Your remarks are full of meritorious points. 1. Re:Sweets. I agree he has outlived his usefulness. When he was supposed to be helping Booth and Brennan with their issues and occasionally offering psychological profiles, then he was useful. He was right about the motive for the murder here and he had knowledge of the Gormogon scenario that no one else could offer. However, when he started dropping into the Jeffersonian for no reason at all, he became more than he was supposed to be. I sometimes think that regrettably he was Zack's replacement in the cast and so got to be in every episode however big the shoe horn had to be.
Re: High school. I think they were very much still focused on Brennan's family dynamic even in the third season and Booth's arc really suffered from the writers strike. So this stuff about young Booth was very much stock material rather than individually crafted.
I think it is a disgrace that it took all the way up to the 67th episode before we knew anything aboout his brother and it was only at that point we learned they had a drunk for a father. Even then it was not pursued. It came right out of the blue and so this episode is really a false trail, unless Booth was hiding from his horrible homelife by living out the American dream in school with the hope of escaping to college on a sports scholarship. Indeed that seems to be what he did until his shoulder blew out. However, you really have to dig for that sort of information.
Re: hero. I don't think Booth was a good person as he describes himself in this episode. The Junior year incident may have been an epiphany but he doesn't say that he changed his attitude totally as a result of it. He sees now that he didn't stand up for what was right, but I don't think he felt humiliated by the others actions. He wasn't the butt of the joke. I think Brennan let him off the hook and once again turned the focus on herself with the Smurf.
Re: this vintage Booth. I agree. In watching these episodes again, I have enjoyed them all, even the less good ones, because this is the Booth who had his finger on the pulse and his brain in top gear. He knew what to ask and how to handle suspects. Here, with Sweets in the mix, he has no idea apparently who the murderer was and makes nothing of the clues that once upon a time he would have seen straight away. As you say, if the showrunners had him as the golden boy back then, he would not recognise the signs. Yet he could empathise with young bullying victim Nestor Olivos in A Boy in A Tree and showed distaste for the rich kids who killed him. There was no empathy here for the victim. By season 4 goofy Booth is too apparent. Thank you Sweets; you certainly dealt with the issues that stopped Booth being a crack agent!
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Date: 2011-03-10 06:51 pm (UTC)1. Re:Sweets. I agree he has outlived his usefulness. When he was supposed to be helping Booth and Brennan with their issues and occasionally offering psychological profiles, then he was useful. He was right about the motive for the murder here and he had knowledge of the Gormogon scenario that no one else could offer. However, when he started dropping into the Jeffersonian for no reason at all, he became more than he was supposed to be. I sometimes think that regrettably he was Zack's replacement in the cast and so got to be in every episode however big the shoe horn had to be.
Re: High school. I think they were very much still focused on Brennan's family dynamic even in the third season and Booth's arc really suffered from the writers strike. So this stuff about young Booth was very much stock material rather than individually crafted.
I think it is a disgrace that it took all the way up to the 67th episode before we knew anything aboout his brother and it was only at that point we learned they had a drunk for a father. Even then it was not pursued. It came right out of the blue and so this episode is really a false trail, unless Booth was hiding from his horrible homelife by living out the American dream in school with the hope of escaping to college on a sports scholarship. Indeed that seems to be what he did until his shoulder blew out. However, you really have to dig for that sort of information.
Re: hero. I don't think Booth was a good person as he describes himself in this episode. The Junior year incident may have been an epiphany but he doesn't say that he changed his attitude totally as a result of it. He sees now that he didn't stand up for what was right, but I don't think he felt humiliated by the others actions. He wasn't the butt of the joke. I think Brennan let him off the hook and once again turned the focus on herself with the Smurf.
Re: this vintage Booth. I agree. In watching these episodes again, I have enjoyed them all, even the less good ones, because this is the Booth who had his finger on the pulse and his brain in top gear. He knew what to ask and how to handle suspects. Here, with Sweets in the mix, he has no idea apparently who the murderer was and makes nothing of the clues that once upon a time he would have seen straight away. As you say, if the showrunners had him as the golden boy back then, he would not recognise the signs. Yet he could empathise with young bullying victim Nestor Olivos in A Boy in A Tree and showed distaste for the rich kids who killed him. There was no empathy here for the victim. By season 4 goofy Booth is too apparent. Thank you Sweets; you certainly dealt with the issues that stopped Booth being a crack agent!