Seeley Booth

Seeley Booth
Bones character
First appearance	"Pilot"
Created by	Hart Hanson
Portrayed by	David Boreanaz
Information
Nickname(s)	Shrimp, Booth
Aliases	Buck Moosejaw,Tony, Bobby Kent
Gender	Male
Occupation	Special Agent with the FBI Official FBI Liaison to the Jeffersonian Institute Sergeant Major (Retired) in the US Army Special Forces
Title	Special Agent Sergeant Major (Ret.)
Family	Brother Jared Booth Grandfather Hank Booth Mother Marianne Booth Ancestor John Wilkes Booth
Significant other(s)	Temperance Brennan (partner, 1 child)
Children	Parker Matthew Booth (son, with Rebecca Stinson) Christine Angela Booth (daughter, with Temperance Brennan)
Religion	Roman Catholic

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

Character history

Seeley Booth is a former sniper in the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division, 75th Ranger Regiment, and Special Forces. He is also an expert knife thrower. 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. For a time, he held the record for the longest shot ("Well over a kilometer") made in combat.

Acting as a liaison between the FBI and the Jeffersonian Institute, Booth frequently consults with his professional partner Dr. Brennan and her team, who he refers to as "squints" or "squint squad". Booth's approach to solving crimes is different from that of Brennan and her team; he prefers a more human, interpersonal and intuitive set of methods. While Booth values the information uncovered by Brennan, he often finds their methods convoluted and restrictive. Initially, Booth's presence is met by hostility from some of the team members, especially Jack Hodgins, but these differences are put aside and Booth is accepted as a member of the group.

In the episode "The Beginning in the End", Booth is offered the opportunity to serve his country in Afghanistan. He is offered a promotion to sergeant major and a position as an adviser to the Afghan National Army; Afghan forces are being trained by coalition forces to take an increased role in fighting the Taliban insurgency. According to the unit patch on the shoulder of 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. His military training is sometimes useful when solving cases involving firearms or terrorists, most notably when he is kidnapped by "The Grave Digger" and has to find his way out of a decommissioned ship rigged with explosives.

Although Booth tries to keep personal and professional lives strictly separate, aspects of his personal life leak through. He is a religious man by nature, having been an altar boy as a child. His beliefs sometimes put him in conflict with Brennan. He knows some Latin and is still a practicing Roman Catholic. He seeks to atone for the lives he took as a sniper and FBI agent. He endured torture during his time as an Army Ranger, leaving him with emotional and physical scars, as revealed in "Two Bodies in the Lab".

Booth has a troubled relationship with his family. Booth's father, a former Air Force pilot and Vietnam War veteran, was a barber and an abusive alcoholic. His mother, Marianne Booth, composed jingles for television advertisements. Booth later reveals that he might have killed himself as a teenager had it not been for his grandfather. He has a brother, Jared, a former lieutenant commander in the Navy who worked as an agent at the Pentagon. Jared Booth is a recurring character in the series, and his arrivals are often met with tension by Booth. Their relationship apparently improved somewhat, especially after Jared sacrifices his naval career to save Booth from "The Grave Digger". He later introduces his fiancee to Seeley and asks him to be his best man at their wedding. Booth has a nine-year-old son named Parker with his ex-girlfriend, Rebecca, who refused to marry him. Rebecca is at first hostile, and denied him visitation out of spite, but relations between them later dramatically improve. 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 is occasionally over protective of Parker; when Parker found a human finger, Booth quickly sends him to Dr. Sweets for a counseling session despite Sweets' insistence that Parker is fine. When Booth's mother Marianne reappears to meet his new family (Bones and Christine) and to ask him to give her away at her wedding to her new boyfriend, his residual anger at her for abandoning him and Jared for decades comes to the fore.. On multiple occasions in the series, characters state that Booth is a direct descendent of infamous assassin John Wilkes Booth; this is historically inaccurate, as the assassin died childless at the age of 26 just days after killing Abraham Lincoln.

