If you’re like us, you’re probably still heartbroken from the “Bones” season 10 premiere. Well, prepare for more heartbreak with this week’s “The Lance to the Heart.” We joined a press call with executive producer Stephen Nathan on Tuesday, Sept. 30, and got a preview of what to expect as the team says goodbye to one of its own.
In the “Bones” premiere, Booth and Brennan were at Sweets’ side when he died. “The entire situation for us was very, very painful and we tried to treat it with as much respect and truth as we possibly could and really focus in on what was going to be the best for the show and most emotionally truthful for the characters,” Nathan explained. “Sweets and Booth and Brennan had grown so close over the past three or four years especially that it seemed as if they were the people who should be there when he died.”
But they needed to be there not only to be there for Sweets, but because it’s something Booth needed too. “It was also a very complicated situation because Booth was having a huge crisis himself and also Booth and Brennan as a couple, with Booth coming out of prison and it really was a testament to Sweets and to kind of the nobility of the character really that his last words were about Booth and Brennan,” the EP shared. “His last words were of concern for his friend, not in any way thinking of himself. He was concerned for Daisy and at that moment, concerned for Booth, that Booth didn’t lose faith, that Booth didn’t lose hope in the world and that the world actually was a good place, even as he was dying. I think it really encapsulated Sweets as a character as well as Sweets’ relationship to Booth and Brennan.”
You can look at “The Conspiracy in the Corpse” and “The Lance to the Heart” as “a two-parter in a very classic way,” Nathan said. When it came to saying goodbye to Sweets, “we wanted to send him off in a way that honored his memory and showed how much our characters have changed, grown because of their contact with Sweets,” he explained. “We really wanted to show that and show what this family is made of and how they pull together in the most horrible of circumstances and get through.” He later admitted, “It’s always difficult, and you never really know how the audience is going to respond. We can only hope that by treating this in a realistic way, in a way that respects the character, that will also show how much we respect the audience. We did not do this in a cavalier or callous way. We tried to do it and integrate it into the show and hopefully it makes the show better in a way.”
With the events of the premiere and the team saying goodbye to Sweets, Daisy is in the second episode, but she’ll also be back beyond that. “I don’t think people who have grown close to her and really grown to love her in their own way over these five, six years are not going to send her out into the world alone. When this baby is born, this baby will be born and cared for,” the EP promised.
As much as the team would love to be able to take time to grieve for their loss, there is still the matter of the conspiracy to resolve – and how Booth will be affected by what has happened because of it. “We will deal with that and initially, it will be resolved reasonably quickly, but the residual elements of that will always be there,” Nathan shared, but you don’t have to be too worried about Booth. “I think he’s a very resilient guy. He’s been through war. He’s been in covert operations. He was a Ranger. He’s seen a lot of stuff and he has bounced back from a lot of very difficult, sometimes tragic, circumstances and found a way to move on, and this will be no different.” His issues of trust and idealism will be dealt with in these first few episodes, but some things will keep bubbling to the surface throughout the season.
“Bones” season 10 airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on Fox.