Bones' Tamara Taylor Once Spilled Some Outrageous (And Untrue) Spoilers
Maybe I've simply been in the game too long, but spoilers just don't bother me anymore. /Film's BJ Colangelo put it best in her own takedown of spoiler culture and media: "Without actually seeing the spoiler in action or having context, we can't know the execution of the scene, the tone, or see the reactions characters have to the moment ... all necessary cues to a moment's impact." I myself have gone in fully spoiled for many films and TV series I've seen in recent years (such is the nature of this industry), yet I usually come away feeling either far less annoyed or more deeply moved by major reveals or character deaths. It all depends on how they're handled.
I get it, though. For casual viewers, investing years of your life in a story only for some jagoff to ruin the ending or a shocking twist must be infuriating. It might not ruin the whole experience, but it can put a damper on something that was otherwise a source of joy. One imagines "Bones" enthusiasts (I'm still not sure if it's funnier to refer to them as Boners or Boneheads) must have felt that way heading into the series' 12th and final season in 2017. After 11 years and more than 200 episodes of watching Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel), Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz), and their cohorts at the Jeffersonian Institute solve crimes, fall in and out of love, and, when the occasion merits it, embarrass themselves on the dance floor, the last thing you'd want is someone to spill the beans on the series finale.
So, when Tamara Taylor — who spent a decade endearing viewers to the Jeffersonian's top brass Camille "Cam" Saroyan — paid "Entertainment Weekly: The Show" a visit ahead of that, she had a little fun.
Bones had a sense of humor about itself to the end
What is it that people love about "Bones"? If I had to put my finger on it, I might say that, unlike other frequently grisly network procedurals, it had a real dorky side. Deschanel and Boreanaz worked overtime to get viewers invested in their characters as much as their weekly murder cases. That also meant being willing to make Bones and Booth come across as the awkward, lovable dweebs that they are.
In keeping with that spirit, Taylor dropped some fake spoilers for the "Bones" series finale that ranged from groan-inducing ("You'll finally get to meet Bones' sister: Muscles.") to confusing ("Bones tries to join Instagram but discovers the handle @Bones has been taken by an adult film star.") to long-overdue jokes about "Star Trek" ("In the final episode, Bones rips off a face mask and you find out she's actually Dr. McCoy from 'Star Trek.'") and "Angel" ("Agent Booth reveals to Bones that he is, in fact, also Angel the vampire from ['Buffy the Vampire Slayer']."). She also poked fun at the show's iffy science by teasing the idea of Bones watching an episode of "NCIS" and calling it "unrealistic" before wrapping up with a jab at those who'd spent the 11 previous seasons predicting the series' imminent demise.
It's all a bit cringeworthy, but again, it's faithful to the "Bones" ethos. When the show got silly, it did so in a go-for-broke nerdy manner that felt appropriate for its characters. It was also earnest and sentimental when it needed to be (which wasn't easy at a time when snark and sass were all the rage in popular culture), and its fans clearly appreciated that. No spoiler in the world could take that away.