Why yes Booth that is a therapist
Feb. 16th, 2011 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mistletoeLet's have a bit of Season 3 Booth shall we, when all he had to worry about was keeping his manly bits free from pesticides and leaving his footprint for all to see.
I don't have scary feelings. Maybe you need a little night-light at night to sleep.
BOOTH THE BULLY
We come to a major change in how Booth shows his mastery of FBI skills with the introduction of a new character who fills in for a good deal of how Booth contributed to the solving of cases, namely Dr Lance Sweets. Booth has made much of his prowess in High School, with girls, in sports and now we see how he may have behaved in the less laudable ways of such people in School.
Bones makes a great deal of his alpha maleness and in Secret in the Soil, his masculinity is challenged on all sides. This is an important part of Booth's self image so he defends it to the last. His first reaction to Sweets is basically how he characterises the psychologist on just about every meeting from that initial Zone of truth meeting.
BOOTH: We agreed to see another therapist, not be action figures for a 12-year-old.
SWEETS: I'm 22, Agent Booth. I have a doctorate in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where my dissertation on the effects of job stress was published.
BOOTH: That's great. I'm sure your mother is really proud of you, Sweets.
SWEETS: Dr. Sweets, or Lance, you know, if you're more comfortable with informality, but I'd prefer, out of respect for each other and the process of psychotherapy, that we at least try to, uh...
BOOTH: Sign the forms so I can get out of this suit and I could have a Saturday night.
Youth is a major barrier in the way Booth deals with Sweets and it is brought up time and time again. However, whatever Booth's attitude may be, Sweets has the power to make or break the partnership with Bones and so he compromises. He doesn't have to be nice about it though.
BOOTH: I bet Sweets was picked on all through school.
BRENNAN: And that's relevant now, why?
BOOTH: You're kidding me, right? Scrawny kid like that sees me coming, a former jock, and he's thinking to himself, "Time for a little payback," you know? Make him fill out all those stupid forms. Threatens to take my partner away from me.
Now one other reason that Booth got on with Gordon Gordon and not Sweets, is that the good doctor let Booth work out for himself what was really going on when he shot the clown before offering advice. In addition he appeared the older and the wiser by this very avuncular approach. He challenged Booth without belittling or threatening or assuming. Just as Booth makes assumptions about Sweets because of his appearance and youth, Sweets makes assumptions about Booth. Most notably in misinterpreting Booth's agitation and how to deal with it.
SWEETS: Now we're getting somewhere. All right, I think we're in that truth zone.
BOOTH: Stop with the whole truth zone thing, all right? Bones and I are trying to catch a guy who cooked a tree hugger. So just score the personality test so we can get back to crime fighting.
SWEETS: Yeah, that's good, Agent Booth. Now let the anger lead you to the fear. You can't be whole, you can't do your job to its fullest, unless you get in touch with that fear you feel. Now Dr. Brennan and I are going to close our eyes. Follow the anger, all right? Feel it? Feel it softening. You feel that?
(BOOTH and BRENNAN both snicker, as BOOTH gets his text.)
SWEETS: Very mature, guys.
BOOTH: Got to run, Sweets. Got the call. Let's boogie, Bones. And, um, look, next time, you really should tell me if there's going to be an essay on the test.
Booth's anger has been a source of outbursts of violence before e.g. the gang banger in The Woman in the Garden; telling Varga "I will end you" while pinning him to a table in Aliens in a Spaceship; the shooting of the clown on the ice cream van. However, the irritation he is feeling here has nothing to do with how he can have outbursts. Sweets may have the right idea about Booth's underlying anger with things, but totally over-dramatises it in this context, so that Booth and Bones laugh at him. He is going from text book ideas about cooperation and conflict having written a dissertation on the effects of stress in the workplace. The relationship between Booth and Bones doesn't fit the text book.
This moment arose from Sweets trying to understand what that relationship is when they don't seem to understand it themselves. The fine line between bickering and anger is disputed. Booth obviously sees what they do as lively discussion not an expression of his anger with her or the job. His views on the underlying theme of the case are expressed, and of course Bones disagrees. Here he has his say on organic food.
BOOTH: Totally overpriced. A carrot is a carrot.....
BOOTH: I'm just saying the guy had a point. If pesticides are so bad for us, then how come people live longer now than they did before they used pesticides?
BRENNAN: You're over-simplifying an enormously complex issue..
BOOTH: Meaning you don't have a good answer.
BRENNAN: The arguments in favour of organic farming aren't just about food safety.They're about prevention of soil erosion, protection of water quality, carbon emissions from shipping, not to mention...
