The two-part season premiere of BONES has concluded and with the mystery of Booth’s whereabouts were solved, he and Brennan will be returning to their old jobs. But will the rest of the season be business as usual? BONES producer Michael Peterson has some teasers for you.
The Focus is on Booth and Brennan. “That was definitely the focus coming into this season [and] when Jon Collier and I met with and talked to David and Emily, our focus 100% is making sure to have as much time as possible with Booth and Brennan. That is the heart of the show. We will challenge ourselves to make sure to get as much screen time as possible. David gave us a note early on and he said ‘go back and watch early seasons, like Seasons 1 and 2, and just really kind of see all the interactions that we were able to have early on’ and it was great, I did. I spent my hiatus watching all these episodes over and over again and it also inspired a lot of storylines. For instance, watching the pilot, it talks a lot about the first book that Temperance, that the Brennan character writes and how it’s inspired by each one of the characters on the show and that led to a fun storyline that is coming up I think in Episode 4 where there’s a twist in Brennan’s latest novel that is a sharp departure, but it leads to some pretty good back and forth between Booth and Brennan as a result of it.”
Does Brennan Forgive Booth too Easily for Lying to Her Before His Disappearance? “Well, we’ll go into it some, but last year was very specific [with] Booth lying about gambling versus what happened this year and I think that if it had just been a one-parter and David was reunited with her after the first episode I think that Brennan would have hit him a lot harder as far as accusations, but through the course of the second episode, what we’re trying to get to is she understands who she is better through this case, that she belongs at the lab. In discovering where she belongs she also understands Booth better, that Booth is this man of action. The way that we say it internally here is Booth is a little bit of a Superman and Superman can’t just sit by and watch as people suffer. There really is no retiring for him, so by the end of the second episode Brennan understands that she belongs in the lab and that her Superman, Booth, belongs out there in the field saving people. She understands him in a way that probably nobody else could, so while a lot of people would yell at him saying you lied to me, she understands it’s just who he is and she wouldn’t want him to be any other way.”
What’s Coming for Cam, Arastoo, Hodgins, Angela and Aubrey? “If you’ve seen the first two episodes for Cam and Arastoo, we’ll be following their relationship very closely after what goes down in the first couple of episodes. Also, Hodgins and Angela in Episode 10, there will be a major shake-up for them and it also is going to be related to Aubrey. That’s our mid-season finale. It’s an episode that was actually…originally we were considering for our season opener, so we’re going to start with a quite literal bang, but that episode will be very interesting as far as how it will change the trajectory of the rest of the season. When Jon Collier and I were handed this gift to be able to work on this show and be able to be showrunners this year we wanted to make sure that we shook things up, and so there are going to be many, many major arcs. We don’t want to get complacent in the fact that Booth and Brennan are married and everyone is coupled up. We want to challenge them, but not in any kind of artificial way. We want it to be character-led. So, we’re going to have lots of arcs going for each of the people this season.”
The SLEEPY HOLLOW Crossover and Big Bads in Season 11. “There’s the SLEEPY HOLLOW episode, [which has] a very interesting version of a big bad, which is in that one we’re going to find two sets of remains. One of them is going to be very, very old and that’s going to be more of a big bad from the Sleepy Hollow universe. That’s going to be interesting in itself. Again, episode 10 is probably going to be the biggest bad that we’re going to come across and I really don’t want to give too much away there, but, as I said, it’s going to be something that impacts Hodgins, Angela and Aubrey very directly.”
Going Undercover Again. “We will definitely be going undercover again this season and I think it’s going to be so good that maybe next year she’ll change her answer as far as what her favorite undercover episode is. It’s going to be a different version of undercover than we’ve ever done before, so it’s going to be very playful, competitive. It’s unlike any undercover we’ve done before, so we’re very excited. I believe that’s going to be 11.09.”
BONES airs Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.