Booth during the Season 1 rescue of a kidnapping victim

Booth is from Philadelphia and is a fan of the Philadelphia Flyers; pictures of the team hang on the back wall of his office. 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; in season 6, episode 16 "The Blackout in the Blizzard" he acquires a row of seats from Veterans Stadium and recounts for Dr. Brennan how he attended game 6 of the 1980 World Series with his father. He is also recovering from a gambling addiction, which possibly arose as a coping mechanism after leaving the military and a stressful, war-time environment.

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

Booth has temperament issues and shoots inanimate objects on repeated occasions. He shoots the clown head on an ice cream truck in season 2 episode "The Girl in the Gator" due to coulrophobia, and a black metal band's guitar amplifier after the guitarist spits on his badge in the season 4 episode "Mayhem on the Cross." After the ice cream truck shooting, Booth's gun is temporarily confiscated and he is ordered to see forensic psychologist Dr Gordon Wyatt (Stephen Fry). Toward the end of season 4, Booth suffers from a brain tumor that leads him to hallucinate conversations with Stewie Griffin. The tumor is successfully removed, but it leaves him with residual memory loss and a lack of confidence in the field.

During the sixth season, while dealing with his complicated relationship with Brennan and his new girlfriend Hannah Burley, Booth faces his old mentor Jacob Broadsky, a former Army sniper who has apparently gone rogue. Broadsky kills the Gravedigger, a serial kidnapper and killer who threatened both Booth and Brennan, destroys identifying evidence, and escapes. Broadsky points out that Booth has no definite proof that would allow him to feel comfortable shooting his old teacher. Booth has avoided shooting Broadsky, and is comforted by the news that Brennan does not see him and Broadsky as identical. In "The Twisted Bones in the Melted Truck", Booth mentions an eccentric aunt of his, who "spent every last dime on old-fashioned cookie jars". At the end of season six, as Bones and Booth leave the hospital where Angela Montenegro has given birth, Brennan confesses to Booth that she is pregnant with his child.

The seventh season deals with Booth and Brennan's preparation for the birth of their child (revealed to be a girl in the second episode of the season), and their struggles to agree on a living situation. It also has Booth being informed by his grandfather Hank Booth that his abusive, estranged father has died (episode 4, "The Male in the Mail"). Booth tries to be indifferent to this fact, but eventually - with Brennan's help - he expresses his feelings about his father, including talking about the good times they had together. As Brennan's pregnancy advances, Booth becomes even more protective of her. He does not like her working so much in the field with him, and he is especially worried when a serial killer named Christopher Pelant takes a special interest in the Jeffersonian Team. In the sixth episode of the seventh season, Booth and Brennan buy a home together and by the seventh episode it is refurbished. The seventh episode ("The Prisoner in the Pipe") also features the birth of Booth and Brennan's daughter, whom Booth delivers himself in a small stable because they did not make it to a hospital. They name her Christine Angela Booth. Brennan and Booth have her baptized in the last episode of the season because of Booth's Catholic faith, just before Brennan takes Christine and goes on the run from Pelant (who is trying to frame her for murder). Booth swears he will do everything he can to get his family back.

Due to his military and FBI training, Booth tends to adhere to protocol rather than be guided by sentiment, sometimes putting him at odds with some of the other team members. When solving cases, Brennan's team handle the scientific and analytical aspect while Booth interrogates suspects, and sometimes goes to great lengths to extract confessions. Although not a "squint", Booth is quick to tie evidence to suspects, which earns him the respect of Brennan. He is also well-known among fellow agents for his precise marksmanship.

Relationships

Rebecca Stinson

Rebecca Stinson, portrayed by Jessica Capshaw, is Booth's ex-girlfriend. When she becomes pregnant, Booth proposes but Stinson does not accept. They name their son Parker Matthew Booth, the first name 'Parker' after his friend who died in the army. They occasionally engage in a liaison, but are mostly just friends. Booth resolves to end their liaisons after Rebecca assuages his doubts that he was a good father to Parker.

Hannah Burley

Hannah Burley, portrayed by Katheryn Winnick, is Booth's ex-girlfriend whom he met while training soldiers in Afghanistan. She was originally in Afghanistan as a journalist. She moved to Washington D.C. to be with Booth and they eventually moved in together in Booth's apartment. However, they soon break up when Hannah rejects Booth when he proposes and she moves out of his apartment.

