Angela’s taste.
It doesn’t have to mean anything about how either of them feel about the guy, because for Saroyan, it really wasn’t about the guy. If she had genuinely been interested in him and wanted to pursue him, she should have asked Angela’s permission first. Angela would have given it, I’m sure, and there wouldn’t have been friction.
The final problem with the breakup is this idea that Angela has that “true love” means never ever having mixed feelings about them. Let’s face it—Angela has a long history of running from commitment. She says she wants to settle down, but her history is against her. Delaying the wedding for a year allowed her relationship with Hodgins time to cool down a bit, to lose that new love luster. Angela is interpreting that as a sign—as if, if she finds the right guy, the relationship will always feel like it did when it was new. She’s set herself an impossible standard for any guy to meet, which gives her an excuse to end it while always thinking it’s the guy’s fault. What happened here is that Angela came close finally to being caught—given her rhetoric about being “owned,” she has clearly started to see her relationship with Hodgins as something tying her down. So when she has an excuse, she ends it. And that makes me hate her a little bit, which I don't want to do.
I’m not sure if the writers meant any of this subtext. It’s quite possible that they don’t and they think that this is actually a legitimate reason for a breakup. Or they were being lazy. But I think the whole way that it played out a disservice to both characters.
So, show, you make one of my favorite characters into a secret serial killer and take the romance I was watching it for and make it end in a crappy soap opera way, and you expect me to keep watching? When your actual plots are such crap? Okay, I’ll probably watch long enough to determine if they plan to bring Hodgins and Angela back together, but after that? Over.