i have circled some typos
For those watching this for the first time, and as yet unable to process words:
YEAH, NO, THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
What am I saying? Do not let these words below fool you, I STILL CAN'T REALLY PROCESS WHAT THIS MAKES ME FEEL, ASIDE FROM "THAT WAS AWESOME" AND "ALSO THAT WAS TERRIBLY HEARTCRUSHING AND SAD THERE SHOW" AND ALSO "HOLY SHIT WHAT."
...h- how is this real life? Like how did this happen?
ONCE UPON A TIME SEVEN YEARS AGO THEY GOT DRUNK ON TEQUILA AND MADE OUT IN THE RAIN. What. What. What. What. Once upon a time in 2010, Booth is the guy who knows, who has always known from that moment that he was the guy, he is the one, he knows he knows - and then! Instead of going the distance - instead of saying because I love you - HE MAKES HIS POINT BY GRABBING HER AND KISSING HER. AND SHE PANICS LIKE NOBODY'S BUSINESS. Which - more of that, in a second. First, let's just... bask in the glow of, uh, all of that. I have to hand it to you: this takes balls. You only get to do this once, and you don't get take-backs or changies either, so. Kudos to you, because it was horrible, but not because it was bad.
Now.
OH MY GOD?
In one of my few conscious moments during those last two-to-five minutes, I was yelling "BOOTH. WAIT. YOU'RE DOING THIS TOTALLY WRONG." Because he does, he does it totally wrong, and of course Brennan completely shuts him down as a result! Talking about couples growing old together and thirty-forty-fifty years? To someone whose primary relationship hang-up is that she can't COMMIT to someone because that admits that you need someone? The same person who drank an entire bottle of scotch in your apartment because she didn't believe she could ever believe in transcendent and eternal love (i.e., marriage)? SERIOUSLY HAVE YOU LEARNED ANYTHING IN THE LAST FIVE OR SIX YEARS, BOOTH? So of course you're the gambler, dude. You're the gambler because you like the risk a little too much. "Well, since I mostly won, it wasn't that much of a problem." Gambling addiction is all about chasing the win, about expecting it - to the point where you lose complete prospective. I... could throw in more poker references there, but, uh, I don't really know that many.
Booth is the Gambler, and Brennan is the Struggler*. OH. GOSH. This simultaneously breaks my heart, and elates it.
(* HAHAHA I AM GOING TO GLOAT ABOUT THAT ONE FOR A LONG, LONG, LONG TIME, EVERYONE. JUST SO YOU KNOW. I WILL BECOME INSUFFERABLE.)
It's telling that Booth still can't say "because I'm in love you," even though he does everything but. I think it's telling that he gives a speech in which he cites some random cliche that in every other classic romance, it's always the guy who knows so naturally he's going to step up to the plate and be THAT GUY. No wonder the wheels fall off the wagon so spectacularly in the face of that logic. IN THIS ROMANCE, BOOTH, IT'S THE GIRL WHO DOES THE TELLING. After all, she is Bones - the heart of the matter.
Speaking of: oh, best beloved lady character. *hugs*
SO SCARED OF NOT BEING IN CONTROL 100%. "I have to protect you!" "From what?!" "FROM ME." That... hurt, like sort of a lot. Such a painful and true note on a character like Brennan, who has probably only let that dam Sweets talked about break only once (writing her novel at the end of S4) - only to be so terrified by the flood that she not only deleted it, but she ran away to Guate-freaking-mala. I sincerely hope that after mostly a season of IS BOOTH'S COMA LOVE REAL LOVE?! we get to check in on Brennan a little bit. Homegirl has some serious emotional milestones that we've either missed dwelling on, or have yet to get to re: Booth; Booth's coma; Booth almost dying, Booth not remembering which person she was. Which - ! ? could it be possible that Brennan isn't scared of love at all, she's... actually worried Booth is in love with the idea of her, typified by her coma alter ego, a version Temperance Brennan the Rational Unchanging Scientist could never be? Which-
Okay, that would mean that after last week's PAGE 187 revelation - OH MY GOD SEELEY JOSEPH BOOTH AND TEMPERANCE BRENNAN HAVE THE SAME ISSUES? Booth is worried her books aren't actual secret love letters to him; Brennan is worried she can never be the idealized version of herself Booth was married to in a dream. I was about to type, OH JUST RUN INTO ONE ANOTHER AND MAKE OUT ALREADY, WOULD YOU, BUT
Heh.
Clearly that solution only makes everything more complicated...?
Final verdict: my soul hurts in a real way, more than I expected. On the other hand, way to give already deceptively complex characters another equally deceptively complex new layer. \o/ I'd vote ACTUAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT over fluffy making out that gets reset at the end of 42 minutes any day (except, uh, don't quote me on that one, I LOVE THAT TOO). Also, since this isn't the season finale - not by a long shot (five more episodes) - yeah. Methinks this is going somewhere.
OTHER HAPPY* STUFF THAT IS NOT A MESS OF WORDS AND EMOTIONS:
* With a few exceptions
1. If I'm 75% 2010!Angela, sartorially speaking, then I am 150% 2004!Angela. I think I own all of those scarves she was wearing.
2. ANGELA AND HODGINS. Booth and Brennan's first case was also their first case! Show, you better not be messing with me with all these Booth/Brennan-Angela/Hodgins parallels, THIS HAD BETTER BE SOMETHING. (They all share the Gravedigger much differently than everyone else. They share Page 187. That stalled wedding ceremony left Booth and Brennan at the altar together. Hodgins' speech in "Proof in the Pudding" is that he's Angie's guy.) Secret OTP, man, do not disappoint me.
3. CAM. CAM. CAM. CAM. CAM. CAM. CAM. CAM. It's all Cam's fault that Booth and Brennan meet for the first time! I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT WHAT THIS CHOOSES TO BE. She is the truly Momma Bear of the B/B Jeffersonian Fan Club! (Although, considering Cam/Booth in S2, also a little sad? Temperance Brennan has now, and always will be, the third wheel in that relationship? Oh dear.)
3a. Thing I would like to see: CAM KICKING SWEETS' ASS BECAUSE HE WENT AND MESSED WITH THE STATE OF BOOTH AND BRENNAN. "It had to be done!" "No! It didn't! You got to a bar and you have a large glass of whiskey instead like the rest of us." First rule of We Ship Them Too Club: don't talk about We Ship Them Too Club. Newbie.
4. ZACK! I... do not miss you all that much?
5. One day, I hope Caroline Julian finds out she was responsible for not only mistletoe kissing, but DRUNK TEQUILA MAKING OUT IN THE RAIN. "Oh, please. Watching you two is like being at prom." LOL FOREVER
5a. "I feel like- um- I feel like I'm gonna kiss you. *DOES*" akjsfhaksjfhkasjhfkasjhfaskjf
6. Sweets? You are on probation. Even if I think the real story of how your parents met is probably punishment enough.
...
"I can't change. I don't know how."
*cries for a million years omg*
Also? You are perfect, show. Absolutely perfect.