Favourite 'Big Bad'?

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MariaDiaper
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Favourite 'Big Bad'?

Post by MariaDiaper »

What's everyone's favourite baddie from season 1 to season 9? I'd have to say The Gormogon, although it's very hard!

Purely for the fact that Pelant made Hodgins poor, I'd say Pelant was rather successful too, but his whole arc wasn't. Also quite liked the Gravedigger.

What's everyone's thoughts on this? :)
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ThyneAlone
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Re: Favourite 'Big Bad'?

Post by ThyneAlone »

I can be uncharacteristically brief on this one. I loathe the serial Bads almost without exception, because there is always a desperate attempt by the writers to make their crimes More Complex and Less Believable. Amidst this frantic rush to turn every murder into some sort of a code effort to be worked out, reality, characterisation and any kind of at least initial motive get thrown away like the baby with the bathwater. Why are they all so focused on our particular group? Yeah, I get that they want to pit their wits against the brightest team they can find, BUT.

Gravedigger. Even with an assistant, burying a car in the middle of the desert? Stranding someone in the bowels of an offshore vessel targeted for destruction? And what an anticlimactic downfall.
Gormogon. Don't get me started. A Sith manifestation? Secret society? Building a skeleton? Please! And Zack going to the dark side? Just not convinced.
Pelant. Omg, so much I hated. He was motivated by his crush on Brennan? And he is depicted as such an ineffective nerdy little wimp doing all these unbelievable things, as has already been well documented in the ep reviews. Codes on bones? Wiping out a person's entire fortune just like that? What was all that nonsense about clues being painted on a wall in saliva? Oh and placing a still bleeding corpse on a canopy over a couple's bed, not only in such a way that they weren't both literally swamped in gore on awakening from their gas-induced slumber but also in a certain position, the totally abstruse significance of which they were supposed to work out! I could go on. But, again, no real personality, no real dénouement. Booth just shot him. Oh. Big deal.
I have to admit also having no interest in the Ghost Killer. I get that this time there was a modicum of motive and at least she wasn't totally centred on the team at the Jeffersonian; but I found Brennan's complete obsession with her bizarre, out of character and incomprehensible (I know Brennan's an obsessive, but she is also rational and her perspective was very skewed here). However, I must say that I am quite pleased that she is the handle to something very conspiratorial going on at the FBI.
Broadsky I didn't actually mind. Vigilanteism is a fair enough motive and there was a personal reason for his and Booth's pursuit of one another.

The only one I really liked, though, was Epps. Genuinely creepily realised, vile and abhorrent as a personality and clearly power seeking; tortures and deaths credible, final moments duly exciting. But this was all back in the times when I feel that the best writing was going on and character and teamwork had a much more equal balance with both individual cases and arcs.

If this is me being uncharacteristically brief you may dread to think what a long post would be like (Sherry still unchallenged champion there, though!)
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MariaDiaper
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Re: Favourite 'Big Bad'?

Post by MariaDiaper »

Wow, I hated Broadsky! Interesting that the one I really hate is the one you like! Seems we have very different tastes when it comes to the big bads.

I agree, I like Epps too - thought he was the one criminal the producers hit head on perfectly. He really worked for me.

As for the Gormogon, I never got why Zack rallied with him, it really confused me, so I can understand your hatred towards him.
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ThyneAlone
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Re: Favourite 'Big Bad'?

Post by ThyneAlone »

Hmm, it's not really hatred, it's not that strong; indifference with a soupçon of contempt I think.
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skftex
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Re: Favourite 'Big Bad'?

Post by skftex »

This is hard for me because I liked some episodes related to the serial killers but didn't buy into the brilliance of these people so much.

Epps- the only recurring bad guy story I liked (I most definitely did not like EPPS! creepy dude!) I think because they chose to do that in three episodes that actually had some sort of resolution at the end of each the story was better put together. In fact the whole back story on Epps was put together well, to make you believe that this guy DID have a problem with women due to his upbringing.

Gravedigger-I kind of liked the concept though I agree with Steph, it'd be hard to bury a car without help and make it look like nothing had been disturbed on the surface. However, since this killer brought TJ one of Hodgins very few front storylines, I am sort of on the fence about the Gravedigger arc.

