Bones is a couple of episodes away from putting Season 11 in the ground, with a shortened twelfth season on the way next year. But will the finale also put something else in the ground, like one of the show's main characters? That's what we're seemingly being led to believe, at least, as the super-duper creepy serial killer introduced earlier this season will be back, and someone on Team Bones is in his or her intricate crosshairs. Cue the dramatic strings.
If you'll recall, Booth and Brennan came across the handiwork of The Puppeteer some weeks back in an episode that was directly inspired by the spooky-gross X-Files episode "Home," and this killer is quite meticulous in the bizarre ways he handles his victims. The stakes will be raised in the episode as far as the killer's approach goes, but it doesn't sound like audiences will be led on some wild goose chase in discovering his or her actual identity. Executive producer Jonathan Collier told TV Guide that we will definitely see who it "really" is by the time the episode ends. And here's how that point will tie into the show as a whole.
[The reveal] dovetails with our team, with our story and with our past.
That's only a slightly less vague way of saying, "Every way, mostly." But that doesn't make it any less exciting. The best mysteries are the ones where the answers are connected to everything you'd seen previously, and if The Puppeteer connects back to these characters' pasts, then that could be a clue of who is in the most danger, assuming it's just one person. I don't know if they would kill off Jack so soon after paralyzing him, but could another long-familiar face get put in realistic mortal danger?
Hell, David Boreanaz thought this show was kaput in the past, so I'm intrigued to see if Bones' creative team has it in them to actually kill off Booth, which could have a major impact leading into the final season and as-yet-unplanned ending. That probably won't be the case, considering the efforts taken to get them together and married and so on, but it would all help the overall dramatic impact. It feels weird rooting for a character's death, but after seeing that skeleton angel business, I kind of need The Puppeteer to have maximum impact on this show's future.
Check out the predictably unsettling finale teaser Fox put out there to lay spider eggs under your skin, and then those eggs hatch and more spiders come out and they all look like Boreanaz.
Love it. I'm always a fan when procedurals get crazy with the subject matter, and Bones has been delivering on that front for ages. Here's hoping The Puppetmaster's reveal and potential victims are as effective as that first appearance.
Bones airs Thursday nights on Fox, with the season finale coming on July 21.
