So what does Dr Wyatt think of that?
Dec. 16th, 2010 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mistletoeBooth needs to have his time in therapy finished off this week. The season is winding down and focus is once again on Bones, this time in her relationship with Sully, so Booth takes a back seat and I am looking for crumbs again.
So with his prejudice already aroused he resists the info that Terry Bancroft had a philanthropic interest in a youth centre until he discovers that his intervention with a drug mule may have caused not only his murder but that of the young boy he took the heroin from. How does he present this to Gordon Gordon?
BOOTH: Okay. Fine. Great. I have a dead rich guy, works with at-risk youth, gets brutally murdered after confiscating a couple of pounds of heroin from one of his kids.
WYATT: It’s interesting the first word you use to describe him is “rich”.
BOOTH: Ah, second. First description was “dead”.
WYATT: Why do you think you have a problem with wealthy people?
BOOTH: This case is a perfect example. This guy, he makes up his own rules. What’s that word that you used?
WYATT: Uh, entitled.
BOOTH: Yeah, entitled. That’s what got him killed.
WYATT: Did this rich guy, by any chance, have a wife?
BOOTH: Ah what, are we changing the subject now?
WYATT: And does the rich guy’s wife have a lover?
BOOTH: I just told you. The murder has to do with the heroin. The boy, the victim took the heroin from also turned up murdered.
WYATT: And is this boy from a modest background?
BOOTH: Doesn’t get any modester.
WYATT: So is there any chance that you would rather catch the boy’s murderer, than the wealthy fellow’s murderer, so you have decided that they’re one and the same? Any chance that you’ve based this assumption purely on your bias against rich, entitled people?
BOOTH: Mmm-hmm. You know what? I did the belt buckle, I did the tie, I did the socks … what else do you want from me?
By offering an alternative and calling him on his bias against the rich, Wyatt is making Booth think about his world view. He does it again later in Booth's office. In the meantime, Booth gets more fuel for his crusade against the rich from Hodgins of all people. Booth feels betrayed when Hodgins turns out to be a close friend of the victim and a former boyfriend of his wife. Booth is full of indignation.
BRENNAN: Good job, Hodgins.
BOOTH: No, no … not “good job Hodgins”. He might have blown the whole case.
HODGINS: I told him it is not a problem.
BRENNAN: What happened?
BOOTH: I don’t care what he does in his time off, but when he screws around with evidence to get in the pants of an old girlfriend on one of my murder cases? That is a problem.
He goes further when the others have to be told the level of Hodgins's interference.
HODGINS: Clarissa and I were engaged. She and Terry started something up and it unfolded the way those things do. I haven’t contacted or heard from either of them in eight years. Then Terry got killed…
BOOTH: And like every other rich guy in the world, you decided the rules just didn’t apply to you.
HODGINS: Hey! The guy used to be my friend, all right? And Clarissa…
CAM: You tampered with evidence.
HODGINS: The glass and frame were evidence. The photograph I removed was not. I wanted to work Terry’s murder.
CAM: Obviously you’re off the case.
BOOTH: Should be off the job.
Things are icy until Wyatt steps in again. During the trial Booth shares Chinese with the good doctor in his office where we get the contentious issue of where Booth is from obfuscated and a reading on how Booth isn't really different from everybody else.
BOOTH: Hey, Doc, what we’re doing here, would that be considered therapy?
WYATT: Absolutely. Especially since I’m about to inquire whether you’ve experienced any outbursts of temper since I requested you alter your dress code.
BOOTH: Yeah. One of the Squints – Hodgins – decided the rules, they didn’t apply to him. He got entitled and jeopardized my murder case.
WYATT: Ah, and you confronted him physically.
BOOTH: Physical confrontation – that’s my main skill.
WYATT: “Entitled,” you said. Is he a wealthy man?
BOOTH: Yeah, like the guy who got killed.
WYATT: The murder victim … who tried to help a child and then died for it? And your … uh … Squint?
BOOTH: Yeah, Squint.
WYATT: Extraordinary. Your Squint tried to help a friend. So they both endeavored to do good.
BOOTH: With no clue of the way things are.
WYATT: The way things are, as defined by a working class lad from Pittsburg.
