The fifth season of Bones has been quite an adventure. From Booth recovering from brain surgery, Brennan dating Booth’s former supervisor, Sweets proposing to Daisy, Hodgins proposing to Angela, the Gravedigger trial, and a mini family reunion - as Booth’s grandfather and Brennan’s distant relative visit. It’s been an amazing season!

Oh yeah, there was also the heart-breaking 100th episode where Booth laid all his cards on the table and revealed to Brennan just how much she means to him. The idea of taking their relationship to the next level was not well received by Brennan - and Bones fans around the world were left in shock.

Not to be outdone by the 100th episode, series creator Hart Hanson promised a finale just as impactful. We’ll have to see about that.

So, get comfortable, prepare your favorite snacks and check to make sure there’s no dead body around cause it’s the Bones season five finale!

Review

As hard as it is for me to say, the season five finale of Bones was not only a terrible episode in its own right, but also the worst season finale of the year – and yes, I’m including Heroes.

The entire episode, from start to finish, was a mess. The so called “case of the week" at the focus was extremely boring compared to the ingenious cases the team have previously tackled.

Bones: Season 5 Finale Review & Discussion

What makes matters worse is the terrible case was used to further every other storyline in the episode. I believe this is the result of series creator, and writer of this episode, Hart Hanson taking an extra storyline laying around and retroactively shoveling in all the “important things” that should be included in a season finale – like a conclusion (but we’ll get to that later).

While I’ll begrudgingly accept Angela’s disappearing ZZ Top-like father showing up in the middle of a crime scene to ask Hodgins if he’ll steal back his (not really stolen) car, I honestly couldn’t believe the moment when Brennan used aspects of the Hoarder’s lifestyle as metaphors for her own life.

It was as if they turned one of the strongest, most intelligent, female characters on television into a parody of herself. Actually, that phrase could be used to easily sum up this entire episode - a parody of itself.

Personally, I blame Hart Hanson. Hanson has repeatedly said that he loves causing controversy (with his fans) over the season finales. One has to agree that this type of thinking is certainly needed in order to keep things fresh - continuously developing characters and storylines instead of always giving fans what they want.

But, at some point, Hanson needs to take a step back and realize that the controversy amongst fans is not because Bones and Booth did or did not kiss - the controversy is over the series making a turn toward horrible and, in some ways, unwatchable.

This is something that Doctor Who fans experienced with Russell T. Davies serving as writer and executive producer. As a result, fans had to sit by and watch the preposterous and convoluted episodes that made up David Tennant’s final year.

Speaking about preposterous and convoluted, let’s finally get back to the conclusion of the Bones finale – or lack there of. There is no better example of Hanson losing touch as a storyteller than the final scenes of this episode.

The entire final act was completely unemotional. The breaking up of couples, partners (especially to distant parts of the world) is something that should inherently elicit emotions from the audience - something viewers should react to.

No matter what happens, scenes such as these should be sad. Even If they didn't offer the best dialogue, or writing in general, they should still exude some type of emotional response from those watching.

But they didn't - the scenes were emotionless.

Overall, the past season has certainly been entertaining. Unfortunately, no one can deny that this episode was a disaster. Hopefully, as the series continues, Hanson will learn from this debacle.

Although, with the season six premiere picking-up “1 year later” - I highly doubt we'll be seeing much improvement.

Final Thoughts

The season five finale of Bones is perhaps the worst episode of the entire series and a terrible season finale - at least in my opinion.

What did you think of the Bones season finale? Will you be tuning in this fall? What could they have done better?

The sixth season of Bones premieres this fall on Fox.

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