"They gave me medication. So I feel how I imagine people of average intelligence feel all the time."
1. I AM ALL CAUGHT UP WITH BONES. That's right - I watched something like... twenty episodes in the last two days and OMG I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS SHOW. Really I just want to hug it and everyone in it and KAFHJLADGFHDLSFKLADAS.
OMG THIS CAST.
- thank GOD I only caught up with the show and Season 4 AFTER Season 5 started - I think the cliffhanger would have killed me if I'd had to wait three months to find out what happened after Booth woke up from his coma!! Instead, I feel as if I'm been thoroughly, completely and so happily immersed in this universe all weekend and I just want to hug every character in it and just love them forever.
- Seriously - this, like Buffy, is one of those very rare shows where the characters and everything just feel so right and so GOOD to me that I don't feel the need to... write or hunt out fanfic to fill in the gaps where canon fails me, you know? I'm just happy to see where the writers are going to take me, and what they do with these characters and the same set formula they can't jettison because the show IS, basically, a procedural drama.
- The genius of the show is really that they come up with so many fantastic characters that I WANT to spend time with, and I don't necessarily care what they're doing or saying (since it's not like I always UNDERSTAND what they're saying, ahahaha)... in a way, the writers get that too, which is what I like. The cases and the forensic/psychological mumbo-jumbo that overlay everything is really just one huge enormous MacGuffin - what they're interested in is exploring the dynamics among this dysfunctional little family they've established: Booth and Brennan, Cam and Angela and Hodgins and Sweets, and everyone else. GOD, this show is basically four seasons worth of intellectual foreplay and banter romantic-comedy, laced through with gory murders and smart, sassy banter and character insights. I LOVE that it's a really smart show, featuring really smart characters, but which also doesn't take itself too seriously. It goes from weighty and emotional and rich, to quippy and sassy and irreverent, often within five minutes, AND I LOVE IT SO. EFFING. MUCH. And every single character, I love them ALL.
- Here, take one of my FAVOURITE exchanges on the show so far:
Booth: I didn't mean to call you creepy.
Bones: You said I have a creepy mode.
Booth: I apologise, okay? I wasn't in my element.
Bones: Every element is your element.
Booth: That's not true. We've just got to stop hanging out with geniuses, because you're going to figure out that I'm really stupid.
Bones: What? Don't worry about that. I figured out a long time ago how stupid you are.
Booth: Hmm.
Bones: What I just said is true and yet it really sounded wrong. What I should say is I don't care how stupid you are. That's... not any better?
Booth: No. No. Not at all. That's not even relevant.
Bones: There is intelligence, which I have, and Mr. Nigel-Murray.
Nigel-Murray: Thank you.
Bones: And Sweets, even though his is so misdirected as to be meaningless.
Booth: Right.
Sweets: Wow, backhand full of knuckles with that compliment. <-- this might be one of my favourite lines ever in a TV show, LMAO
Bones: And Hodgins, and Angela... not so much, but she's very talented.
Angela: Thank you, very much.
Bones: You're welcome. But then there's another quality, which is the ability to use intelligence. That is what you have.
Booth: Thanks, Bones.
I just... love the banter, and the quipping, and the sassiness (yes, this is clearly an oft-repeated refrain, but omg the show is full of quippy sassy banter!!), and how every character makes me flail. EVERY. ONE. Like... how Hodgins deemed himself "King of the Funeral" in that episode in which they bodynapped a dude from his coffin (OMG SO FUNNY). Or how Gordon-Gordon (ANY SHOW THAT GUEST-STARS STEPHEN FRY IS AUTOMATICALLY AMAZING, TRUFAX) was trashing Sweets' book but diagnosed him as just looking for a surrogate family... and how Brennan asked if he'd imprinted them, like a baby duck. LMAO. And then to go from that to this little moment of sheer heartbreak when she talked about what her foster parents did to her to punish her for breaking a plate? I don't think any show I've seen trips quite so easily between the ridiculous and the sublimely rich and dramatic as this one... it's akin to The West Wing, almost, except TWW doesn't have that barmy kookiness that informs some of Bones' BEST scenes - pretty much everything involving a King of the Lab experiment is epic, for example. (XF DID have that fabulous blend of drama and irreverent humour, in Seasons Six and Seven... not coincidentally my favourite seasons of all.)
- But you have other random RANDOM things too - like an ENTIRE episode devoted to getting the shows' leads to go undercover as a Russian knife-throwing act in the circus. REALLY this is the best way to solve a potential homicide? REALLY NOW? That episode was kind of rubbish, except it was so much fun to see the little attention whore side of Brennan i.e., NATASHA come out that I loooved it. Reminded me of when they pretended to be a card shark and his moll a few seasons back. XD
- Also, the INTERNS. I did not love how they lost Zack at the end of Season 3 (I SQUEED WHEN HE GUEST-STARRED IN THE LAST EPISODE OF SEASON 4, I DID), but I love love LOVE how they dealt with that loss. Rather than find a single replacement right away, which I don't think I could have accepted anywhere near as easily because Zack WAS irreplaceable, in a way, they had a revolving door of interns that settled down to just a few - Wendell, Fisher, Nigel-Murray, Clark and Aristoo, all of whom are fascinating, have their own quirks (omg the number of times Cam got to give Nigel-Murray her best death-glare: favourite) and are rotated through the episodes to keep them fresh and to change up the dynamics of each case every week. I LOVE IT. I even loved the one played by that Michael guy off the Sopranos whose last name I can't quite recall/spell, but the one who'd done EVERYTHING and sold Hodgins the lemon... ♥
- Hero In The Hold is one of my favourite episodes EVER. I thought it was brilliantly played and written - all the flashbacks Booth kept having, and the explanation of Parker's name, and when you realise later in the season how the hallucinations factor into everything... heartbreaking. I cried, I must admit, and I adore David Boreanaz so very much. I really did get tired by Broody McBroody a.k.a. Angel(us) after a while, and here he is just... this gorgeously sunny, sexy, SWEET man, who's responsible and loving and smart and devoted and OMG I WANT A BOOTH OF MY OWN. ALSO, DAVID IS SO FUNNY IN THIS SHOW. ZOMG I want to marry Booth.
- Also Emily Deschanel is incredible. I love love loooove her. Brennan's, like, Scully, except with 150% (yes, Dr Brennan, I'm aware it only goes up to 100%) less angst, and Emily makes the character so... loveable, and so cute and dorky even with her abrasive, relentlessly practical and rational intelligence. SHE IS SO SOCIALLY AWKWARD OMG YOU KNOW THAT MOMENT WHEN THEY HAD TO BODYNAP THE DUDE FROM HIS OWN COFFIN. AND BOOTH TOLD HER TO GO BACK INSIDE WITH A SAD FACE. BRENNAN'S VERSION OF A SADFACE IS REALLY AND TRULY MY FAVOURITE THING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.
- And that relationship, good GOD. Honestly the entire show is just an excuse to dance around this relationship, and play it out in the most delicious way ever. EVERYTHING is just geared towards that, and I have to admit I LOVED the way Season 5 started off. Cyndi Lauper as the world's blondest, sassiest psychic, hai. The insights she provided just made my little shippy heart sing. EVERYONE ON THIS SHOW SHIPS BOOTH/BRENNAN. CAM DOES. ANGELA DOES. SWEETS DOES. HODGINS WOULD, IF HE WASN'T TOO BUSY BEING KING OF THE LAB. (He needs to get back with Angela, stat.) EVERYONE THINKS THEY'RE DOING IT. And Booth told Brennan he loooves her! In an "attagirl!" kind of way (AHAHAHA SO CUTE), but omg. I LOVED it when Brennan went to talk to Avalon, and was told that she was worried that nobody could love her - only to be told that he knows the truth about her, and that he's dazzled by that truth. And that everything would work out in the end. Eventually. SERIOUSLY. A ROM-COM THAT'S LASTED FOUR SEASONS, LSKFHLAHFDADHASLDHLA OBSESSED. (ETA: unlimited is AMAZING and did this quote/pic-spam of 5x01 Harbingers In The Fountain and omg I JUST watched this, and already I miss this show. God it's so funny and adorable and I LOVE IT FOREVER.)
Seriously. Every quote in that quote-spam, especially Brennan talking to Avalon. But here's a peachy one:
Hodgins: Booth! How many fingers am I holding up?
Caroline: Yay! A brain damage joke. That's really funny.
- You know, I was SPOILED for the season four finale, and I still cried when Brennan diagnosed Booth's brain tumour, and how he asked her to be in the OR, and asked her to take his "stuff" if he didn't make it... I LOVED that episode. The same way I loved it when Booth kicked the door down in 5x01 and grabbed Brennan in his arms and swore he'd take care of her. OH. MY. GOD. I haven't had an OTP like this since... House/Cuddy and Mulder/Scully. EXCEPT WITH ADDED LEVITY AND SNARK AND SASSY ADORABILITY ALSDHAHASLDLSKDHALSDA.
- I'm a little bit on the fence with The End In The Beginning. I didn't feel cheated, per se, because it was so clearly a fantasy episode in a different realm/mode. And it was FUN to see the characters in familiar, yet unfamiliar, roles - the parallels worked best for Zack (OH ZACK I'VE MISSED YOU), I think.
- p/s I also love Caroline Julian. Aside from the fact that she ALSO ships Brennan and Booth AND was the reason they had their first sexy kiss under the mistletoe, she is full of sass and snarky good times and I love her. WHEN BOOTH HUGGED HER AT THE END OF 5X02, AHAHAHAHA.
Hell yeah I love this show. OMG. Anyone who wants to flail with me is CLEARLY WELCOME TO DO SO.
2. I watched episode 4 of Glee - it's the best one so far, but still didn't feel QUITE right to me. There is something awkward about that show that just screams... artificial, and seriously, I've seen shows that are similarly hyper-real (like, say, POPULAR), but Glee is still not... hitting that proper groove just yet. That being said: I think they're warming up and possibly heading in the very right direction i.e., the one in which Sue Sylvester truly DOES become Bobbi Glass and TAKES OVER THE ENTIRE SHOW. Yes please, Jane Lynch is awesometimes. Sue mentioned "Singapore", you know, which I enjoyed. Heh.
3. And so... yeah, that's about how I spent my weekend. Watching a shit-ton of Bones, accompanied by junk food, the occasional book, too many cupcakes, NOT catching up on comments/email/my flist... and, right now, dreading the thought that the weekend is over and I'm heading back towards work when I next get up. Do not like. The one thing I DO wish I'd been at this weekend - it was so disgustingly hot here that I can feel it sweltering through the airconditioning, walking out to get dinner was AWFUL - is the Broadway flea market. So tell me, guys, what was your haul? Keep me entertained... I like living vicariously!
4. Wondering what my next huge tv catch-up should be. Yes yes, I know, BSG, which I swear is being shifted hastily up the queue. But I'm thinking I need to catch up on my Desperate Housewives before I get completely spoiled. I hate when I get so far behind that it becomes virtually impossible to avoid spoilers. Also, there's Dollhouse and United States Of Tara, and everything else is going to return and I SHOULD watch Flash Forward, right... ARGH. I need to quit my job so I can watch movies/tv/theatre 24/7, who's with me. Sigh.
OMG THIS CAST.
- thank GOD I only caught up with the show and Season 4 AFTER Season 5 started - I think the cliffhanger would have killed me if I'd had to wait three months to find out what happened after Booth woke up from his coma!! Instead, I feel as if I'm been thoroughly, completely and so happily immersed in this universe all weekend and I just want to hug every character in it and just love them forever.
- Seriously - this, like Buffy, is one of those very rare shows where the characters and everything just feel so right and so GOOD to me that I don't feel the need to... write or hunt out fanfic to fill in the gaps where canon fails me, you know? I'm just happy to see where the writers are going to take me, and what they do with these characters and the same set formula they can't jettison because the show IS, basically, a procedural drama.
- The genius of the show is really that they come up with so many fantastic characters that I WANT to spend time with, and I don't necessarily care what they're doing or saying (since it's not like I always UNDERSTAND what they're saying, ahahaha)... in a way, the writers get that too, which is what I like. The cases and the forensic/psychological mumbo-jumbo that overlay everything is really just one huge enormous MacGuffin - what they're interested in is exploring the dynamics among this dysfunctional little family they've established: Booth and Brennan, Cam and Angela and Hodgins and Sweets, and everyone else. GOD, this show is basically four seasons worth of intellectual foreplay and banter romantic-comedy, laced through with gory murders and smart, sassy banter and character insights. I LOVE that it's a really smart show, featuring really smart characters, but which also doesn't take itself too seriously. It goes from weighty and emotional and rich, to quippy and sassy and irreverent, often within five minutes, AND I LOVE IT SO. EFFING. MUCH. And every single character, I love them ALL.
- Here, take one of my FAVOURITE exchanges on the show so far:
Booth: I didn't mean to call you creepy.
Bones: You said I have a creepy mode.
Booth: I apologise, okay? I wasn't in my element.
Bones: Every element is your element.
Booth: That's not true. We've just got to stop hanging out with geniuses, because you're going to figure out that I'm really stupid.
Bones: What? Don't worry about that. I figured out a long time ago how stupid you are.
Booth: Hmm.
Bones: What I just said is true and yet it really sounded wrong. What I should say is I don't care how stupid you are. That's... not any better?
Booth: No. No. Not at all. That's not even relevant.
Bones: There is intelligence, which I have, and Mr. Nigel-Murray.
Nigel-Murray: Thank you.
Bones: And Sweets, even though his is so misdirected as to be meaningless.
Booth: Right.
Sweets: Wow, backhand full of knuckles with that compliment. <-- this might be one of my favourite lines ever in a TV show, LMAO
Bones: And Hodgins, and Angela... not so much, but she's very talented.
Angela: Thank you, very much.
Bones: You're welcome. But then there's another quality, which is the ability to use intelligence. That is what you have.
Booth: Thanks, Bones.
I just... love the banter, and the quipping, and the sassiness (yes, this is clearly an oft-repeated refrain, but omg the show is full of quippy sassy banter!!), and how every character makes me flail. EVERY. ONE. Like... how Hodgins deemed himself "King of the Funeral" in that episode in which they bodynapped a dude from his coffin (OMG SO FUNNY). Or how Gordon-Gordon (ANY SHOW THAT GUEST-STARS STEPHEN FRY IS AUTOMATICALLY AMAZING, TRUFAX) was trashing Sweets' book but diagnosed him as just looking for a surrogate family... and how Brennan asked if he'd imprinted them, like a baby duck. LMAO. And then to go from that to this little moment of sheer heartbreak when she talked about what her foster parents did to her to punish her for breaking a plate? I don't think any show I've seen trips quite so easily between the ridiculous and the sublimely rich and dramatic as this one... it's akin to The West Wing, almost, except TWW doesn't have that barmy kookiness that informs some of Bones' BEST scenes - pretty much everything involving a King of the Lab experiment is epic, for example. (XF DID have that fabulous blend of drama and irreverent humour, in Seasons Six and Seven... not coincidentally my favourite seasons of all.)
- But you have other random RANDOM things too - like an ENTIRE episode devoted to getting the shows' leads to go undercover as a Russian knife-throwing act in the circus. REALLY this is the best way to solve a potential homicide? REALLY NOW? That episode was kind of rubbish, except it was so much fun to see the little attention whore side of Brennan i.e., NATASHA come out that I loooved it. Reminded me of when they pretended to be a card shark and his moll a few seasons back. XD
- Also, the INTERNS. I did not love how they lost Zack at the end of Season 3 (I SQUEED WHEN HE GUEST-STARRED IN THE LAST EPISODE OF SEASON 4, I DID), but I love love LOVE how they dealt with that loss. Rather than find a single replacement right away, which I don't think I could have accepted anywhere near as easily because Zack WAS irreplaceable, in a way, they had a revolving door of interns that settled down to just a few - Wendell, Fisher, Nigel-Murray, Clark and Aristoo, all of whom are fascinating, have their own quirks (omg the number of times Cam got to give Nigel-Murray her best death-glare: favourite) and are rotated through the episodes to keep them fresh and to change up the dynamics of each case every week. I LOVE IT. I even loved the one played by that Michael guy off the Sopranos whose last name I can't quite recall/spell, but the one who'd done EVERYTHING and sold Hodgins the lemon... ♥
- Hero In The Hold is one of my favourite episodes EVER. I thought it was brilliantly played and written - all the flashbacks Booth kept having, and the explanation of Parker's name, and when you realise later in the season how the hallucinations factor into everything... heartbreaking. I cried, I must admit, and I adore David Boreanaz so very much. I really did get tired by Broody McBroody a.k.a. Angel(us) after a while, and here he is just... this gorgeously sunny, sexy, SWEET man, who's responsible and loving and smart and devoted and OMG I WANT A BOOTH OF MY OWN. ALSO, DAVID IS SO FUNNY IN THIS SHOW. ZOMG I want to marry Booth.
- Also Emily Deschanel is incredible. I love love loooove her. Brennan's, like, Scully, except with 150% (yes, Dr Brennan, I'm aware it only goes up to 100%) less angst, and Emily makes the character so... loveable, and so cute and dorky even with her abrasive, relentlessly practical and rational intelligence. SHE IS SO SOCIALLY AWKWARD OMG YOU KNOW THAT MOMENT WHEN THEY HAD TO BODYNAP THE DUDE FROM HIS OWN COFFIN. AND BOOTH TOLD HER TO GO BACK INSIDE WITH A SAD FACE. BRENNAN'S VERSION OF A SADFACE IS REALLY AND TRULY MY FAVOURITE THING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.
- And that relationship, good GOD. Honestly the entire show is just an excuse to dance around this relationship, and play it out in the most delicious way ever. EVERYTHING is just geared towards that, and I have to admit I LOVED the way Season 5 started off. Cyndi Lauper as the world's blondest, sassiest psychic, hai. The insights she provided just made my little shippy heart sing. EVERYONE ON THIS SHOW SHIPS BOOTH/BRENNAN. CAM DOES. ANGELA DOES. SWEETS DOES. HODGINS WOULD, IF HE WASN'T TOO BUSY BEING KING OF THE LAB. (He needs to get back with Angela, stat.) EVERYONE THINKS THEY'RE DOING IT. And Booth told Brennan he loooves her! In an "attagirl!" kind of way (AHAHAHA SO CUTE), but omg. I LOVED it when Brennan went to talk to Avalon, and was told that she was worried that nobody could love her - only to be told that he knows the truth about her, and that he's dazzled by that truth. And that everything would work out in the end. Eventually. SERIOUSLY. A ROM-COM THAT'S LASTED FOUR SEASONS, LSKFHLAHFDADHASLDHLA OBSESSED. (ETA: unlimited is AMAZING and did this quote/pic-spam of 5x01 Harbingers In The Fountain and omg I JUST watched this, and already I miss this show. God it's so funny and adorable and I LOVE IT FOREVER.)
Seriously. Every quote in that quote-spam, especially Brennan talking to Avalon. But here's a peachy one:
Hodgins: Booth! How many fingers am I holding up?
Caroline: Yay! A brain damage joke. That's really funny.
- You know, I was SPOILED for the season four finale, and I still cried when Brennan diagnosed Booth's brain tumour, and how he asked her to be in the OR, and asked her to take his "stuff" if he didn't make it... I LOVED that episode. The same way I loved it when Booth kicked the door down in 5x01 and grabbed Brennan in his arms and swore he'd take care of her. OH. MY. GOD. I haven't had an OTP like this since... House/Cuddy and Mulder/Scully. EXCEPT WITH ADDED LEVITY AND SNARK AND SASSY ADORABILITY ALSDHAHASLDLSKDHALSDA.
- I'm a little bit on the fence with The End In The Beginning. I didn't feel cheated, per se, because it was so clearly a fantasy episode in a different realm/mode. And it was FUN to see the characters in familiar, yet unfamiliar, roles - the parallels worked best for Zack (OH ZACK I'VE MISSED YOU), I think.
- p/s I also love Caroline Julian. Aside from the fact that she ALSO ships Brennan and Booth AND was the reason they had their first sexy kiss under the mistletoe, she is full of sass and snarky good times and I love her. WHEN BOOTH HUGGED HER AT THE END OF 5X02, AHAHAHAHA.
Hell yeah I love this show. OMG. Anyone who wants to flail with me is CLEARLY WELCOME TO DO SO.
2. I watched episode 4 of Glee - it's the best one so far, but still didn't feel QUITE right to me. There is something awkward about that show that just screams... artificial, and seriously, I've seen shows that are similarly hyper-real (like, say, POPULAR), but Glee is still not... hitting that proper groove just yet. That being said: I think they're warming up and possibly heading in the very right direction i.e., the one in which Sue Sylvester truly DOES become Bobbi Glass and TAKES OVER THE ENTIRE SHOW. Yes please, Jane Lynch is awesometimes. Sue mentioned "Singapore", you know, which I enjoyed. Heh.
3. And so... yeah, that's about how I spent my weekend. Watching a shit-ton of Bones, accompanied by junk food, the occasional book, too many cupcakes, NOT catching up on comments/email/my flist... and, right now, dreading the thought that the weekend is over and I'm heading back towards work when I next get up. Do not like. The one thing I DO wish I'd been at this weekend - it was so disgustingly hot here that I can feel it sweltering through the airconditioning, walking out to get dinner was AWFUL - is the Broadway flea market. So tell me, guys, what was your haul? Keep me entertained... I like living vicariously!
4. Wondering what my next huge tv catch-up should be. Yes yes, I know, BSG, which I swear is being shifted hastily up the queue. But I'm thinking I need to catch up on my Desperate Housewives before I get completely spoiled. I hate when I get so far behind that it becomes virtually impossible to avoid spoilers. Also, there's Dollhouse and United States Of Tara, and everything else is going to return and I SHOULD watch Flash Forward, right... ARGH. I need to quit my job so I can watch movies/tv/theatre 24/7, who's with me. Sigh.