BOOTH: That’s right. Pittsburg, where I’m from, all right? From the streets. Where you get a sense of how the world really is.
WYATT: Yes, I’m sure that’s true. But has it occurred to you that without the distortion of reality provided by a privileged upbringing, there’d be no such thing as the Sistine Chapel, the Taj Mahal, the Three Rivers Stadium, home of your beloved Steelers?
BOOTH: The Three Rivers Stadium was demolished in 2000. But it was a great place, though, that Lambert…
WYATT: No doubt. The point is, you rebel in your way, your friend rebels in his. We all of us have to overcome our upbringing, rich and poor alike. You know what? I’m going to ask you to go back to your bilious socks and your ostentatious ties, and your provocative belt buckles.
BOOTH: What, you’re saying that if I wear flashy socks, I’m going to forgive Hodgins?
WYATT: Oh Lord, I’m not sure I’m that good. Well, perhaps I am … hmm. (He gets up and begins walking toward the door)
BOOTH: Hey, Doc, Doc, Doc … um … why is it that the belt buckle is provocative?
WYATT: Oh, it’s a modern day codpiece. It forces the eye to the groin.
I'll just sidetrack here to say, Pittsburg? All right he's got the Steelers coffee mug but everything else and what he has said earlier points to Philadelphia. But now it's football and the Three Rivers Stadium, not ice hockey and the Flyers. Oh well.
There, however, is Booth in a nutshell. He sees his main skill as physical confrontation; he sees his background as a true example of how the world really is and the rich having no idea of what life on the streets is like. Booth has worn that feeling as an armour and as a preparation for doing his job properly, hence his frustration at Hodgins getting all "entitled". But Wyatt gives him the other side of things that each of us has to overcome our upbringing to see that the other person is just like us. We all rebel, but in different ways. So Booth goes back to being Booth and does 'forgive Hodgins'. That's helped by Hodgins telling him the truth.
HODGINS: Pie good? (Booth ignores him and continues reading his paper.) I quit. Handed in my letter to Cam.
BOOTH: Idiot. You should have got fired. Now, no severance package.
HODGINS: I figure, a guy like you, I resign that puts things right between us. Do we need to discuss it past that?
BOOTH: What are we, girls? (Looks to the server) A piece of pie for my friend…
Here, Booth ignores the fact that Hodgins doesn't need a severance package and treats him as a guy just like himself, going so far as to call him friend. Whatever the significance of the ties, Booth has the wherewithal to listen to Wyatt and heed his advice.
Setting aside The Bodies in the Book for now, where jealous Booth rears his head for the first time, by the time we get to The Boneless Bride in the River Booth is not only looking for flashier ties, but the Cocky belt buckle makes its first appearance. Wyatt's focus also changes as the writers begin to explore more overtly the relationship between Booth and Brennan. He makes his last appearance in The Priest in the Churchyard where he meets Brennan for the first time and suggests that their apparent disputes over religion are in fact about something else entirely.
Booth has worn his religious beliefs from the very beginning; Brennan has consistently mocked them. He told her he was Catholic in The Man in the Morgue and was incensed when she suggested that voodoo was just like his religion and that Jesus rising from the dead could be interpreted differently. Jesus is not a zombie sums up his views on that. Elsewhere we have seen his views on prayer, his religious medallion, his knowledge of the saints. We have seen his fear of a nun and learned that he tries to go to Mass every Sunday. He knows his Bible and believes in the miraculous nature of the Turin shroud.
Here, he expects Bones to respect the priests and gets annoyed when she doesn't. He has also been talking about their partnership with Wyatt and he is probably applying his own psychological interpretation to things based on what he has observed of Wyatt's methods. So he takes the bull by the horns and confronts her.
BOOTH: You know, the priest made a complaint. He said that you made fun of consecrated grounds?
BRENNAN: No, I didn’t. Perhaps I was a bit… colourful.
BOOTH: Colourful?
BRENNAN: Writerly. I’m a best selling author, Booth.
BOOTH: He’s an old-school priest, Bones.
BRENNAN: What, so I’m supposed to walk on eggshells because someone believes that a plot of earth has supernatural properties because they waved a wand over it?
BOOTH: It’s not a wand, it’s a… the church doesn’t use wands…
BRENNAN: Fine, magic water.
