Seeley Booth

Colour	orange
Name	Special Agent Seeley Booth
First	"Pilot"
Nickname	Shrimp
Occupation	Special Agent with the FBI Official FBI Liaison with the Jeffersonian Sergeant Major in the US Army Special Forces
Family	Brother Jared Booth Grandfather Hank Booth Ancestor John Wilkes Booth
Children	Parker Booth (son)
Religion	Roman Catholic
Portrayer	David Boreanaz
Creator	Hart Hanson

FBI Special Agent Seeley Joseph Booth is a fictional character US television series, Bones (2005–present), portrayed by David Boreanaz. Agent Booth is a co-protagonist of the series alongside Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel), to whom he affectionately refers as "Bones."

Character history

Seeley Booth is a former sniper in the United States Army who served in the 101st Airborne Division, the 75th Ranger Regiment, and the U.S. Army Special Forces. He is also an expert knife thrower. He is currently a special agent with the FBI. Before leaving the Army, Booth held the rank of Master Sergeant. He served in the Gulf War, Somalia and Kosovo. While in the military he earned a Bronze Star, National Defense Service Medal and the Army Good Conduct Medal. Booth frequently consults with his professional partner Dr. Brennan, whom he has nicknamed 'Bones,' and her team (he refers to them as "squints" or "squint squad"), acting as a liaison between the FBI and the Jeffersonian Institute. When it comes to solving crimes, Booth has a very different approach from Brennan and her team, preferring a more human, interpersonal and intuitive set of methods. While he finds the information Dr. Brennan and her team uncover to be valuable clues, he often finds their means overly convoluted and restrictive, and prefers to add his own intuition and knowledge of people to it; as a result, his methods often clash with Dr. Brennan's scientific, objective, and analytical approach.

In the episode "The Beginning in the End," Booth is offered the opportunity to further serve his country in Afghanistan. He is offered a promotion to Sergeant Major and a position as an advisor to the Afghan National Army who is being trained by coalition forces to take an increased role in battling Taliban insurgency. According to the unit patch on his uniform shown in the episode "The Mastodon in the Room," he is assigned to a Special Forces group. He is also shown wearing a 101st combat patch, Special Forces and Ranger qualification tabs, and Combat Infantry, HALO, Air Assault and Parachutist badges.''

Although Booth tries to keep personal and professional life strictly separate, aspects of his personal life leak through. He is a religious man by nature, having been an altar boy as a child. He knows some Latin and is still a practicing Roman Catholic, seeking to atone for the lives he took as a sniper and since through his work in the FBI. While in the Army Rangers, he was apparently tortured, leaving him with emotional and physical scars (revealed in "Two Bodies in the Lab").

Booth has a troubled relationship with his family. After flying fighter planes during the Vietnam War, Booth's father was a barber and an abusive alcoholic. His mother composed jingles for television advertisements. He later reveals that, had it not been for his grandfather, he might have killed himself as a teenager. He also has a brother named Jared who worked at the Pentagon and has a drinking problem. Jared Booth is a recurring character on the series, and his arrivals are often met with tension by Booth.

He has a nine-year old son named Parker with his ex-girlfriend, Rebecca, who he states refused to marry him. Originally, the communication between Seeley and Rebecca seemed hostile, as she denied him visitation out of spite, but it is later revealed relations between them have dramatically improved. Parker Booth is named after a friend of Booth's from the Army Rangers, Corporal Edward "Teddy" Parker, who was slain in battle while spotting for Booth on a sniper mission. Booth is characterized as an excellent father.

He has stated that he is from Philadelphia, and is a fan of the Philadelphia Flyers. However, he grew up in Pittsburgh. In season 1, episode 13 "The Woman in the Garden" he is seen drinking from a Pittsburgh Steelers coffee mug in his office, suggesting he may also be a fan of the football team. He is also recovering from a gambling addiction, which possibly arose as a coping mechanism after separating from the military and leaving a stressful, war-time environment (in the episode "The Soldier in the Grave," Booth stated, "I've been good, I've been going to my meetings" when a former Ranger squad-mate inquired about his gambling problem).

As the series continues, Booth becomes closer with the Jeffersonian team, particularly Dr. Brennan. At the end of the second season, Booth agreed to be Jack Hodgins' best man in his wedding to Angela Montenegro (albeit as the second choice after Zach Addy turned the position down).