Gormogon-I actually had no problem with the concept of this one either, but the resolution basically was a huge suck-o with the writers going for a HUGE SHOCKER rather than stick to the story they had established. Every Gormogon episode they kept telling us, the apprentice is a widow's son, but since they never changed the already established storyline of Zack-he had a family, complete with a mother AND father, I felt it was a cop out in order to try to shock people at the end of the season. PLUS I believe they did it only because they wanted to keep JFD and FOX didn't want them to have another regular (money) so they sacrificed Eric Millegan for it. The idea that they had no where else to go with that character is insane, since they hadn't really gone anywhere with him much at all in 3 seasons anyway!

Broadsky-I think they gave up on this one too quickly and never really convinced me of his motivation to be after Booth. I understood the motivation to kill criminals that were being released-vigilante justice is nothing new, I just don't see how that translated to Booth so much.

Which leads to:
Pelant-this whole story arc sucked to me and really, really was lame once the resolution came about. I think that the Bones writers are very good with stories that end quickly, but they seem to start these serial killer stories without any sort of idea of resolution in the first place. But Pelant, it wasn't just the resolution, it was the fact that they dumbed down all the Jeffersonian team in order to make this guy look brilliant. They also gave him the ability to do things that were just absolutely impossible such as code on bone after being SCANNED (key word there) becomes a virus...really? Angela has some sort of transporter/hologram program that can actually turn a scanned item into something REAL?? (as opposed to just a picture of the code on a bone). If she did, she should be rich AND should have been able to catch Pelant on her own because the possession of such miracle software would make her much, much more brilliant than Pelant ever was shown to be. But it wasn't just Angela, they dumbed everyone down, Booth included, and suddenly they couldn't do the very things they had been doing for what was it...7 seasons? They decided they didn't want Hodgins to have money so they used Pelant to get rid of it, then just chose to ignore the fact that the Jeffersonian pretty much depended on him having money, AND didn't even MENTION the economic impact this would have had outside of the Jeffersonian, how many people did he put out of work not to mention the lawsuits against Hodgins that would be popping up every 5 seconds because no one would believe he actually had a serial killer get rid of his money, he'd be charged with embezzlement, fraud and who knows what else!!! So, in case you can't tell, I hated the very MENTION of Pelant.

Ghost Killer-I thought this one had the possibility to be very interesting if they had stuck with it long enough, but the resolution was tied up in the whole FBI conspiracy thing so while they resolved who the Ghost Killer was fairly fast, it is still up in the air how much I feel invested in the solution to the FBI connection but based on their track record for this sort of thing, don't be surprised if they resolve it by telling us that the head of FBI is the problem and he was doing it because he hates Booth because he killed Pelant, who was the FBI chief's son. HAHAHAHA


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Re: Favourite 'Big Bad'?

Post by Sculder1013 »

I agree that the Bones writers seem to rush their "big bad" storylines. I mean yeah Pelant lasted across an entire season plus a bit in other seasons so he was one of the longest... but he was only in maybe 5 or 6 episodes over them all. I actually liked the Pelant story coz it had the Jeffersonian crew completely thrown off balance (even though yes most of it was completely ridiculous like the coded bones etc)

Epps was creepy and cool but they ended it too soon.

Gravedigger is my favourite purely because she freaked me the hell out and the idea of it is kinda terrifying. Most of that storyline was also pretty silly like you said about getting the car underground etc and getting Booth on the ship that had no one else on it yet it had got to the middle of the ocean etc. Pretty silly yeah but I can overlook that because that was a damn cool episode (how cute is soldier Parker????? adorable)

Broadsky was ok but he just wasn't evil enough for my liking... well ya know, apart from him killing Vincent which totally broke my heart! HE WAS MY FAVOURITE!!!!!!!! :sad:

I think he could have been a bigger baddie and a greater challenge for Booth.

Gorgonzola (lol) was kinda cool - I like the whole cannibal thing and the fact you are never faced with the actual master until he dies lol I am not sure why Zack got pulled in to it.. I mean Zack was BRILLAINT... a GENIUS ffs!!! I dont understand how the writers can justify making him so weak minded and so easily influenced by someone like that! I did like the shock of it though as a viewer, coz I wasnt expecting it. I actually thought it was going to be Hodgins at first, but thats coz of how Hodgins views secret societies etc. But the writers did a poor job of making Hodgins look guilty.. it was too obvious to be him if ya get what I mean.

Ghost Killer... I have absolutely no idea who this is so maye I'm not that far in to it yet. I dont remember any mention of this person yet anyway. I am only half way through season 9 (THEY FINALLY JUST GOT MARRIED haha) - but i'll get up to date by the end of the weekend :)

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