BOOTH: Magic? Holy water.
BRENNAN: The terminology makes it real?
BOOTH: Okay, you know what, I can’t work with you on this case.
BRENNAN: What, what do you mean? The victim was clearly murdered; we investigate murders. Together.
BOOTH: I’m not working the whole case with you attacking my beliefs. You should have just sailed off with your boyfriend.
BRENNAN: Funny, a man who believes in an invisible super-being wants to run my personal life.
ZACK: Death would have followed quickly, caused by cranio-cerebral trauma.
BOOTH: By the way, 90% of the world believes in God.
BRENNAN: And at one time, most people were certain that the sun revolved around the earth.
BOOTH: You see what I mean? I don’t think this is about religion at all. We obviously have issues, okay, that are affecting our working relationship. And you’re afraid to deal with them, so you just lash out at my religion.
BRENNAN: Can’t you just be satisfied that if I’m wrong about God, I’ll burn in hell?
BOOTH: It’s tempting.
So with that at our backs and a certain tension in the air, Booth goes about trying to investigate a murder while placating a stubborn priest and attempting to control a confrontational Brennan. It's a lot to ask of a man just recovering from a near breakdown. Above all, Booth likes to control situations. He does this either by conciliation or threat. Here, the obvious choice is to be agreeable and thus get the priest on his side. Brennan's methods, while honest, are less than helpful.
FATHER DONLAN: Murder? I don’t believe it was murder.
BRENNAN: It’s not a matter of faith, Father, the injuries were definitive.
FATHER DONLAN: You ever hear of the sin of pride, young woman? You could be wrong.
BOOTH: Dr Brennan here, she’s the best in her field.
BRENNAN: He would have been buried about three years ago.
FATHER DONLAN: I’ve been here forty-one years. I would know if someone had killed and buried a man in my cemetery.
BRENNAN: You seem quite proud yourself.
FATHER DONLAN: I don’t need to be insulted.
BOOTH: (whispering) Knock it off.
BRENNAN: (whispering) What, the rules don’t apply to him?
With the younger priest she is equally scathing, but he is less insulted. Booth just indulges his sweet tooth and eats cake.
BRENNAN: So, you don’t believe in all the supernatural mythology he does?
FATHER MATT: Well, if you’re talking about the holy trinity, the transubstantiation of the host, and the Resurrection, I certainly do.
BRENNAN: But you seem like such an intelligent man…
BOOTH: You have to excuse her, Father.
FATHER MATT: No need. God has a soft spot even for the atheists.
Booth is genuinely terrified that by association, his soul will find it difficult to get into heaven, so he is constantly apologising, excusing and defending. Brennan is oblivious to how important this is to him and other believers.
BOOTH: You know, it doesn’t help the case for you to insult the priest. We’re supposed to be gaining their trust so they’ll help us.
BRENNAN: Matt wasn’t threatened, you were.
BOOTH: We’re definitely not working well together.
BRENNAN: Because you are bossy and judgemental.
BOOTH: Problems between people, it’s never just one person’s fault.
BRENNAN: What about Hitler? He did pretty well on his own.
BOOTH: Bones, just... come with me to go see Dr Wyatt, once.
Wyatt's assessment is to agree with Booth that their problems do not have religion at their root. He sees that there is an attraction there which is being denied by them both and will be for a further two seasons. Consequently, Booth sticks with his religion and Brennan with her science. Incidentally, we find out that Booth was an altar boy.
Wyatt was a fascinating character and allowed us to see something of the inner workings of Booth which would have been difficult to bring out in any other way. While we have little concrete information to add, we do have a bit of a psychological profile of our man. We have seen in these few episodes a more vulnerable Booth, but one who has the inner strength to bounce back in adversity and to chsnge while remaining true to his personal mores and beliefs. We see that he has no older, father figure in his life and, for a while, Wyatt fills that gap giving Booth someone he can confide in and respect. Indeed, he can almost be seen as a confessor for Booth. He has the same advisory capacity, the same sanctity of the confessional and the same ability to dispense penance as a way to achieve a better life. He can be seen as the saviour of Booth's career. So why Sweets had to come along and stamp his feet all over the place I do not know.