With colleagues

Booth faces some hostility from Brennan's "squint squad". Hodgins is especially hostile due to his disdain for the government and bureaucracy, in general. In the episode "Two Bodies in the Lab" where they conduct a rescue operation to save Brennan from a hostage situation, their animosity subsides when Booth lets Hodgins go with him, and further earns Hodgins' respect, to the point where Hodgins apologises to Booth about a case which required them to exhume a soldier. Hodgins also asks for Booth's advice about proposing to Angela, and later asks Booth to be his best man. In season 4, when Special Agent Perotta takes over an investigation in which Booth is a suspect, Hodgins and intern Wendell Bray tell Perotta that they are "Booth's people" rather than Perotta's.

Of the "squints", Booth gets along best with Angela Montenegro in the pilot episode. Booth has a difficult relationship with Brennan's assistant Zack Addy, as he finds Addy's cold naïveté and social awkwardness disconcerting, and Booth convinces Addy that ignoring each another is a form of male bonding. Addy later admires Booth as a man of experience, and to Booth's annoyance asks him for advice on various issues. Booth threatens to shoot Addy on several occasions. Before Addy goes to Iraq, Booth gives him a harmonica.

When fellow FBI agent Dr. Lance Sweets first joins the team, Booth often treats him in a condescending manner, due to his youth and boyish looks. Sweets is able to relate to Booth in "layman's language". In season 4, Booth learns about Sweets' abusive childhood and eventually takes Sweets under his wing and regularly takes Sweets to interrogations or to analyze crime scenes for insight into the victim. He also consults Sweets on a number of issues, including his feelings for Brennan.

Camille Saroyan

Seeley rekindles an old relationship with Dr. Camille Saroyan when she joins the Jeffersonian team. However, Booth ends the relationship for the second time after an intense case nearly costs Saroyan her life. Booth asserts that on-the-job romantic relationships endanger the team in high-pressure situations. Booth has known Saroyan for some length of time; by the fourth season, she has known Booth and his brother Jared for 15 years. Despite the breakup, Saroyan and Booth remain close friends, working together on cases and giving each other advice on numerous occasions.

Temperance Brennan

Main article: Temperance "Bones" Brennan

Temperance is Booth's professional partner and his primary love interest throughout the series. While Seeley and Brennan maintain a professional relationship and friendship for six years, there is a deep emotional attachment and hints of romantic and sexual tension. Minor characters constantly mistake Booth and Brennan for a romantic couple, an accusation which they consistently and vehemently deny, although they spend more and more time together outside of work and a sexual attraction between them develops. Booth has admitted to Brennan and her father that he finds her "well-structured" and "beautiful," and has once reassured her that she has "her looks and a whole lot more." In "Two Bodies in the Lab", in season 1, and in "The Rocker in the Rinse Cycle", in season 5, Brennan and Booth's mutual love for Foreigner's Hot Blooded is mentioned; Booth even refers to it as "their song" in "The Rocker in the Rinse Cycle".

Booth and Brennan in "The Man in the Bear"

Booth shows 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 a habit of intimidating, confronting or competing with anyone he believes to have a sexual interest in Brennan. He is extremely protective of her, and is often defensive of her to the point of physically assaulting those who pose a threat to her safety. Booth has saved Brennan's life in several episodes, such as "Aliens in a Spaceship", "The Wannabe in the Weeds" and "The Woman in the Garden". In the third season, their relationship takes on a new component when they are forced to undergo partners therapy with Sweets, who observes that they are very close and there is emotional and sexual tension between them. Partners therapy is extended indefinitely. The partners share their first (in a flashback) and third kisses in "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole"; the second occurs in "The Santa in the Slush" when Booth and Brennan agree to kiss in front of a prosecuting attorney. Nearly every episode after season three ends with a scene of Booth and Brennan bonding, which become increasingly romantic over time, reflecting the ever-growing affection Booth and Brennan have for each other. This comes to a head in "The Critic in the Cabernet," in which Brennan asks Booth to donate sperm to father her child. He is startled but eventually agrees. The two begin making plans for her insemination, but before she can go through with it, Booth is diagnosed with a brain tumor.

