Filming Bones' Finale Had The Cast In Some Very Dangerous Conditions
The power couple of Bones and Booth sure experienced their fair share of gruesome deaths, explosive confrontations, and a whole lot of will-they/won't-they romantic tension throughout all 12 seasons of the hit procedural "Bones." When the series finally came to a close in 2017, after over 200 episodes and a decade of consistently sky-high ratings, fans braced themselves for a wistful and dramatic end. The final season intended to put on a bow on the relationship between forensic anthropologist Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz), and features the deadly bombing of the show's central headquarters: the Jeffersonian Institute Medico-Legal Lab.
As the finale was first about to air back in March of 2017, stars Deschanel and Boreanaz sat down with TV Insider for an all-expansive interview about their experience filming the finale and the fraught conditions they found themselves in while performing their scenes in a bombed-out set. In fact, not only did the two co-stars appear in front of the camera for each and every one of the 245 episodes of "Bones," but the season began with Deschanel sitting in the director's chair for the season premiere while Boreanaz had the responsibility of directing the finale. That added perspective meant the two had an even healthier understanding of the production — though that didn't make filming the finale any easier. Boreanaz in particular had a tough time, saying:
"There was a lot going on. I almost broke my leg; I fell on a steel bar and I kept going. I got a huge gash on my leg. It was very hard, physically; more because of the chaos of the week in the lab. It was dark and dreary and smoky."
One last challenge
Apparently the cast and crew of "Bones" have never heard the phrase, "Save the best for last," given the hardships everyone had to endure to bring the series to the finish line in the finale. Titled "The End in the End," the final episode gave both David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel a destroyed lab to contend with, along with a plethora of dangerous obstacles and hazardous conditions. In order to make the set look and feel as realistic as possible, that apparently meant going the extra mile to make what looked like hell on earth on the small screen into an actual hell on earth during production. The dirt, soot, and debris may have added another level of immersion for fans at home, but at least some of the pained expressions on Boreanaz and Deschanel's faces were perfectly authentic.
In the TV Insider interview, both stars went on to describe the working conditions they had to deal with. According to Boreanaz, "It was physically demanding because the lab was destroyed. It wasn't a very healthy area to work in." That, as it turns out, was putting it mildly. Deschanel chimed in to add a nasty little detail:
"We all were coughing up black stuff for days. I had my kids on set and I was like, 'Uhhh, you should go back.'"
As fraught as it was, the destruction of the lab held great symbolic meaning for the end of "Bones." Deschanel admitted that "It was easier to say goodbye" since the set they had spent countless hours on throughout the years was now a smoldering wreck. Fans, as it turns out, weren't the only ones struggling to accept the inevitable. Luckily, "Bones" is now streaming on Hulu — with perhaps some hope for a revival, hypothetically.