BOOTH: Whatever, you know what, you're not going to see me paying four dollars for a tomato.
BRENNAN: You know, a researcher at the University of Florida proved that alligators who swim in pesticide contaminated waters have smaller genitalia than their clean-water counterparts.
BOOTH: No way.
BRENNAN: Way.
Booth does state a simplistic argument and he does it again here:
BOOTH: Yeah, and this whole environmental footprint thing, right, I mean, why shouldn't I leave a footprint? I'm here, right? Hey, why should I have fewer rights than any other species? Hey, Bones, you know we're having a lively discussion here.
BRENNAN: Tobacco has to be cured.
BOOTH: Yeah, I know, and it kills you. We're on the same side with that one.
Here he is being the literal one. However, he always listens to the important stuff that might affect him personally.
BOOTH: It's too early in the morning for this.
SWEETS: No, no, no, this is good, let's talk about conflict. When you guys argue, how do you come to a resolution?
BRENNAN: We don't argue.
SWEETS: Come on, remember, zone of truth, right here.
BOOTH: Fine. We might bicker a little bit, but that's not arguing.
BRENNAN: Bicker? I don't bicker.
BOOTH: No? What about the whole environmentalism thing?
BRENNAN: That was a discussion.
BOOTH: You pretty much told me my penis was going to shrink if I didn't eat organic food.
BRENNAN: That's not bickering, that's being a good friend.
BOOTH: My penis is just fine, thank you
I love this exchange because it reveals how much Booth relies on Bones for scientific knowledge and that he believes it. Not going to change his habits though.
Now this is where, the dumbing down of Booth very subtly begins. He's still on his game where it counts, in the interrogation room, in the field, but I find it hard to believe that a man who knows and uses words like 'hubris' an d 'symbiosis' would not know the word 'complement' and ends up looking foolish as a result. And we also get why Sweets must stay on their case. It doesn't say he has to be on every case though (but that's a discussion for another occasion)
SWEETS: You two are very close, that was evident in your superficial, standardized questionnaire and my unscientific observations.
BOOTH Yeah?
SWEETS: You complement each other.
BOOTH: No, she never compliments me. Did you compliment me in the questionnaire?
BRENNAN: "Complement," not "compliment." "Ple." He means th at we complete each other, as a team.
BOOTH: Yeah, right.
SWEETS: Now, we've got a lot to work on over the next few months.
BRENNAN: Meaning we get to stay together?
SWEETS: Yes.
BOOTH: I'm sensing a "but."
SWEETS: However,
BRENNAN: It's the same as "but."
SWEETS: I have observed some underlying issues that need to be addressed.
Whose issues? Three brief meetings and a questionnaire and he has observed underlying issues. That's his remit.
Booth has been presented as the open minded people reader, yet from the outset he dislikes Sweets. Is that his gut reaction or the subliminal fear ever present in Booth that he is going to fail this test? In many ways, this is another manifestation of how Booth deals with losing control of a situation. Here, Sweets threatens his partnership with Brennan and has the power over Booth. So he lashes out by trying to reassert his own power, belittling Sweets and his methods based on his age and lack of experience. That is still true three years later although he at least tolerates, even likes him now.
Other snippets? Booth may have cheated to pass algebra in school and he took girls to the sand trap on the 9th hole of the local golf course for fornication purposes. He thinks about whatever question 7 was 12 to 15 times a day. He likes homemade lemonade but not latex gloves which is why he doesn't wear them at crime scenes except for this one! He would like to think he would still meet Brennan for coffee if there were no more murders.
Mummy in the Maze next time.
Better weather today but I see we have snow forecast for Sunday. Pffft
A BOOTH FOR ALL SEASONS
I don't have scary feelings. Maybe you need a little night-light at night to sleep.
BOOTH THE BULLY
We come to a major change in how Booth shows his mastery of FBI skills with the introduction of a new character who fills in for a good deal of how Booth contributed to the solving of cases, namely Dr Lance Sweets. Booth has made much of his prowess in High School, with girls, in sports and now we see how he may have behaved in the less laudable ways of such people in School.
Bones makes a great deal of his alpha maleness and in Secret in the Soil, his masculinity is challenged on all sides. This is an important part of Booth's self image so he defends it to the last. His first reaction to Sweets is basically how he characterises the psychologist on just about every meeting from that initial Zone of truth meeting.
SWEETS: I'm 22, Agent Booth. I have a doctorate in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where my dissertation on the effects of job stress was published.
BOOTH: That's great. I'm sure your mother is really proud of you, Sweets.