Booth also shows to have temperamental issues, and has shot inanimate objects on repeated occasions, such as shooting a ice cream truck's clown head in season 2 episode "The Girl in the Gator" due to coulrophobia, and a death metal band's guitar amplifier after the guitarist spat on his badge in season 4 episode "Mayhem on the Cross", explaining that he found the shooting "justifiable".

Recently, Booth suffered from a brain tumor, which was successfully removed but left him with residual memory loss and a lack of confidence in the field. In the episode "The Proof in the Pudding", Booth is revealed to be a descendant of John Wilkes Booth, something he had previously confided to Dr. Brennan on their first case (as shown in the flashback of 'The Parts of the Sum of the Whole', when she deduced the relationship due to their similar bone structures) and asked her never to bring up.

Relationships

Camille Saroyan

Seeley rekindled an old relationship with Dr. Camille Saroyan when she joined the Jeffersonian team. However, Seeley ended the relationship for the second time after an intense case nearly cost Camille her life, with Seeley asserting that on-the-job romantic relationships endanger the team in high-pressure situations. Booth is shown to have known Dr. Saroyan for some length of time (she mentions she has known Booth and his brother Jared for 15 years in the fourth season), with both of them possessing extensive familiarity with the other's family members. Despite the breakup, Camille and Seeley have remained close friends, working together on cases and giving each other advice on numerous occasions. Seeley even came to Camille, seeking advice, when he began to fully realize his feelings of love towards Brennan, unsure of whether or not he was "the same guy" after his brain surgery. Camille encouraged him to "forget the bruised brain, and go with his lion heart", telling him to act on his feelings for Temperance but to be sure that they were real.

Temperance Brennan

While Seeley and Brennan maintain a professional relationship and friendship, there is a level of deep emotional attachment evident, as well as a hint of romantic and sexual tension within their relationship. This tension is crucial to the plot of the series, with fleeting minor characters constantly mistaking Booth and Brennan for a romantic couple, which they consistently and vehemently deny.

Though denying a romantic relationship, they tend to spend more and more time together outside work throughout the series. There clearly is a sexual attraction between the pair. In "The Woman in the Sand," Booth shows he is impressed when he sees Brennan in a somewhat revealing dress he picked out for her, and slaps her butt later in the episode. In other episodes, he appears somewhat stunned whenever he sees her in revealing clothing, most notably a Wonder Woman Halloween costume ("The Mummy in the Maze"). Booth has admitted to Brennan and her father that he finds her "well-structured" and "beautiful," and once reassured her that she has "her looks and a whole lot more."

On a deeper level, Booth has also demonstrated a deep devotion to and admiration for Brennan's character. He has shown an apparent jealousy of Brennan's romantic relationships, particularly in the episodes "Two Bodies in the Lab," "The Woman in Limbo, "The Headless Witch in the Woods," "The Man in the Mansion", "The Boneless Bride in the River", "The Con Man in the Meth Lab" and "A Night at the Bones Museum". Booth has shown a tendency throughout the series of intimidating, confronting or competing with anyone he believes to have a sexual interest in Brennan, including his own brother and his boss.

He is extremely protective of her in general, and is often defensive of her to the point of physically assaulting those who pose a threat to her safety. He has saved Brennan's life in several episodes, digging her out by hand when she was buried alive ("Aliens in a Spaceship"), taking the shot meant for her ("The Wannabe in the Weeds"), and violently threatening a gang member into calling off a hit put out on her ("The Woman in the Garden"). In instances where he believes Brennan's life to be endangered, Booth often (to Brennan's annoyance) refuses to leave her side, once offering to sleep on the couch at her apartment, taking a blow from a bomb meant for her and leaving the hospital later to rescue her ("Two Bodies in the Lab"), flying immediately from Washington D.C. to New Orleans after Brennan wakes up bloodied, beaten and possibly date-raped in her hotel room ("The Man in the Morgue").

In the third season, their relationship took on a new component when they were forced to undergo partners therapy with Dr. Sweets. Sweets observed that while they were very close to one another, there was emotional and sexual tension between them. Their experiences in partners therapy – which has been extended indefinitely – continue to be an important part of their relationship on the show.

