Part 2 of Stephen Nathan's Interview with GMMR
Love her or hate her, chances are if you’re a BONES fan, you have an opinion on Hannah.
Ever since she appeared on the scene earlier this season fans have had a, um, vocal reaction to Booth’s current girlfriend. And no, that reaction isn’t a surprise to the people behind BONES.
In part two of our chat with BONES executive producer Stephen Nathan (read part one here), we talked about the fan reaction to Hannah, the blossoming Brennan-Hannah friendship and what that means for the relationships between Booth & Hannah and Booth & Brennan.
You guys are six years into the show and for many shows, that’s the time to go with what’s familiar, but BONES has shaken things up. Now that Booth and Hannah are together, the Booth-Brennan dynamic needed to shift so boundaries remain in place. Is that something that was a conscious thought in the writers room?
Stephen Nathan: Yes, but it still is a Booth and Brennan centric show. All of the difficulties that they now have in keeping themselves at arm’s length from each other are the things that continually focus in on Booth and Brennan, if that makes sense. Hannah is here, but Hannah is here for us to further examine Booth and Brennan’s relationship.
And of course going into it, you all knew Hannah was going to get a vocal response from the fans…
SN: Oh, yes! We absolutely knew that. We told Katheryn [Winnick (Hannah)], you know, be ready. We knew this was going to be a big deal for the fans. They’re not going to like you. They’re going to want to kill you initially. And people are still upset, but I think they watch the show every week to be upset. To say, “What are you doing Booth? Why are you there? Look at Brennan! She’s right next to you! Look at how she’s looking at you!” And that’s part of the reason Hannah is there. And it’s also a way for Brennan to grow. And I think one of the best parts of this new phase in their relationship is to see the relationship between Brennan and Hannah. Because that’s a relationship between two strong, independent women that I really haven’t seen before on television. Certainly haven’t been a part of. Where you get to see two people who share something in common - they don’t necessarily know that yet, but they will in the very near future. But they like each other. They’re friends. And they have an actual relationship.
Right, Brennan was only starting to be friends with Cam by the time Cam and Booth broke up, so that is a bit different. But since Hannah and Brennan were forming their own bond, what was the thought process behind Hannah requesting Brennan’s sunglasses as a gift? I don’t dislike Hannah but that scene made me cringe, because it’s not something I’d be okay with a friend doing.
SN: Well, you know what was funny to me, what I loved about that scene was that Hannah was doing something completely outrageous and when - I think in any other circumstance and with any other character other than Brennan, the scene would have progressed with someone going, “No, I’m not going to give you my sunglasses! You can sit in this hospital room alone, I’m going to go now.” Brennan, giving up the glasses was such an acceptance of who Hannah was, of how outrageous she was. And I think it was Hannah testing Brennan into seeing what kind of relationship they could have. It was really Emily [Deschanel (Brennan)] in that scene, it was Brennan, and how she played Brennan in that scene that made it okay. She accepted it from a position of strength. So I actually loved that scene. [Laughs] And it’s really - Brennan saved her life. So Brennan really was the person who was in control and is sort of the alpha female in that relationship And I guess that was a way for Hannah to get a little of herself back, a little bit of her strength back. And Brennan graciously - and with a big open heart - let her do that. And could laugh about it. And that’s really what the purpose of that scene was. And that has defined their relationship now in the future. The stuff that they’re going through together, Brennan and Hannah, is very specific to the two of them as an independent relationship from Booth. Which is interesting to see, because then Booth gets involved in the future and it becomes far more complicated.
Do you think it’s possible to keep Hannah on the show once she and Booth have broken up?
SN: [pause] Well, I mean, Hannah doesn’t appear every episode, anyway. She comes and goes. So it depends on how her relationship plays out, not only with Booth, but also with Brennan. We like Katheryn, we think she’s a nice presence on the show and she’s been terrific. And we want to keep the possibility that Hannah still exists in this world. We don’t want to just say, okay, goodbye, that was done. Because that’s not how life works. We know what her profession is. We know that she has been on the move her whole professional life. She comes and goes. She can always return, no matter what happens with her relationship with Booth and Brennan.
Booth has been keeping a lot of secrets from Hannah - his gambling, the sniper past, his history with Brennan. Will she start to find some of that stuff out soon?
SN: Yes, definitely. She is definitely going to know more and more and more, as any real relationship progresses, more and more of the past is explained and explored. And so she will definitely be confronting the fact of Booth and Brennan from the previous season.
Will that lead to any sort of Booth and Brennan fight? They bicker and banter, but they’ve never really had a huge fight. A lot of things have been building up between the two, so is this leading to a major blowout?
SN: Well, you know, at this point to have a fight is a tremendously intimate thing. I don’t think either of them want to go there at this point. But that’s not to say it won’t happen in the future. The second half of the season will have a lot to do with the next phase in all their relationships.
Do you know when Hannah leaves the show? I know you’re not going to tell me -
SN: Truthfully, we don’t have an exact episode. We know what’s going to happen, but we don’t know exactly how it’s going to unfold or how many episodes it’s going to take. We know what’s going to happen. But how that’s going to unfold because these episodes, somehow, are working. This sort of bizarre trio of people we have now is working in the way it’s unfolding. I know a lot of people are upset that Hannah is around, but I think that’s what drama is. You want to be upset at people, you want to scream at them, you want to hope that they’re going to come to their senses and do something else. And that’s what we want to keep stirring up.
But you have an idea and a plan in place for her exit.
SN: Oh yeah, we definitely, definitely have an idea of exactly how - the specifics might change as they always do as the show evolves and the scripts evolve but we know what’s going to be happening and we know how everything’s going to be resolved at this point.
Source: GMMR