TV Review: BONES – Season 10 – “The Next in the Last”

By RACHEL REITSLEFF / Contributing Writer

Posted: August 26th, 2015 / 12:02 PM

Stars: David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel, Michaela Conlin, TJ Thyne, Tamara Taylor, John Boyd, Patricia Belcher, Eugene Byrd, Carla Gallo, Michael Grant Terry, Pej Vahdat, Andrew Leeds
Writer: Stephen Nathan & Jonathan Collier, series created by Hart Hanson, based on the life and writings of Kathy Reichs
Director: Ian Toynton
Network: Fox Network, Thursdays @ 8 PM
Airdate: June 11, 2015

Booth (David Boreanaz) and Aubrey (John Boyd) question the employees of a pizza parlor in the Season Finale of BONES | © 2015 Patrick McElhenney/FOX

After ten seasons, it looked like BONES was ready to call it a day with the season finale “The Next in the Last.” Then they got renewed. From the way this episode ends, it looks like it may be a bit of a challenge getting the big pieces back in the box, namely Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz).

Brennan starts seriously reevaluating her life situation. Angela (Michaela Conlin) and Hodges’ announcement that they’re moving to France makes Brennan reflect that perhaps there’s more to life than solving murders, and maybe husband Booth could do something that gets him out of the line of fire as well. By the episode’s end, both of them are saying goodbye to their respective institutions, to the tearful farewells of lab boss Cam (Tamara Taylor) at Brennan’s end and both partner agent Aubrey (John Boyd) and prosecutor Caroline Julian (Patricia Belcher) at Booth’s.

The irony is that, after prompting all this soul-searching and sobbing among friends and colleagues, Angela realizes that Hodgins truly adores his work and that leaving it would be such a sacrifice on his part that she doesn’t want him to make it. She tells him Paris can wait. Angela also manages to find Hodgins’ missing billions, stolen by the late genius hacker/serial killer Christopher Pelant (Andrew Leeds). Hodgins wants Angela to anonymously donate it all somewhere – thanks to his recent invention, they have enough money and he doesn’t want to problems vast wealth creates.

There are signs that Brennan would rather not leave. When her team of assistants on one last case – Dr. Clark Edison (Eugene Byrd), Daisy Wicks (Carla Gallo) and Wendell Bray (Michael Grant Terry) – are slow to piece together clues, Brennan feels as though she’s stuck in the lab because clearly, her teaching efforts have been in vain.

The flayed, displayed and shot body being examined looks like the work of dead serial killer Pelant, so he’s got yet another disciple out there. However, once the case is closed, Brennan says she’s proud of her students. Furthermore, she doesn’t want to watch the pre-taped video message from Pelant that Angela has discovered in a computer. Brennan is really ready to put all of this behind her and doesn’t want to be drawn into any more of Pelant’s manipulations.

Um, hang on. Since Pelant has a habit of creating mass destruction, isn’t it irresponsible for Brennan not to look into the tape, or at least leave instructions for Aubrey and the Jeffersonian assistants to follow up on it? And since Hodgins has successfully lived under the radar with his billions for nearly the entire time we’ve known him, why should it create more problems now than it had before? And since Booth loves law enforcement (even if he doesn’t always love the bureaucracy that goes with it), why is Brennan so sure they both need a change? The answer to all of these questions seems to be that the show was trying to wrap up loose ends, rather than handle them in ways more customary to the characters. (The business with Hodgins’ money seems particularly misguided; all they had to do was not bring it up.)

Still, the investigative scenes are fun, it’s a pleasure to see the normally scowling Belcher get a chance to be emotional and there’s a real sense of curiosity as to how Brennan and Booth will re-enter the field after this exit.

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