Here it is more than a week later and I’m still all “Grrrr” about the Bones finale. I can’t help but wonder how David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel, and the rest of the cast really feel about Eric Millegan’s departure and the way it was done. We’ll probably never know, but instead of continuing to fume over it, I’ve reworked the finale to soothe my irritated mind. What follows is how I would have been “blown away” by Hart Hanson’s desire to “shock” the fans in the finale.
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The show opens on Brennan standing beside Booth’s grave speaking eloquently about Booth’s life and his service to his country. She was indeed informed of Booth’s survival, and understood the opportunity to take out the guy the FBI was trying to ensnare. Booth is moved by her words as he stands in his dress uniform with the honor guard (or whatever, I don’t know the proper term for them) and has a little half-smile on his face when he notices their target moving in towards the coffin. A scuffle ensues, in which Brennan and the undercover agents subdue the guy.
Cut to the diner where Booth and Brennan are chatting. Maybe Booth starts to bring up the stuff she said graveside, but they are interrupted by Sweets who joins them and attempts to analyse the whole fake death scenario. Booth and Brennan return to treating him like the annoying kid brother who wants to hang out and some fun banter is had by all.
Back from the commercial break and Brennan et. al. are working in the lab identifying 500 year-old bones while things are quiet. It’s at this point that Zack finds the box with Gormagon’s jawbone and hands it to Brennan. She is unwilling to suppose the jawbone and screws are from Gormagon, but of course, they are and the team begins working on identifying the jawbone. We have the “Booth paralyzed by the paradox of the lab being a crime scene that the techs can’t enter” scene and it’s at this point where we notice a tour group of bright young students being herded out of the area by security. The camera hones in on one particular student who seems to be watching Booth and the others begin to investigate the bone. He has a smirk on his face.
Cam identifies the bone as belonging to the lobbyist and Zack and Hodgins perform their experiment to determine how the denture marks on the jawbone were created and they somehow forensically figure out (bear with me, I figure this part is the writer’s job to fine-tune all the forensics stuff), through a bunch of tests and bouncing of ideas off each other that the rest of the lobbyist’s bones are scattered amongst the bones in Limbo. And they discover that the dentures were created from the canines from several skulls. But who would have had access to Limbo that could slip in with a bag of bones, scatter them, and rip out canines from a bunch of skulls unnoticed?
It’s a mystery.
The gang starts looking at each other for motive as they realize the apprentice and/or Gormagon could be among them. Booth and Brennan work with Sweets to try to profile their coworkers, huddled up in Brennan’s office. There is an explosion - purely diversionary - in one of the chemical labs. When the smoke clears, Zack Addy is missing. There is confusion and angsty drama as the team try to decide whether Zack is the apprentice or whether he’s been kidnapped. Brennan gives another eloquent and passionate speech about loyalty and trust that she has in her team while Booth finds evidence on the security cam that Zack was actually taken by a skinny, small male who had managed to knock Zack out with chloroform or something.
Suddenly, the case hits the gang closer to home as each work hard to find clues that will lead to Gormagon and save Zack. Finally it’s Hodgins, who identifies an unusual spike in lead levels around a sprawling, rundown estate. Booth leads a team in, finding a blue back door they could break down. The wend their way through twisty hallways until a room opens up. It must have been a pool at some point, but now it’s a sunken, tiled floor surrounded by candles, with a table set up in the middle. Fine linens, polished silverware and beautiful crystal deck out the table. Seated there is Gormagon and his apprentice, both sporting fangy, canine dentures, grinning like madmen. Before him on the table is the meal he was eating. Behind him is Zack, dead, and being consumed. He is trussed like the silver skeleton and a large portion of his midsection is just gone, presumably cooked and set on the table as Gormagon’s meal.
During the scene with the FBI team and Booth breaking into Gormagon’s place, there could be a flashback montage of the clues in the episode that show who the apprentice was, how he got inside the lab, and most importantly, why they took Zack:
The apprentice was young enough to be able to pass as a student in a tour group. In a place as large as the Jeffersonian, it’s easy to slip away from the group and get into places you don’t belong (hey, it’s television.) He scattered the lobbyist’s bones in several trips with the bones in his backpack. He wasn’t searched as part of a tour group.
One flashback shows Gormagon approaching Zack at a conference and engaging him in conversation. We don’t hear what is said, but it’s clear that he and Zack spoke for some time. But because Zack never mentioned the conversation during the investigation, we can assume that Gormagon never came out and said who he was and could easily have just been ‘talking shop.’ Perhaps Gormagon knew who Zack was and was fishing for info about the silver skeleton in the vault and where the team stood on discovering his identity. Or perhaps he was looking to recruit because his current apprentice was faltering in some way. This could maybe stay vague. Anyway, the Gormagon decided in his twisted mind that if he took out Zack, it would impede the investigation and allow him more time to find a way to retrieve the skeleton. He just didn’t count on Hodgins finding his location based on the lead content in the water.
The show ends with another funeral, this one real, this one for Zack. His whole family is there and very sad, and his other family, his friends at the Jeffersonian are there. Brennan, again, is speaking eloquently about Zack and what he meant to her. Booth is stoic, but mentally beating himself up for not protecting the boy.
Fade out.
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So yes, I killed Zack Addy. I wrote this from the viewpoint that Hart Hanson wanted to “shake things up” and Eric Millegan was going to be the victim of the shakeup, so I wanted to give Zack a better ‘out.’ That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
