Why Bones Made Angela And Hodgins A Couple, According To T.J. Thyne

Fox's popular crime procedural "Bones" never hesitated to add a bit of interpersonal drama to its investigations. In fact, on many occasions, the relationships between the show's central characters far overshadowed the case at hand, no matter how bloody and dangerous things got.

The couple that quite rightfully gets the most attention on the show are, of course, forensic pathologist extraordinaire Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz). Much of the series' allure comes from their slow and occasionally turbulent progress from uneasy work partners to one of the most loving and devoted married couples in the history of the procedural drama genre. However, they're hardly the only romantic duo on "Bones," and sometimes, the show's amorous pairings came to be in surprising ways.

One particularly popular "Bones" twosome consists of entomologist-slash-conspiracy theorist Jack Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) and Brennan's best friend, the forensic artist Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin). As Thyne revealed while appearing on Deschanel's and Daisy Wick actor Carla Gallo's "Bones"-themed podcast "Boneheads," he and Conlin essentially decided to force this plot development on the show:

"We can't just sustain this where we're just like, you're her best friend and I'm just this guy. If we're gonna have longevity on the show, we've gotta have a relationship. So we started to flirt with each other as characters early on, before it was written in."

Because "Bones" quite deliberately took its sweet time allowing the Brennan-Booth chemistry to percolate, Montenegro and Hodgins' (slightly) less bumpy relationship rollercoaster ended up spending quite some time as the show's primary active romance. As Thyne noted in the podcast, the two actors recognized this as an opportunity and adjusted their performances as the situation required:

"I just remember thinking strategic. It was just like, you just again, if the show is gonna what you need that, because when [Brennan and Booth] break up, or if [they] aren't together, you need that other couple to kind of have, like, we can cut to that. So we were like, 'Well, we got to keep this thing kind of moving.'"

Thyne and Conlin's tactic may not have been the only thing that secured their continued "Bones" employment, but the effort they put into their characters certainly didn't hurt. Montenegro and Hodgins became an official item as early as in season 2, and both actors ended up appearing in every single episode of "Bones" (which makes them members of an extremely small club). Should the oft-rumored and increasingly likely "Bones" revival eventually materialize, it seems that fans can probably expect the pair to rejoin the Jeffersonian fold.