The Problem in the Bones

If you'd told me years ago when I started watching Bones that the episode that featured the birth of the child of Booth and Brennan would be awful, I'd have laughed until I cried.

I wouldn't have cared- it would be Baby Bones!

Turns out, I would have been wrong.

That was possibly the worst episode of television I've ever seen.

And I'm pissed about it.

Screw you, Hart Hanson. The Brennan-Booth dynamic was what made this show one of the best procedurals on TV, and what inspired legions of dedicated fans. We loved the adorable banter, the romantic tension, the waiting with baited breath to see these two crazy kids get it together. And you screwed it up.

Because you were more scared of a ratings drop than doing justice to the characters and story you'd created.

Truthfully, I think the "Moonlighting curse" is bullshit that demeans the intelligence of the audience anyway, but you do not get to just skip over it and think it won't affect the quality of your show. It makes me insane that I flinch when I hear Booth tell Brennan that he loves her. My brain instantly goes, "Really? Do you? And when did we get to the point where you say that?"

I should be excited when he says that, not confused.

The whole episode was confusing, actually. The opening scene featured a father speaking to his daughter about pooping, and promising her candy and a cat if she would use the toilet. I think this was a horrific attempt at comedy, which also makes me think the writer's room ordered their sense of humor from the back of a cereal box. I am not a fourteen-year-old-boy, writers, although apparently you might be. (Also, side note, Booth: a six-year-old isn't "potty training", a fact which, as a person about to become a father for the second time, I might hope you'd know.)

Of course it was a Daisy episode, with the obscenely annoying and shrill intern flitting around constantly referring to Brennan's lady bits and trying to seduce Sweets in Brennan's office. The Single White Female vibe she gives off might have been amusing for a minute years ago, but it became trying long ago- kill her.

I recognize that TV procedurals take a lot of leeway with the "science" of their evidence collecting, but there are limits to the amount of stupidity you can expect me to swallow, show, and it does not include getting fingerprints from paper using only cocoa powder and then BEING ABLE TO SUCCESSFULLY TAKE A CELL PHONE PICTURE OF THEM THAT WILL BE ADMISSIBLE IN A COURTROOM. 

That's not even an iPhone. 

I'm sorry.

Have I mentioned that I'm pissed?

I didn't even talk about Angela being able to magically recreate the prison shiv that was used in the murder from the bone fractures with a never-before-seen bajillion-dollar piece of equipment, or that she was able to decipher "1/3" and "marg" from the paper, therefore allowing her to find the precise cookbook from which it came, or that some random dude in prison was expected to be knowledgeable enough to turn vinegar into some sort of acid for dissolving a body, because those things make me feel like my brain is bleeding and I've got shit to do in life.

No, no, let's talk about what really matters.

Lets talk about the arrival of Baby Brennan.

I mean, obviously Bones was going to go into labor in the prison. After walking through the middle of a riot unharmed. (A riot which, by the way, looked more like a Three Stooges episode than one led by actually violent criminals and allowed Booth -the federal officer- to also emerge unblemished.) After the brilliant doctor thought she was just experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions (the go-to get out of labor free card on TV).

And then somehow, she didn't have time to drive 30 minutes to a hospital.

This is my number one pet peeve of all time- it does not take twenty minutes from the minute someone starts having contractions until the baby is just shooting out of there. For first time mothers, it's usually closer to 16 hours.

Let me say that again: SIXTEEN HOURS. 

You had time to make it to the hospital, Bones. You had time to make it home, inflate the water bath, and fly your doula in from her hippie commune in Boulder. You did not have to do what you did.

What are you screaming about? I'm the one who had to watch this shit.

Oh, god. The humanity of it. I'm not even sure I can talk about it, Freaks.

You might become homicidal. You might become suicidal. You might question your own sanity, because it is not possible that a previously well-written and engaging show would use a hamfisted Christ metaphor to introduce a new baby.

That is madness.

I can not tell you how right you are.

They got denied from an inn. They had to give birth, just the two of them, in a barn. Well, more of a manger, really. Because of the animals.

I am not making this up.

It happened.

I saw it.

In slow motion.

And then they went home, looking remarkably rested and un-bloody to a surprise party their friends threw together, complete with champagne, which of course Brennan can drink now.

An hour after she gave birth in a manger.

That is just face-meltingly STUPID. 

Picture me, at home on the couch, except Bones made me the Nazi from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Seriously, show, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart-

Screw you.

I'm done.

Boreanaz, let me know when you get something new to do!