Emily Deschanel Previews Monday’s Game Changing Bones Episode

Monday’s Bones episode sees Brennan shot and critically wounded while working late at the Jeffersonian.

So far so just another Bones episode, right? Not exactly. Brennan’s reasons for being at the lab in the first place (a row with Booth in which he slated her lack of spontaneity and capacity to enjoy things she couldn’t scientifically quantify) coupled with a unique near-death experience (in which Brennan returns to her childhood home and debates some big questions about life and the afterlife with her dead mother) elevates “The Shot in the Dark” above this season’s more regular fare.

It also enticed actress Emily Deschanel to get on the phone to Screen Spy and assembled press this week and open up, not just about Brennan’s journey, but also about how this game-changing episode will mark her forever.

“Booth and Brennan have a fight,” Deschanel explained, setting up the sequence of events that leads to her remarkable encounter. “Brennan believes that Booth is criticizing her parenting style, and runs out and ends up in the lab again at night to go finish working on this case, and that’s when she gets shot. Hopefully, I’m not revealing too much because this happens in the beginning.  It’s quite fitting, of course, that Brennan is dealing with her own issue of being a mother herself and, at the core of that, is missing her own mother.”

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“I think that after watching the episode, viewers will have a better idea of why Brennan behaves in the way that she does,” Deschanel reflected. “She’s kind of hyper rational and has cut off her emotions in many ways, even though she has, over the last few years. opened up after knowing Booth.  As the season goes on it’s kind of a subtle change. It’s not like it’s dealt with when people are discussing it or something right afterwards, but I think it will be addressed in later episodes this season. It is a more subtle change.  I think that Brennan feels like the way she’s behaved as–it’s shone a light on her behavior and maybe encourages her to change a bit.”

Brennan (Emily Deschanel, L) struggles with visions of her mother (guest star Brooke Langton, R) in the “The Shot in the Dark.” ©2013 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Jordin Althaus/FOX

Exactly how big of an encounter is this for Brennan? And how will she and audiences interpret her experience?

“It’s a big encounter,” confirmed Deschanel. “I have an encounter, which she believes is a hallucination, at least at first, where she is transported to her childhood home, and she sees her mother.  She interacts with her mother who is dead, and so, of course, she believes it’s a hallucination.  She has flatlined.  So many people will interpret it to be that she’s gone to heaven.  Her interactions with her mother reveal things from her past, and also it affects Brennan now encourages her to have a different perspective on her behavior and possibly encourage her to change it.”

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Speaking on how this crucial episode will shed light on Brennan’s past, Deschanel commented ” I really enjoyed having the interaction with her mother.  You know, what other kind of episode can you have interaction with somebody who is dead, and that’s always been kind of a huge missing piece for Brennan; was her mother being gone and being able to talk to her mother about how she disappeared before she died and all of that. Brooke Langton, who plays my mother in this episode, did such a great job, and I really enjoyed working with her.  She’s just very inventive as an actor, very giving, and it was a really good experience working together.  It felt right to have her play my mother, and I really enjoyed that.”

Sounds like it’s going to be a bit of an emotional roller-coaster? “It was very emotional, especially with scenes between the mother,” Deschanel agrees. “I have played this character for a long time.  I’ve built in my mind who my mother is and was to me.  It was quite emotional to do these scenes and to shed light on Brennan as a teenager and her relationship with her mother.  I think anyone who’s human who’s lost somebody that they love, or even hasn’t, but can imagine that, I think it’s kind of a universal thing that you just want to see that person one more time and here, Brennan has that chance. ”

“You know, she doesn’t want it to end, although at first doesn’t believe it. It’s something that you always wish for when you’ve lost somebody. She gets this opportunity and that’s so incredible – if we’ve done it right, hopefully people will be affected by it.”

Catch “The Shot in the Dark” episode of Bones Monday February 11th on FOX.