SWEETS: Dr. Sweets, or Lance, you know, if you're more comfortable with informality, but I'd prefer, out of respect for each other and the process of psychotherapy, that we at least try to, uh...
BOOTH: Sign the forms so I can get out of this suit and I could have a Saturday night.
Youth is a major barrier in the way Booth deals with Sweets and it is brought up time and time again. However, whatever Booth's attitude may be, Sweets has the power to make or break the partnership with Bones and so he compromises. He doesn't have to be nice about it though.
BOOTH: I bet Sweets was picked on all through school.
BRENNAN: And that's relevant now, why?
BOOTH: You're kidding me, right? Scrawny kid like that sees me coming, a former jock, and he's thinking to himself, "Time for a little payback," you know? Make him fill out all those stupid forms. Threatens to take my partner away from me.
Now one other reason that Booth got on with Gordon Gordon and not Sweets, is that the good doctor let Booth work out for himself what was really going on when he shot the clown before offering advice. In addition he appeared the older and the wiser by this very avuncular approach. He challenged Booth without belittling or threatening or assuming. Just as Booth makes assumptions about Sweets because of his appearance and youth, Sweets makes assumptions about Booth. Most notably in misinterpreting Booth's agitation and how to deal with it.
SWEETS: Now we're getting somewhere. All right, I think we're in that truth zone.
BOOTH: Stop with the whole truth zone thing, all right? Bones and I are trying to catch a guy who cooked a tree hugger. So just score the personality test so we can get back to crime fighting.
SWEETS: Yeah, that's good, Agent Booth. Now let the anger lead you to the fear. You can't be whole, you can't do your job to its fullest, unless you get in touch with that fear you feel. Now Dr. Brennan and I are going to close our eyes. Follow the anger, all right? Feel it? Feel it softening. You feel that?
(BOOTH and BRENNAN both snicker, as BOOTH gets his text.)
SWEETS: Very mature, guys.
Booth's anger has been a source of outbursts of violence before e.g. the gang banger in The Woman in the Garden; telling Varga "I will end you" while pinning him to a table in Aliens in a Spaceship; the shooting of the clown on the ice cream van. However, the irritation he is feeling here has nothing to do with how he can have outbursts. Sweets may have the right idea about Booth's underlying anger with things, but totally over-dramatises it in this context, so that Booth and Bones laugh at him. He is going from text book ideas about cooperation and conflict having written a dissertation on the effects of stress in the workplace. The relationship between Booth and Bones doesn't fit the text book.
This moment arose from Sweets trying to understand what that relationship is when they don't seem to understand it themselves. The fine line between bickering and anger is disputed. Booth obviously sees what they do as lively discussion not an expression of his anger with her or the job. His views on the underlying theme of the case are expressed, and of course Bones disagrees. Here he has his say on organic food.
BOOTH: Totally overpriced. A carrot is a carrot.....
BOOTH: I'm just saying the guy had a point. If pesticides are so bad for us, then how come people live longer now than they did before they used pesticides?
BRENNAN: You're over-simplifying an enormously complex issue..
BOOTH: Meaning you don't have a good answer.
BRENNAN: The arguments in favour of organic farming aren't just about food safety.They're about prevention of soil erosion, protection of water quality, carbon emissions from shipping, not to mention...
BOOTH: Whatever, you know what, you're not going to see me paying four dollars for a tomato.
BOOTH: No way.
BRENNAN: Way.
Booth does state a simplistic argument and he does it again here:
BOOTH: Yeah, and this whole environmental footprint thing, right, I mean, why shouldn't I leave a footprint? I'm here, right? Hey, why should I have fewer rights than any other species? Hey, Bones, you know we're having a lively discussion here.
BRENNAN: Tobacco has to be cured.
BOOTH: Yeah, I know, and it kills you. We're on the same side with that one.
Here he is being the literal one. However, he always listens to the important stuff that might affect him personally.
BOOTH: It's too early in the morning for this.
SWEETS: No, no, no, this is good, let's talk about conflict. When you guys argue, how do you come to a resolution?
BRENNAN: We don't argue.
SWEETS: Come on, remember, zone of truth, right here.
BOOTH: Fine. We might bicker a little bit, but that's not arguing.
BRENNAN: Bicker? I don't bicker.
BOOTH: No? What about the whole environmentalism thing?
BRENNAN: That was a discussion.
BOOTH: You pretty much told me my penis was going to shrink if I didn't eat organic food.
BRENNAN: That's not bickering, that's being a good friend.
BOOTH: My penis is just fine, thank you
I love this exchange because it reveals how much Booth relies on Bones for scientific knowledge and that he believes it. Not going to change his habits though.