The final bits of Season 2 will appear in the next edition of Booth A man for All Seasons. After that I feel there will be little to add in Season 3 beyond a refining of some information as the focus becomes more obviously based on the present relationship between Booth and Brennan. Season 4, however, is another matter.
A BOOTH FOR ALL SEASONS
BOOTH: Oh, I’d like to rip the whole edifice down with my bare hands or set it on fire. Except, you know, there’s nothing in this place to burn... all the plastic and the metal and the flashing lights, you know, and the arithmetic. I mean, where is a guy, a normal guy who believes in intuition and the soul and good and evil...
WYATT: And God?
BOOTH: Yes, and God too. Where is a guy who doesn’t believe in all this arithmetic supposed to stand?
SEASON 2 - The rich man in his castle and God in his heaven
Needless to say Booth is eager to get back to work and if it means listening to Gordon Gordon then he will do it. So if Booth is building his self back up then he needs to start at the beginning. That means stripping away the outward signs of what he is. Therefore, no flashy ties, no garish socks, no phallic belt buckles.
BOOTH: Look, it’s something I’m working on, okay?
BRENNAN: In therapy?
BOOTH: Gordon Gordon says that the … you know, the wild socks and the fancy ties are all just, ya know, quiet rebellions, helping me suppress other impulses.
BRENNAN: Isn’t that good?
BOOTH: You’d think so, right? But, you know, apparently all the other issues just have to rise to the top.
In The Man in the Mansion Bones calls him staid and Cam laughs at him, but he resists all mocking and sticks to his guns. Why, because he is in an evaluation, not therapy.
BRENNAN: Do you have therapy today?
BOOTH: It’s not therapy.
BRENNAN: Well, you’re seeing a psychiatrist.
BOOTH: Not for therapy. It’s an official evaluation. Ok?
Actually, as Wyatt confirms later, it is therapy. A man like Booth would see that as a weakness, or more importantly, he would fear that his co-workers would see it as a sign of weakness. Still, he must rise above it.
This episode and The Priest in the Churchyard address two mainstays in Booth's makeup: wealth and religion. Dr Wyatt confronts Booth with his attitude to both and resolves one of them at least. Booth's dislike of what he sees as undeserved privilege based on the money in your family has been dealt with before in earlier episodes, and here Wyatt challenges him on it. The victim is a wealthy socialite, an apparent victim of a home invasion. Booth is rather disdainful about the man and his wife.
BOOTH: What, they got some kind of pull?
CAM: The Bancroft Wing at the Jeffersonian? Sixty million bucks will buy a lot of goodwill.
BOOTH: Typical.
BOOTH: (glancing around) I’ll bet this statue is worth more than my house.
BRENNAN: You know, you should ask your therapist about your issues with rich people.
WYATT: And God?
BOOTH: Yes, and God too. Where is a guy who doesn’t believe in all this arithmetic supposed to stand?
SEASON 2 - The rich man in his castle and God in his heaven
Needless to say Booth is eager to get back to work and if it means listening to Gordon Gordon then he will do it. So if Booth is building his self back up then he needs to start at the beginning. That means stripping away the outward signs of what he is. Therefore, no flashy ties, no garish socks, no phallic belt buckles.
BOOTH: Look, it’s something I’m working on, okay?
BRENNAN: In therapy?
BOOTH: Gordon Gordon says that the … you know, the wild socks and the fancy ties are all just, ya know, quiet rebellions, helping me suppress other impulses.
BRENNAN: Isn’t that good?
BOOTH: You’d think so, right? But, you know, apparently all the other issues just have to rise to the top.
In The Man in the Mansion Bones calls him staid and Cam laughs at him, but he resists all mocking and sticks to his guns. Why, because he is in an evaluation, not therapy.
BRENNAN: Do you have therapy today?
BOOTH: It’s not therapy.
BRENNAN: Well, you’re seeing a psychiatrist.
BOOTH: Not for therapy. It’s an official evaluation. Ok?
Actually, as Wyatt confirms later, it is therapy. A man like Booth would see that as a weakness, or more importantly, he would fear that his co-workers would see it as a sign of weakness. Still, he must rise above it.
