Bones: Booth and Brennan Say "I Do" --- But Will They Live Happily Ever After?

When the Bones producers announced at Comic-Con in July that Booth and Brennan would indeed tie the knot this season, many fans were surprised to learn how early in the season it would happen.

And they weren't alone! "I thought if we ever got married, it would be the series finale," star Emily Deschanel tells TVGuide.com. "I think it's wonderful that it's coming so soon this season. And not even during sweeps!"
On the set: Bones' Brennan and Booth finally tie the knot

Indeed, after eight seasons of romantic tension, a baby and more sets of human remains than we can even begin to count, Dr. Temperance Brennan (Deschanel) and FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) are finally getting their happy ending. "It's been a long time coming," Deschanel says. "At the beginning, it would be hard to imagine Brennan getting married to anybody, but now it makes sense. This is just a wonderful example of Brennan changing. It's wonderful to get to see her get to the place that almost seemed impossible at the beginning."

However, the happy day was hard fought. After Brennan finally proposed to Booth in the Season 8 finale, Booth was forced to turn her down in order to keep serial killer Christopher Pelant (Andrew Leeds) from killing innocent people. Although Booth has since dispatched Pelant, the experience forced Brennan to question whether opening up her heart was the wisest choice. Fortunately, Deschanel says, Brennan found a silver lining in the experience.

"She learned she can use science to have faith," Deschanel says. "She can extrapolate data that she has acquired from knowing Booth for all this time to make a leap of faith in Booth. She makes a big paradigm shift in that episode and that continues throughout the season, where she's open to giving up control. She doesn't know if it will work out, but she's willing to make that commitment. She has faith and hope that it will work out."
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But that faith will be tested on Monday's episode (8/7c, Fox), when a last-minute case (and a couple other disastrous turns of events) threaten to cancel the wedding.  "At times, Brennan doesn't know if this wedding is going to go through," Deschanel says. "But she has the hope and faith that she didn't have before. So, there's the little glimmer of faith that, at some point, they will get married. But will it happen in a way that she will be happy about? That's the other question. But she knows she's marrying the right person, that getting married is the right thing to do. So, how all that happens doesn't really matter."

Once the wedding date was set, it was important for the producers to assemble as many familiar faces as possible to attend the nuptials. The guest list includes all of the (strangely dressed) squinterns, Brennan's father Max (Ryan O'Neal), Booth's mother (Joanna Cassidy), grandfather (Ralph Waite) and son Parker (Ty Panitz) as well as Cyndi Lauper as the medium Avalon Harmonia, who sings the couple down the aisle.

"It was wonderful to assemble as many people as we could," executive producer Stephen Nathan says. "It shows how rich and full their lives are. To have all these people come together for them, it really makes you see how far the two of them have evolved and what that relationship has become. It was very moving for us. It's sort of a mini history of the show."

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That historical element extends to the couple's wedding vows. "I love the vows," Deschanel says. "Without giving too much away, it answers some questions that fans have had from seasons before.  I thought it was a wonderful way for both Booth and Brennan's vows to tie in our past to our future."

But what does that future look like? "The challenge is seeing how solid this relationship is," Nathan says. "We're going to be challenging them with ever more difficult and dangerous cases and see how that impacts their lives. They're going to have to deal with certain realities that they haven't had to deal with before. ... While it's never going to be a domestic show, there are elements that will confront them."
But as Nathan told us at the beginning of the season, there's no need to worry about the couple living happily ever after. "The essential difference between these characters is not going to change and that's the engine that drives the show," Nathan says. "We don't want to put these two in a situation that we dreamt about for nine years and then imply that the relationship is in jeopardy," he says. "This is a relationship the audience has been rooting for [for] almost a decade, and we're going to honor that relationship."

The Bones wedding airs Monday at 8/7c on Fox.