Season finales, part 1

There was a lot of "what the hell?" on my TV last night. But before I get into season finale talk, here's the link to the Dollhouse preview. Now, for those of you who for whatever bizarre reason haven't watched Bones or HIMYM yet, scat!

Let's talk about Bones first. I really haven't decided yet how I feel about it. There was a "huh?" in the beginning, and a "WTF?" at the end, but the middle was actually really, really good. I'll try to go in order here...

Okay, Booth's "death." The fake-out thing is kinda lame on this kind of show, since I can't imagine there's a single person out there who actually believed they'd kill Booth. I was expecting it to be Brennan's dream or something, so the FBI set-up was kind of a nice twist, but considering how poorly developed that plan was, I can't help feeling that the whole thing was just for shock value. I mean, I understand that they wanted to deal with Brennan's feelings for Booth, and her not being in on the fake death created tension between them. But isn't there enough genuine emotion in that relationship (Emily Deschanel was certainly showing it in the end of last week's ep) that Booth almost dying would've been enough?

I guess the other reason for the fake death was to make Sweets seem more cold and calculating by not telling Brennan. Maybe that was to make him more of a suspect in the Gormagon thing, but I think he did enough of that on his own. (I was seriously sold on Sweets as the apprentice, except that it didn't make sense, casting-wise.)

That said, I think the Gormagon mystery played out really well. They had two really strong candidates in Hodgins and Sweets, and I loved seeing them trying to help even though they were under suspicion. (Hodgins' scene with Cam totally solidified it - I want to marry that guy.)

So... Zack. I kinda get it, and I kinda don't. I think part of the problem is that the writers' strike disrupted both Zack's character development and the Gormagon plot. I mean, remember, this is the guy who was too fucked up for Iraq. That's a pretty serious issue right there, which got kind of ignored. And although it's probably hard to tell, what with the 4 month gap, the shortened season, and the fact that the episodes we did see were occasionally out of order, since coming back from Iraq, Zack definitely seems to have regressed in his social development. He's been more of the early season 1 weirdo than the guy with close friends who's earned respect from his colleagues that he'd become during season 2.

It feels especially jarring to have this right after the karaoke episode, where Zack's singing made him seem more human than ever (which was in itself jarring), but I suspect that was a result of the strike as well. On the whole, I think we've seen Zack become even more clinical and logical this season, and the singing thing totally throws me off. If we'd had another five or six episodes in between the singing and the murder reveal, it probably wouldn't seem so contradictory.

Zack being the apprentice doesn't really sit well with me right now, but I'm actually looking forward to going back and rewatching this season, and I think it'll make more sense then.

I was a little surprised that Gormagon turned out to be nobody, but I can't help thinking that no matter who it was, they would've been overshadowed by the Zack reveal, so why bother even trying to make them important. I think it also emphasizes the contrast with Zack - this guy was killing people because he wanted to be noticed, but no one will really remember him. And if anyone remembers Zack, it'll be his friends, because they cared about him, because they respected him, not because of this.

One final thought - the bathroom scene. I'd probably be all a-twitter about David Boreanaz naked, except I was so unbelievably distracted by the BEER HAT. OMG, best thing ever. And the comic book... yeah, that's up there with my favorite Bones scenes ever.

Hmm, this has gotten quite long, so let's just wrap up with some quotes and leave HIMYM for the next post:
Hodgins: "It's Schrodinger's cat."
Zack: "That makes sense to me. Cakes and pickles mean nothing to me."

Booth: "She breaks into my bathroom, and I'm weird for being naked?"