This episode and The Priest in the Churchyard address two mainstays in Booth's makeup: wealth and religion. Dr Wyatt confronts Booth with his attitude to both and resolves one of them at least. Booth's dislike of what he sees as undeserved privilege based on the money in your family has been dealt with before in earlier episodes, and here Wyatt challenges him on it. The victim is a wealthy socialite, an apparent victim of a home invasion. Booth is rather disdainful about the man and his wife.
BOOTH: What, they got some kind of pull?
CAM: The Bancroft Wing at the Jeffersonian? Sixty million bucks will buy a lot of goodwill.
BOOTH: Typical.
BOOTH: (glancing around) I’ll bet this statue is worth more than my house.
BRENNAN: You know, you should ask your therapist about your issues with rich people.
So with his prejudice already aroused he resists the info that Terry Bancroft had a philanthropic interest in a youth centre until he discovers that his intervention with a drug mule may have caused not only his murder but that of the young boy he took the heroin from. How does he present this to Gordon Gordon?
BOOTH: Okay. Fine. Great. I have a dead rich guy, works with at-risk youth, gets brutally murdered after confiscating a couple of pounds of heroin from one of his kids.
WYATT: It’s interesting the first word you use to describe him is “rich”.
BOOTH: Ah, second. First description was “dead”.
WYATT: Why do you think you have a problem with wealthy people?
BOOTH: This case is a perfect example. This guy, he makes up his own rules. What’s that word that you used?
WYATT: Uh, entitled.
BOOTH: Yeah, entitled. That’s what got him killed.
WYATT: Did this rich guy, by any chance, have a wife?
BOOTH: Ah what, are we changing the subject now?
WYATT: And does the rich guy’s wife have a lover?
WYATT: And is this boy from a modest background?
BOOTH: Doesn’t get any modester.
WYATT: So is there any chance that you would rather catch the boy’s murderer, than the wealthy fellow’s murderer, so you have decided that they’re one and the same? Any chance that you’ve based this assumption purely on your bias against rich, entitled people?
BOOTH: Mmm-hmm. You know what? I did the belt buckle, I did the tie, I did the socks … what else do you want from me?
By offering an alternative and calling him on his bias against the rich, Wyatt is making Booth think about his world view. He does it again later in Booth's office. In the meantime, Booth gets more fuel for his crusade against the rich from Hodgins of all people. Booth feels betrayed when Hodgins turns out to be a close friend of the victim and a former boyfriend of his wife. Booth is full of indignation.
BOOTH: No, no … not “good job Hodgins”. He might have blown the whole case.
HODGINS: I told him it is not a problem.
BRENNAN: What happened?
BOOTH: I don’t care what he does in his time off, but when he screws around with evidence to get in the pants of an old girlfriend on one of my murder cases? That is a problem.
He goes further when the others have to be told the level of Hodgins's interference.
HODGINS: Clarissa and I were engaged. She and Terry started something up and it unfolded the way those things do. I haven’t contacted or heard from either of them in eight years. Then Terry got killed…
BOOTH: And like every other rich guy in the world, you decided the rules just didn’t apply to you.
HODGINS: Hey! The guy used to be my friend, all right? And Clarissa…
CAM: You tampered with evidence.
HODGINS: The glass and frame were evidence. The photograph I removed was not. I wanted to work Terry’s murder.
CAM: Obviously you’re off the case.
BOOTH: Should be off the job.
Things are icy until Wyatt steps in again. During the trial Booth shares Chinese with the good doctor in his office where we get the contentious issue of where Booth is from obfuscated and a reading on how Booth isn't really different from everybody else.
WYATT: Absolutely. Especially since I’m about to inquire whether you’ve experienced any outbursts of temper since I requested you alter your dress code.
BOOTH: Yeah. One of the Squints – Hodgins – decided the rules, they didn’t apply to him. He got entitled and jeopardized my murder case.
WYATT: Ah, and you confronted him physically.
BOOTH: Physical confrontation – that’s my main skill.
WYATT: “Entitled,” you said. Is he a wealthy man?
BOOTH: Yeah, like the guy who got killed.
WYATT: The murder victim … who tried to help a child and then died for it? And your … uh … Squint?
BOOTH: Yeah, Squint.
WYATT: Extraordinary. Your Squint tried to help a friend. So they both endeavored to do good.
BOOTH: With no clue of the way things are.