The partners shared their second kiss in "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole," the first being in "The Santa in the Slush" when Booth and Brennan agreed to kiss in front of prosecuting attorney Caroline Julian, who bargained the kiss in exchange for pulling strings for Brennan's family Christmas.

Since the time of that first kiss, although they have not since mentioned it, the partners have only grown closer. Nearly every episode since season three has ended with a scene of Booth and Brennan bonding at the conclusion of a case. These scenes have become increasingly romantic over time, reflecting the ever-growing affection Booth and Brennan have for each other.

This came to a head in "The Critic in the Cabernet," in which Brennan asks Booth to donate sperm to father her child, which startles him visibly. He eventually agrees, and the two begin making plans for her insemination, but before she can go through with it, Booth is diagnosed with a brain tumor. As he is being wheeled into surgery, he tells Brennan she can have his 'stuff' (referring to the donation he made) to have her baby. After a successful surgery to remove the tumor, Booth spends four days in a coma, during which he dreams about an alternate reality where he is married to and expecting a baby with Brennan, whom he calls "Bren." Upon waking up, it takes Booth a week to re-acclimate himself to reality.

Season five began with Booth realizing his love for Brennan as he recovers from his tumor. However, he was cautioned by both Dr. Saroyan and Dr. Sweets to be sure of his feelings before confessing his love to the very rational Brennan. Afraid that his feelings for her were related solely to his tumor and coma, Booth was conflicted about whether or not to tell Brennan. Although Booth and Brennan did exchange words of love, they both qualified their confessions with professionalism, and Booth has not yet brought up his true feelings for her. Their relationship remains fraught with sexual tension – they nearly kissed again in "A Night at the Bones Museum" – but there has not yet been any real development. In "The Dwarf in the Dirt," Gordon Wyatt directly states to Booth "Temperance Brennan… You're in love with her" — a statement that Booth does not deny but simply replies that it doesn't make any sense because they are so different. To this statement by Booth, Dr. (now Chef) Wyatt responds that the heart cannot always help what it wants. Booth, however, seems certain that his feelings are not reciprocated, saying "She doesn't love me. I would know if she loved me," to which Wyatt suggested he have patience and hope. He was so right. In "The Foot in the Foreclosure," Booth's grandfather, Hank, encourages the relationship, urging both Booth and Brennan separately to stop holding back. In "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole," it is revealed, to the shock of Dr. Sweets, that Booth and Brennan shared a kiss while working on their first case together and nearly wound up sleeping together, showing that the pair have entertained romantic possibilities from the outset of their relationship. After leaving Sweets' office, Booth attempts to initiate a relationship with Brennan and kisses her after being told by Dr. Sweets to take a gamble. Booth tells Brennan that "he knew, right from the beginning" that Brennan is the one he wants to spend his life with. Although she obviously returns his feelings, Brennan rejects his advance and states her uncertainty about the possible outcomes of such a relationship given their seemingly conflicting personalities, Booth agrees to respect her wishes and attempt to move on as they continue to work together.

It is heavily suggested throughout the series that Booth and Brennan are complementary personalities that complete each other. In "Harbingers in the Fountain", Avalon Harmonia (Cyndi Lauper), a tarot reader and Angela's psychic, suggests that Booth and Brennan are destined lovers stating that "'this' ('this' being Booth and Brennan's feelings for each other and the evident sexual and romantic tension between the pair) will all work out eventually".

In the episode "The Boy with the Answer", Booth is confronted with the possibility that Brennan, claiming she is "tired of dealing with murders and victims and sadness and pain", might leave the Jeffersonian permanently. In the final scene of this episode, Booth watches as Brennan turns to face him while riding away in a taxi, a scene that mirrors the one in "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole" after they kiss outside of a bar. This similarity may signal that much to Booth's disliking that history may be about to repeat itself and he may lose Brennan for an extended amount of time, just as he did when they first met. This is proven true when Brennan departs for a year-long anthropological expedition to the Maluku Islands while Booth agrees to spend a year in Afghanistan, training soldiers to apprehend terrorists. They say goodbye at the airport, agreeing to meet one year later by the Mall reflecting pool, at 'their' coffee cart.

