Why No Main Characters Died In The Bones Season 12 Lab Explosion

Things might not have worked out all that well for "Suits LA," which was cancelled after one season despite the success of its mothership series. But make no mistake, we are still very much in the age of newstalgia, a streaming trend that's as simple as taking something popular from a bygone era and presenting it to modern audiences as if it were new.

"Bones" might not seem as though it belongs to a bygone time, as the show only wrapped up in 2017. But not only is that almost a decade ago, things have changed pretty dramatically since then. What's more, "Bones" debuted all the way back in 2005, meaning there's a whole TV-watching generation who have no recollection of a time when the show was dominating network TV. Heck, there's a whole generation that doesn't remember network TV, so "Bones" is very much prime newstalgia fodder.

Sadly, a "Bones" revival is a lot more complicated than it might seem following Disney's 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Fox. Figuring out who owns what in the wake of such a major buyout might prove tricky enough that we never get a "Bones" season 13. But that would be a big shame, seeing as pretty much every actor from the series is not only willing to return, but is able to do so due to the fact their characters were spared in the series finale. 

Did the writers know when they created the episode that fans would be clamoring for a streaming revival in the near future? Well, not exactly.

"Bones" ran for an impressive 12 seasons on Fox, which meant the ending had to be big. This was no "Suits LA," after all. Fans had been with the series for more than a decade and it had to go out with a bang — which it literally did. The penultimate episode of "Bones" saw the Jeffersonian Institute, which played host to Emily Deschanel's Temperance Brennan and the "squinterns" across all 12 seasons, leveled in an explosion that, as we find out in the series finale, thankfully didn't take out any beloved characters.

Co-showrunner Michael Peterson spoke to TVLine about the finale, revealing that, since the writers knew the show would be going off-air, blowing up the lab was a case of not wanting "anyone else playing with our toys." (Also, David Boreanaz had been wanting to blow it up since day one.) Asked whether there were any discussions about killing off any of the regular cast in the explosion, Peterson said:

"There was. There were lots of discussions. But this [scenario] just felt like the one that was most honest to our show. If this was '24' or 'Homeland' it would be entirely different. This is a show where everyone rides off into the sunset."

Based on Peterson's comments, then, the writers didn't necessarily have reboots or revivals on the brain when they wrote the "Bones" finale — though it's hard to imagine the thought didn't cross their minds. Ultimately, they decided to keep everyone alive, so the door remains open for a return ... even if the doors of the Jeffersonian Institute have been reduced to ash.