WYATT: The way things are, as defined by a working class lad from Pittsburg.
BOOTH: That’s right. Pittsburg, where I’m from, all right? From the streets. Where you get a sense of how the world really is.
WYATT: Yes, I’m sure that’s true. But has it occurred to you that without the distortion of reality provided by a privileged upbringing, there’d be no such thing as the Sistine Chapel, the Taj Mahal, the Three Rivers Stadium, home of your beloved Steelers?
BOOTH: The Three Rivers Stadium was demolished in 2000. But it was a great place, though, that Lambert…
WYATT: No doubt. The point is, you rebel in your way, your friend rebels in his. We all of us have to overcome our upbringing, rich and poor alike. You know what? I’m going to ask you to go back to your bilious socks and your ostentatious ties, and your provocative belt buckles.
BOOTH: What, you’re saying that if I wear flashy socks, I’m going to forgive Hodgins?
WYATT: Oh Lord, I’m not sure I’m that good. Well, perhaps I am … hmm. (He gets up and begins walking toward the door)
BOOTH: Hey, Doc, Doc, Doc … um … why is it that the belt buckle is provocative?
WYATT: Oh, it’s a modern day codpiece. It forces the eye to the groin.
I'll just sidetrack here to say, Pittsburg? All right he's got the Steelers coffee mug but everything else and what he has said earlier points to Philadelphia. But now it's football and the Three Rivers Stadium, not ice hockey and the Flyers. Oh well.
There, however, is Booth in a nutshell. He sees his main skill as physical confrontation; he sees his background as a true example of how the world really is and the rich having no idea of what life on the streets is like. Booth has worn that feeling as an armour and as a preparation for doing his job properly, hence his frustration at Hodgins getting all "entitled". But Wyatt gives him the other side of things that each of us has to overcome our upbringing to see that the other person is just like us. We all rebel, but in different ways. So Booth goes back to being Booth and does 'forgive Hodgins'. That's helped by Hodgins telling him the truth.
BOOTH: Idiot. You should have got fired. Now, no severance package.
HODGINS: I figure, a guy like you, I resign that puts things right between us. Do we need to discuss it past that?
BOOTH: What are we, girls? (Looks to the server) A piece of pie for my friend…
Here, Booth ignores the fact that Hodgins doesn't need a severance package and treats him as a guy just like himself, going so far as to call him friend. Whatever the significance of the ties, Booth has the wherewithal to listen to Wyatt and heed his advice.
Setting aside The Bodies in the Book for now, where jealous Booth rears his head for the first time, by the time we get to The Boneless Bride in the River Booth is not only looking for flashier ties, but the Cocky belt buckle makes its first appearance. Wyatt's focus also changes as the writers begin to explore more overtly the relationship between Booth and Brennan. He makes his last appearance in The Priest in the Churchyard where he meets Brennan for the first time and suggests that their apparent disputes over religion are in fact about something else entirely.
Booth has worn his religious beliefs from the very beginning; Brennan has consistently mocked them. He told her he was Catholic in The Man in the Morgue and was incensed when she suggested that voodoo was just like his religion and that Jesus rising from the dead could be interpreted differently. Jesus is not a zombie sums up his views on that. Elsewhere we have seen his views on prayer, his religious medallion, his knowledge of the saints. We have seen his fear of a nun and learned that he tries to go to Mass every Sunday. He knows his Bible and believes in the miraculous nature of the Turin shroud.
Here, he expects Bones to respect the priests and gets annoyed when she doesn't. He has also been talking about their partnership with Wyatt and he is probably applying his own psychological interpretation to things based on what he has observed of Wyatt's methods. So he takes the bull by the horns and confronts her.
BRENNAN: No, I didn’t. Perhaps I was a bit… colourful.
BOOTH: Colourful?
BRENNAN: Writerly. I’m a best selling author, Booth.
BOOTH: He’s an old-school priest, Bones.
BRENNAN: What, so I’m supposed to walk on eggshells because someone believes that a plot of earth has supernatural properties because they waved a wand over it?
BOOTH: It’s not a wand, it’s a… the church doesn’t use wands…
BRENNAN: Fine, magic water.
BOOTH: Magic? Holy water.
BRENNAN: The terminology makes it real?
