Hart Hanson, Emily Deschanel, and David Boreanaz revisit Season 2’s introduction of the Gravedigger — and a pivotal moment in Brennan and Booth’s relationship — as the Fox drama celebrates a milestone.
“Now you’re my therapist,” Hart Hanson says with a laugh. As the creator of Fox’s 2005-17 hit Bones settles in for a conversation with Gold Derby in honor of the series’ 20th anniversary on Sept. 13, he’s explaining why it’s almost impossible for a showrunner to know they’ve produced an all-time great episode of their series as it airs: In that moment, no matter how wonderful the edit, all they see are the opportunities lost, and that’s their fault.
“There is another thing that happens, though,” Hanson continues, “and that is you hear from the network and the studio what their research is telling them. If you trust them, you have to trust everything they say. That’s another awkwardness: You listen [wondering], are they trying to con me into doing something they think I should do?”
Then, and now, everyone was telling Hanson that Season 2’s “Aliens in a Spaceship” is one of Bones’ best hours. The show’s top-rated episode on IMDb introduces the serial kidnapper/killer the Gravedigger, who buries forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and bug-and-slime guy Jack Hodgins (TJ Thyne) alive in Brennan’s car while FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) leads the search to find them before their air runs out. There’s a literal ticking clock onscreen — Hanson’s “bit sarcastic” response to his least favorite network note, “increase the jeopardy” — but so much more: Brennan and Hodgins MacGyver ways to help identify their location and extend their oxygen supply using items in reach. Hodgins confesses his love for forensic artist Angela (Michaela Conlin) to Brennan, and Brennan pens a goodbye letter to Booth that we’d hear seven years later as her wedding vows. Every character contributes something vital to the rescue. And it all climaxes with atheist Brennan accompanying Catholic Booth to church, where they agree on one thing, their faith in each other.
“To me, the show was, is, and will ever be, that connection,” Boreanaz says, thinking back to how Deschanel graciously agreed to meet with him and his acting coach, Ivana Chubbuck, for two or three hours every Saturday — for nine or 10 of the show’s 12 seasons. “To have somebody say, ‘Hey, I’ll work with you on weekends, on every script, and do notes and present them to the showrunners and go over changes,’ it’s pretty special. Usually you have two leads that hate each other, or they don’t want to deal with each other, especially on a weekend after working 12- to 15-hour days, 22 to 24 episodes,” he says. “Through the work that we did outside of the show, we brought the emotional subtext needed to really grow that relationship. It was so ingrained in us, that when we got to the set, we both knew, like, [Laughs] okay, this is what we’re thinking about over this dead body, and what we’re finding inside of [this moment] is not what the audience is perceiving it as. We’re looking at it as something else. And that creates chemistry, that creates a relationship and connection. And again, that’s why I think the show was/is as popular as it was.”
