**If I could have written a worse case scenario for how the writers of Bones would deal with all they promised us for this finale, it might go something like this: extended dream sequence for 55 minutes, cut to the hospital room, Booth has amnesia. It was like every lame plot device, every overly goofy sequence, every believability-straining quirk rolled up into one episode.

 

First of all, A FRAKKING DREAM SEQUENCE? THE UBER HYPED SEX SCENE IS A FREAKING DREAMMM?>!!! THIS ISN’T BUFFY* YOU CAN’T JUST SHOW US AN ALTERNATE REALITY AND THINK IT’S ENOUGH. I don’t just want to work out the audience’s collective Booth/Brennan lust through alternate realities, I’ve invested four years in these characters and I think they deserve each other and deserve happiness. There was a brief moment at the end, before the big amnesia blah blah blah, that I thought, “Maybe I can forgive this whole episode if it ends with Brennan finally coming to grips with her feelings for Booth and kissing him, promising us that they’ll deal with their relationship next season.” AND THEN. WOW. It turned absolutely any redeeming value to the rest of the episode into nothing.

 

The actual storyline, which is revealed to be Brennan’s new book that she’s reading to Booth as he sits all coma-fied, follows most of those we know and love as a cast of characters within the Night Club Murder Mystery. There’s parts where this is kind of cute. Specifically, it really utilized all the crazy interns, who I’ve suddenly noticed I love. It also made a lot of cute references to the four seasons we’ve had thus far of the show, such as the bar being named “The Lab” and Sweet’s band being Gormogon (and Sweets, in an internet-shout-out, says “Some people think I’m Gormogon. But I’m not.). Also, John Francis Daley was pretty adorable, freed from the confines of Sweet the psychiatrist, and switching over to Sweets the bartender. He giggled so cutely while playing in his band that for a brief moment I got sad that this was such an awful episode.

 

This episode felt like they just wanted to use the whole cast and didn’t know how else to glue everything together, so they threw it all into a ridiculous storyline that definitely didn’t belong on a reality-based show like Bones, and then added Motley Crue at the end. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, they went where Cordelia went on Angel (although hers made, sort of, more sense) and Jack’s wife went on 24, and soap opera after soap opera has gone throughout the ages, and gave Booth amnesia just at the moment when Brennan had realized her intense longing for him. AND. WORST OF ALL. THEY SPENT THE WHOLE EPISODE WITH DAVID BOREANAZ DRESSED REALLY, REALLY STUPID. He’s way too hot to look that dumb.

 

I said in one of my reviews of Dollhouse (and the finale episode review is coming, I swear, once I’ve had time to process) that the thing I love best about watching Joss Whedon shows is knowing, wholeheartedly, that while I don’t always agree with the decision he makes, that he’s making them for story reasons and that they will eventually come to a satisfying conclusion. But Hart Hanson, the Bones show runner, is a perennial tease, who for the past two seasons has managed to majorly drop the ball on the finales. It’s not just that their conclusions are unsatisfying, it’s that these episodes barely even feel connected to the procedural every days that are so brilliantly done by Bones. It’s hard for me to maintain loyalty to a show that doesn’t maintain loyalty to itself.

 

*Buffy/Angel is one of the only shows in history that I think has successfully done the “satisfaction through alternate reality” plot, a) because it works within the plot devices and b) because they normally have control over the themes that they used in these episodes (think of the beautiful, wonderful Season 2 episode “I Only Have Eyes For You” where all of Buffy and Angels issues worked out over surrogates that also showed our lovers/enemies smooching again). The inside story, besides showing how much Brennan loves her some Booth, didn’t really work all that well thematically. Jared’s not in love with Brennan, Max isn’t trying to kill Booth, etc.

 

**This photo isn’t from last night’s episode. I decided to use a better example of the writers actually understanding what to do with their characters to make me happier.