However, their relationship takes a downturn after their return to D.C. due to Booth's new relationship with journalist Hannah Burley. Although Hart Hanson has stated that Booth will always be in love with Brennan, referencing Booth's old comment about how 'everything happens eventually' to suggest that the potential for the two to reconcile still exists, shown in such moments as Brennan's apparent disappointment after learning that Hannah gets along with Parker. However, when Brennan was recently encouraged by a case to admit that she still had feelings for Booth, Booth turned her down, although it is significant to note that he never said that he didn't have feelings for her any more, remaining silent when she stated that they had 'missed their moment' and simply saying that he loved Hannah without giving any clear idea about his feelings for Brennan herself.

Tessa Jankow

A lawyer whom Booth dated (played by Anne Dudek) in Season 1; they break up after Tessa declines to take a week away with Booth.

Rebecca Stinson

Rebecca Stinson is Booth's ex-girlfriend portrayed by Jessica Capshaw. When she became pregnant, Booth proposed but she turned him down not wanting to get married. They named their son Parker Booth. They have since occasionally engaged in a liaison but are mostly just friends, Booth resolving to end their liaisons after Rebecca assured him — following a talk with Brennan where Brennan admitted that she thinks Booth feels that Rebecca turned him down because he would be a bad father — that he was a good father to Parker.

Hannah Burley

In the episode "The Mastodon in the Room," it is revealed that while on his recent deployment to Afghanistan, Booth met a war correspondent when arresting her for being in a restricted area. The two are now dating and in Booth's words the relationship is "as serious as a heart attack."

However, fans have yet to truly see a relationship outside of the bedroom. While Booth himself appears to be serious, they have yet to be seen in a truly relational sense, although Hannah did attempt to bond with Parker during a recent episode, and the two appeared to get on relatively well. Booth stated that Hannah wasn't a "consolation prize" when Brennan was encouraged by a recent case to admit that she has feelings for him, but the extent to which this is motivated by genuine affection for Hannah or just his fear of Brennan changing her mind again is unclear (Particularly when noting that Booth simply stated that he loved Hannah without saying that he didn't feel that way about Brennan any more).

Characterization

Booth does not fit in socially with the collection of "geeks" (whom he and his FBI colleagues refer to as "squints") making up Dr. Brennan's team. Booth fills out the stereotype of the "All-American boy" — now all grown up — very well. He is world-wise, socially at ease with people, very athletic, and apparently sexually confident with women (a contrast to the humorous social bumbling sometimes exhibited by some of Dr. Brennan's team). Booth often refers to himself as a jock, having played football and several other sports in high school and college. A signed picture of Bruins player Cam Neely can be seen in the background behind his desk.

Booth is a fan of Classic rock and Arena rock music. He has expressed great affection for the group Foreigner and poked fun at Bones for her interest in world, rap, and hip hop music. He also likes the band Poco and sang their song, "Keep on Tryin'" with Bones. In the season three finale, it is also shown he listens to the hardcore punk/punkabilly band Social Distortion. It could also be inferred that he is or at least was a fan of the original wave of hardcore punk, as in the Season 4 episode "Mayhem on the Cross" he mentions that his father thought that Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys sounded the same (with the implication that Booth disagrees). Given the relatively underground nature of the California hardcore punk scene (of which Social Distortion, Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys were all seminal members), lacking radio airplay, mainstream press coverage, etc., it is most likely that the only way Booth's father would have heard these bands was if Booth himself had been playing their records.

It is revealed in the season three episode "The Mummy In The Maze" Seeley suffers from coulrophobia. When they were traveling through a haunted house, Booth was frightened of an evil clown mannequin, while Brennan was bewildered by his behavior, with him feeling ashamed when he purposely avoided walking by the mannequin. This provided insight into the event in a previous episode from season two, "The Girl in the Gator", when he shot a large plastic clown head on a ice cream truck, annoyed with the music.

Booth wears a "COCKY" belt buckle in episodes following "The Boneless Bride in the River" in season 2. The buckle is absent in the first episode of season 5 after recovery from surgery. While not as noticeable as the red "Cocky" buckle, Booth did wear a stylized eagle buckle throughout season 1. He also likes to wear colorful socks.

