How (And When) Bones Killed Off One Of Its Most Important Characters

Fox struck gold with the crime procedural "Bones," a show that ran for a whopping 12 seasons and nearly 250 episodes. It's the kind of show that simply doesn't come around anymore in the streaming era. A lot of the show's success can be chalked up to the dynamic between the lead characters, namely Emily Deschanel's Brennan and David Boreanaz's Booth. But the show also had a stellar supporting cast, with perhaps none more beloved than Lance Sweets. Played by John Francis Daley, the character was a huge part of the show's success. Unfortunately, Sweets didn't go the distance.

As fans of the show are surely aware, Daley left "Bones" during season 10 as Sweets was killed off. Unfortunately, in a muder-of-the-week procedural, a beloved character is sometimes going to die. That's just the nature of the beast. But what exactly happened to Sweets and when in the show's run did he meet his untimely demise? Let's go over the details of the passing of Lance Sweets and offer some closure for fans of the show.

Daley made his last appearance as Lance Sweets in the "Bones" season 10 premiere, "The Conspiracy in the Corpse." The episode originally aired on September 25, 2014. The episode sees Brennan and the team desperately working to get Booth out of jail. Booth also realizes that many of the convicts locked up alongside him are criminals he helped put away. Meanwhile, Daisy and Sweets have a surprise for the rest of the Jeffersonian team, but the episode holds a surprise for Sweets too.

In the final moments of the episode, Booth and Brennan arrive at a parking garage after receiving FBI agent James Aubrey (played by John Boyd). When they arrive on the scene, Sweets is lying on the ground and bleeding out. Booth and Brennan do their best to help their friend, but it's all for naught as Sweets dies just as an ambulance is heard arriving in the background.

With his final words, Sweets says to the duo, "The world is a lot better than you think it is. It's." It is eventually revealed that Sweets was killed by a Navy SEAL named Kenneth Emory (Sean Marquette). He was carrying out the orders of Glen Durant (JD Cullum), who served as the President of the Shadow Government.

"The very last thing we shot was me in the body bag being zipped up. I was covered in blood. No one really wanted to touch me because I was all messy," Daley once said reflecting on his lonely last day filming "Bones" following his on-screen death. "I couldn't even give anyone a hug. We were shooting at midnight, so most of the primary crew were already gone for the day. The writers had all gone home. The producers were at Comic-Con, as were Emily [Deschanel] and David [Boreanaz]. So I walked out of a nearly empty stage and couldn't say a proper goodbye to people."

Fortunately, everything worked out for Daley. After leaving "Bones," Daley went on to become a very successful writer and director. He co-wrote "Spider-Man: Homecoming," for one, and co-directed movies such as "Game Night" and "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" alongside his creative partner Jonathan Goldstein.

"Bones" is currently streaming on Hulu, or you can pick up the complete series on DVD from Amazon.