Now this is where, the dumbing down of Booth very subtly begins. He's still on his game where it counts, in the interrogation room, in the field, but I find it hard to believe that a man who knows and uses words like 'hubris' an d 'symbiosis' would not know the word 'complement' and ends up looking foolish as a result. And we also get why Sweets must stay on their case. It doesn't say he has to be on every case though (but that's a discussion for another occasion)
SWEETS: You two are very close, that was evident in your superficial, standardized questionnaire and my unscientific observations.
BOOTH Yeah?
SWEETS: You complement each other.
BOOTH: No, she never compliments me. Did you compliment me in the questionnaire?
BRENNAN: "Complement," not "compliment." "Ple." He means th at we complete each other, as a team.
BOOTH: Yeah, right.
SWEETS: Now, we've got a lot to work on over the next few months.
BRENNAN: Meaning we get to stay together?
SWEETS: Yes.
SWEETS: However,
BRENNAN: It's the same as "but."
SWEETS: I have observed some underlying issues that need to be addressed.
Booth has been presented as the open minded people reader, yet from the outset he dislikes Sweets. Is that his gut reaction or the subliminal fear ever present in Booth that he is going to fail this test? In many ways, this is another manifestation of how Booth deals with losing control of a situation. Here, Sweets threatens his partnership with Brennan and has the power over Booth. So he lashes out by trying to reassert his own power, belittling Sweets and his methods based on his age and lack of experience. That is still true three years later although he at least tolerates, even likes him now.
Mummy in the Maze next time.
Better weather today but I see we have snow forecast for Sunday. Pffft
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 06:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 07:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 10:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 07:07 pm (UTC)Fornicating!! I'll happily come along on that trip with him and day of the week.
Yum Yum Yum.
also? I adore Gordon-Gordon.
Also as always you rock for doing this.
Also yah... I am still lost & drooling over my man smiling so hotly.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 07:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 10:31 pm (UTC)The advent of Sweets really did remove a lot of that side of Booth's skill set, didn't it? While I have come to be fond of Sweets that'll always be a shame.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 11:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 11:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 12:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 10:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 11:28 pm (UTC)Anyhoo, thanks for dropping by.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 05:36 pm (UTC)Sad, but so very, very true. I was okay with Sweets' character at first, but I've come to dislike him more and more because of the way he affects Booth's characterization...
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 05:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 05:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 05:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 05:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 05:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 06:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 06:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-20 09:05 pm (UTC)Many insightful thoughts in this one. I believe you hit the nail on the head with
Booth has been presented as the open minded people reader, yet from the outset he dislikes Sweets. Is that his gut reaction or the subliminal fear ever present in Booth that he is going to fail this test?
As much as I'd like it to be his gut feeling, am I a cynic for thinking that maybe Booth not liking Sweets is supposed to be 'entertaining' and a start of this comedy element of Goof!Booth and a dumbing down of him?
Failing this test must be a big issue for Booth. His partnership with Brennan is very important to him. Sweets has the power to split them up, to do the one thing that will make Booth give up his Saturday evening and be an action figure for a twelve-year-old:
Threatens to take my partner away from me.
He is going from text book ideas about cooperation and conflict having written a dissertation on the effects of stress in the workplace. The relationship between Booth and Bones doesn't fit the text book.
And I bet Booth's stress in the workplace (as a sniper and in his current job) doesn't match the examples in Sweets' textbooks and in his dissertation!
Booth is a bully when dealing with Sweets and that is wrong, but the fact remains that Gordon Gordon would never let Booth get away with this kind of crap. But then he was mature and didn't rely on textbooks...
Hope you've enjoyed the cricket/football/horse racing. I know there's lots of sport going on at the weekend (not that it ever affects my plans!)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-20 10:03 pm (UTC)Booth had a similar reaction to Zack, frequently ignoring him or threatening to shoot him.
Delayed response because I was posting about football! (just ignore it)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-20 10:15 pm (UTC)Interesting thing is that when Booth needs GG to clear him fit after he's shot the clown it's the requirement itself that annoys him, not GG. Sweets and his truth zones would irritate anyone!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-20 11:08 pm (UTC)The way Sweets talks calling him 'Dude' and saying things like "Yeah, but come on, he, like, he arrested your father. He's going to have to be a witness against him. Circumstances such as these tend to stir up a lot of scary feelings." does not have the gravitas of Dr Wyatt's focus and Latin. He sounds like a surfer.
He says more or less the same things to both: Just sign the paper and I can get back to the job, but I think he got more from building the barbecue than filling in the questionnaire, which even had an essay question!