Seeley's brother, Jared, comments in "The Con Man in the Meth Lab" that Seeley is a fan of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team. He is also a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers mentioned by Gordon Watt, also a cup with a Steelers logo is visible on his desk in several episodes. Also in the season 3 finale he is wearing a Steelers hard hat for drinking beer in the tub and a framed Mario Lemieux jersey is visible on the wall as Bones leaves the bathroom.

Out of the numerous squints at the lab, Seeley seems to get on the best with Angela Montenegro. Angela finds him extremely hot, flirts with him on multiple occasions (particularly in Season 1), and frequently does her best to get Brennan and Booth together. Booth does not seem unnerved by Angela's flirtations as he does with that of most women, and has occasionally acted protective of her in his "Alpha male" way. Booth also seems to get along fairly well with Jack Hodgins, although he occasionally threatens to shoot Hodgins if the latter gets too annoying, with Hodgins generally being the 'squint' who accompanies Booth into the field the most after Brennan herself (Camille tends to carry out her own investigations without Booth when a case requires her on-site assessment). They get into an argument in the episode "The Man in the Mansion", when Hodgins compromises a case, but they make peace later in the episode.

However, Booth does not seem to get along that well with Zack; he finds Zack's cold naïveté a little disconcerting. Booth leads Zack to believe ignoring him is a form of male bonding, when in actuality it is a way to avoid talking to Zack. Booth justifies this as "being nicer than shooting him." Booth calls Zack things such as Brennan's "weirdo assistant" and has threatened to shoot him more times than any other main character on the show. However, Booth's opinion of Zack does not seem to be mutual; in general, Zack looks up to Booth as a man of experience, asking him for advice on numerous occasions. Booth makes it clear that he will not give sex advice; when Zack asks, Booth replies, "If you even try, I will take out my gun and shoot you between the eyes." However, Booth does seem more open to giving Zack advice about war when Zack is recruited to go to Iraq, and Zack says to Booth, "You know more about honor and duty than anyone else I know." It is also implied that Zack has grown on Booth; Booth looks a little sad when he sees that Zack has been recruited to go to Iraq in "Stargazer in a Puddle", and it is revealed in The Pain in the Heart that Booth gave him a harmonica when he left. Booth also seems as sad as everyone else that Zack turned out to be the Gormogon's apprentice in this episode. Later, when Zack returns in "The Perfect Pieces in the Purple Pond", Booth comments after Zack makes a "squint-y" comment that "this is one side of him I don't miss at all," implying that he has missed other aspects of Zack. During a dream sequence where Booth re-imagines his friends and colleagues at the Jeffersonian as the staff and guests at a night-club, one of the characters refers to Zach as an idiot who confessed to a crime he didn't commit, suggesting that Booth knows or suspects on some level that Zach is innocent (He claims to have participated in a man's murder when he actually just helped Gormoggon find him, setting up his diagnosis so that he would go to an asylum because he recognised that he wouldn't do well in prison).

Booth stated in "The Girl in the Gator" Howard Epps was his fiftieth kill. However, Booth was not technically responsible for Epps death, so as of "The Man in the Cell" his official kill count is at 49, including the terrorist he shot in "The Man in the SUV". However, as of "Harbingers In the Fountain", Booth's official kill count is at least 52, as he killed the serial killer dressed as a clown in "Mummy in the Maze", bringing it to 50, Gormogon at the end of "The Pain in the Heart", bringing it to 51, and a doctor who attacked Dr. Brennan in "Harbingers in the Fountain", bringing it to 52. He also shot a conning sheriff who shot Dr. Temperance Brennan in "The Con Man in the Meth Lab", though a death was never confirmed, possibly bringing the total to 53.

Booth's grandfather (Hank Booth) gave Booth the nickname Booth 'Shrimp', because Seeley was a young child when Hank took Booth in, after Hank saw his grandson being beaten by his father.

It has been said in a TV Guide article Booth is supposed to be a relative of historical figure John Wilkes Booth, which was confirmed in the episodes "The Proof in the Pudding" and "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole", which he is very ashamed about, and made Bones promise not to tell anyone. Ironically, it has been stated that Lincoln is his favorite president.

References

Category:Bones characters Category:Fictional military sergeants Category:Fictional United States Army Rangers Category:Fictional Green Berets Category:Fictional Gulf War veterans Category:Fictional Yugoslav War veterans Category:Fictional FBI agents Category:Fictional gamblers Category:Fictional characters from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania