(no subject)
Dear Bones:
I sincerely apologize for my dark suspicions that this was going to be a painfully embarrassing comedy episode about a) those funny Amish people or b) wacky misunderstandings as our heroes attempt to interact with those funny Amish people. Admittedly it's not like you haven't given me cause for suspicion, and the trailer didn't help, but instead you delivered a mostly serious and genuinely moving episode that treated everyone involved sympathetically. I don't know if you got it right, because what I know about the Amish you could write on a postcard, but you at least seemed to be making an effort. And you kept focus on the victim and his loved ones through the whole episode, all the way to that heartbreaking close. I was honestly worried last season that you'd forgotten how to write your murder victims as real people who we should care about (and you used to be really good at that) and I am so happy to be wrong. (Also I'm sniffling, but that just means you did it right.) Even the subplot with Cam and her adopted daughter, while overly sitcom-y, kept everyone in character and had some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, like Bones' reaction to Cam's book. And you didn't spend any of the episode hammering us with tortured UST. (I don't object to the UST existing, mind you; this show runs on the stuff. But it's generally been a lower-key version than explicit "will-they-or-won't-they??" teasing, and the first episode had me worried they were going to spend the whole season doing that. Now it looks more like they're just going to ease back to the level of "it is pretty obvious that we are in love, but we don't really seem to have noticed." At least until sweeps.)
In short: oh, show, keep it up. I am liking you a whole lot better this season.
I sincerely apologize for my dark suspicions that this was going to be a painfully embarrassing comedy episode about a) those funny Amish people or b) wacky misunderstandings as our heroes attempt to interact with those funny Amish people. Admittedly it's not like you haven't given me cause for suspicion, and the trailer didn't help, but instead you delivered a mostly serious and genuinely moving episode that treated everyone involved sympathetically. I don't know if you got it right, because what I know about the Amish you could write on a postcard, but you at least seemed to be making an effort. And you kept focus on the victim and his loved ones through the whole episode, all the way to that heartbreaking close. I was honestly worried last season that you'd forgotten how to write your murder victims as real people who we should care about (and you used to be really good at that) and I am so happy to be wrong. (Also I'm sniffling, but that just means you did it right.) Even the subplot with Cam and her adopted daughter, while overly sitcom-y, kept everyone in character and had some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, like Bones' reaction to Cam's book. And you didn't spend any of the episode hammering us with tortured UST. (I don't object to the UST existing, mind you; this show runs on the stuff. But it's generally been a lower-key version than explicit "will-they-or-won't-they??" teasing, and the first episode had me worried they were going to spend the whole season doing that. Now it looks more like they're just going to ease back to the level of "it is pretty obvious that we are in love, but we don't really seem to have noticed." At least until sweeps.)
In short: oh, show, keep it up. I am liking you a whole lot better this season.