BOOTH: Okay, you know what, I can’t work with you on this case.
BRENNAN: What, what do you mean? The victim was clearly murdered; we investigate murders. Together.
BOOTH: I’m not working the whole case with you attacking my beliefs. You should have just sailed off with your boyfriend.
BRENNAN: Funny, a man who believes in an invisible super-being wants to run my personal life.
ZACK: Death would have followed quickly, caused by cranio-cerebral trauma.
BOOTH: By the way, 90% of the world believes in God.
BRENNAN: And at one time, most people were certain that the sun revolved around the earth.
BOOTH: You see what I mean? I don’t think this is about religion at all. We obviously have issues, okay, that are affecting our working relationship. And you’re afraid to deal with them, so you just lash out at my religion.
BRENNAN: Can’t you just be satisfied that if I’m wrong about God, I’ll burn in hell?
BOOTH: It’s tempting.
So with that at our backs and a certain tension in the air, Booth goes about trying to investigate a murder while placating a stubborn priest and attempting to control a confrontational Brennan. It's a lot to ask of a man just recovering from a near breakdown. Above all, Booth likes to control situations. He does this either by conciliation or threat. Here, the obvious choice is to be agreeable and thus get the priest on his side. Brennan's methods, while honest, are less than helpful.
FATHER DONLAN: Murder? I don’t believe it was murder.
BRENNAN: It’s not a matter of faith, Father, the injuries were definitive.
FATHER DONLAN: You ever hear of the sin of pride, young woman? You could be wrong.
BOOTH: Dr Brennan here, she’s the best in her field.
BRENNAN: He would have been buried about three years ago.
FATHER DONLAN: I’ve been here forty-one years. I would know if someone had killed and buried a man in my cemetery.
BRENNAN: You seem quite proud yourself.
FATHER DONLAN: I don’t need to be insulted.
BOOTH: (whispering) Knock it off.
BRENNAN: (whispering) What, the rules don’t apply to him?
With the younger priest she is equally scathing, but he is less insulted. Booth just indulges his sweet tooth and eats cake.
FATHER MATT: Well, if you’re talking about the holy trinity, the transubstantiation of the host, and the Resurrection, I certainly do.
BRENNAN: But you seem like such an intelligent man…
BOOTH: You have to excuse her, Father.
FATHER MATT: No need. God has a soft spot even for the atheists.
Booth is genuinely terrified that by association, his soul will find it difficult to get into heaven, so he is constantly apologising, excusing and defending. Brennan is oblivious to how important this is to him and other believers.
BOOTH: You know, it doesn’t help the case for you to insult the priest. We’re supposed to be gaining their trust so they’ll help us.
BRENNAN: Matt wasn’t threatened, you were.
BOOTH: We’re definitely not working well together.
BRENNAN: Because you are bossy and judgemental.
BOOTH: Problems between people, it’s never just one person’s fault.
BRENNAN: What about Hitler? He did pretty well on his own.
BOOTH: Bones, just... come with me to go see Dr Wyatt, once.
Wyatt's assessment is to agree with Booth that their problems do not have religion at their root. He sees that there is an attraction there which is being denied by them both and will be for a further two seasons. Consequently, Booth sticks with his religion and Brennan with her science. Incidentally, we find out that Booth was an altar boy.
Wyatt was a fascinating character and allowed us to see something of the inner workings of Booth which would have been difficult to bring out in any other way. While we have little concrete information to add, we do have a bit of a psychological profile of our man. We have seen in these few episodes a more vulnerable Booth, but one who has the inner strength to bounce back in adversity and to chsnge while remaining true to his personal mores and beliefs. We see that he has no older, father figure in his life and, for a while, Wyatt fills that gap giving Booth someone he can confide in and respect. Indeed, he can almost be seen as a confessor for Booth. He has the same advisory capacity, the same sanctity of the confessional and the same ability to dispense penance as a way to achieve a better life. He can be seen as the saviour of Booth's career. So why Sweets had to come along and stamp his feet all over the place I do not know.
The final bits of Season 2 will appear in the next edition of Booth A man for All Seasons. After that I feel there will be little to add in Season 3 beyond a refining of some information as the focus becomes more obviously based on the present relationship between Booth and Brennan. Season 4, however, is another matter.
