Bones - The Nightmare Within the Nightmare - Review : Season 11 Finale

Sometimes, Bones episodes can get a little formulaic. There's a pattern of Booth and Brennan at home dealing with a family matter, they're called in to investigate a crime, the evidence slowly reveals itself, and the episode wraps up with a crime solved and the family matter resolved.

The season 11 finale, "The Nightmare Within the Nightmare", is not one of those episodes.

Now it should go without saying that on the site SpoilerTV, there will be spoilers. But if you still haven't seen this episode, and don't want some key plot points ruined for you, do not read the rest of this post.

See, there's a familiar face that I think most Boneheads were not expecting to see in the final moments of the episode...but hey, let's do this in the right order.

RECAP

Right from the start of the episode, something seemed a bit off; Hodgins, Angela, and Brennan were examining a burnt body. Wounds weren't behaving right; blood oozing from bone. And Angela took on a foreboding tone as she spoke of old wounds cutting deep, not at all her patient and sweet temperament. Just as I started to think this must be a dream sequence, Brennan rouses herself from the dream, headed to the real mystery of the week.

Signs all pointed to the latest victim being the most recent in a string of murders by a killer who preserves his victims and strings them up like grotesque, life-sized marionettes. This one, however, was not a pillar of the community like the others; this one was styled after Brennan herself, even bearing clothes that Brennan donated to a local store and sporting her shoulder-length, tousled hairdo. The victim's real name was Melissa, a woman with a broken marriage and a drinking problem who, like Brennan, had been plagued with nightmares prior to her disappearance.

Back in the lab, Hodgins struggled with involuntary spasms of pain so severe that he had to wear a headband to soak up the sweat, and he even ended up shattering glass all over the floor during one of the muscle contractions. Although there wasn't much resolution on this particular issue, I think we can expect some progress next season.

But of course the only resolution we really got in this episode, as we approach the final season of Bones, is the revelation of the marionette killer: none other than former Jeffersonian intern, Zack Addy. At the end of season 3, we discovered that he had been the apprentice of a killer who ate his victim's flesh and posed the skeletons in cryptic symbols. In the intervening years, Zack has been brought up occasionally in bittersweet memory, and he even contributed to a case at one point, but he seemed extremely repentant of his misguided ways.

Zack's abduction of Brennan, who was still his captive in the final moments of the episode, suggests that season 12 of the show will start off in an interesting place. Guess we'll have to wait and find out just what Zack and Brennan have to talk about.

DISCUSSION

For a big chunk of this episode, all signs pointed to the victim's psychologist, Dr. Falk, as the marionette killer. He was obviously very smart, and grounded in neuroscience rather than psychology as his primary focus, which obviously appealed to Brennan. As her nightmares got progressively worse (seriously, that one in the middle of the episode had me on the edge of my seat), Brennan decided to go talk to Falk to get a handle on what her dreams were trying to tell her. Although he made a lot of sense as the killer, especially as he began prowling around her while she worked through her issues, I was ultimately very glad he turned out to be innocent. Brennan's put her trust in the wrong people before, and I would have been sad to see her make herself so vulnerable only to end up trusting the bad guy.

It ends on such a weird note, though, with the killer's identity revealed but the WHY of it all left untouched. It made me wonder if we'd start next season in the very next moment, with an intense explanation as Booth and the team attempt to locate Brennan, or if Zack hid them so well that he and Brennan would be in each other's company for a while before we saw them again. What do you think, Boneheads? Will season 12 pick up right where this season left off, or jump ahead to a future time?

And as we enter the final season, what do you all hope to see? Cam and Arastoo's wedding? Hodgins on his feet again? Aubrey and Jessica moving in? Think they'll squeeze in one more big, bad villain before they wrap up this incredible series?

Comments appreciated. Have a great summer, everyone!

About the Author - entropyki

Ki (aka entropyki) is a UX Researcher, roller derby enthusiast, Star Wars nerd, and road tripper. When she's not at a computer, she's driving, singing, watching TV, and generally being a badass, plus-sized twentysomething.

Favorite shows include You're the Worst, Supernatural, Bones, Party Down, Futurama, Orange is the New Black, and Bojack Horseman.