In Season five, Booth realizes his love for Brennan as he recovers from his tumor. However, he is cautioned by both Dr. Saroyan and Dr. Sweets to be sure of his feelings before confessing his love to Brennan. Afraid that his feelings for her are related solely to his tumor and coma, Booth is conflicted about whether or not to tell Brennan. Afterwards, their relationship remains fraught with sexual tension. Although she shares 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 attempts to move on as they continue to work together. 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. 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. Their relationship takes a downturn after their return to DC due to Booth's relationship with journalist Hannah Burley; Brennan is apparently disappointed after learning that Hannah gets along with Parker. When Brennan admits that she still has feelings for Booth, he turns her down and says that he loves Hannah. Hannah departs after she turns down Booth's rather half-hearted proposal. Brennan and Booth begin to rekindle their relationship.

In episode 22 of season 6, "The Hole in the Heart", in which Vincent Nigel-Murray dies, Booth has Brennan stay at his apartment for her safety. Later that night, Brennan is still overcome with grief over Vincent's death and she turns to Booth for comfort. The two fall into his bed together in a seemingly intimate but non-sexual embrace. The next day, she tells Angela Montenegro that she "got into bed with Booth". In the following episode, she tells Booth that she is pregnant with his child. At the start of season seven, a very pregnant Brennan and Booth are in a relationship and going back and forth between apartments. Booth suggests that they should have their own place; Brennan wants Booth to move into her apartment. It causes a minor rift between them. At the end of the episode they are in bed looking at houses on the internet. Booth also tells Brennan he loves her. He thinks that Bones will ask him to marry her. In the sixth episode of season seven ("The Crack in the Code"), Booth and Brennan buy a home together. In the following episode ("The Prisoner in the Pipe"), Booth delivers their daughter in a small stable when Brennan cannot make it to the hospital to give birth. They name their baby Christine Angela. Throughout the rest of the season, Booth is very protective and devoted to both Temperance and Christine. It devastates him that they have to go on the run in the final episode of the season ("The Past in the Present"), but Booth swears he will put away serial killer Pelant and get his family back.

After proving Brennan's innocence and reuniting with her and their daughter, Booth attempts to act as though he isn't bothered by her decision to run away with Christine, as she had very good reasons for doing so at the time. It soon becomes clear in the following episode, however, that he is still resentful. They manage to resolve their dispute by the episode's end.

At the end of Season 8, Brennan finally decides to marry Booth, who is overjoyed. However, their plans are ruined when a vengeful Christopher Pelant blackmails Booth, threatening to kill five random people if Booth marries Brennan. Booth calls off the wedding, but does not explain the real reason to Brennan. Brennan is devastated but pretends to be fine with this.

Characterization

John Kubicke of BuddyTV described Booth as "charming, funny, a tad brutish but ultimately warm and caring". He is worldly-wise, socially at ease with people, very athletic, and apparently sexually confident with women. He 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 Bobby Orr can be seen in the background behind his desk. 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.

On the job, Booth is characterized as an "action man" and once claimed that he would "rot behind a desk". Early in season 8, he was given an opportunity to earn a promotion to an administrative position but passed up the chance when he realized that he was better suited to and enjoyed the field rather than sitting behind a 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. In the season three finale, he listens to the hardcore punk/punkabilly band Social Distortion. 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. 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, it is most likely that Booth's father would have heard these bands only if Booth himself had played their records.

It is revealed in the season three episode "The Mummy In The Maze" that Seeley suffers from coulrophobia. When traveling through a haunted house, Booth is frightened of an evil clown mannequin; Brennan is bewildered by his behavior and Booth feels ashamed when he purposely avoids walking by the mannequin. In season two ("The Girl in the Gator") when he shot a large plastic clown head on an ice cream truck, annoyed with the music. Booth wears a "COCKY" belt buckle in episodes following "The Boneless Bride in the River", which is absent in the first episode of season five after recovery from surgery. While not as noticeable as the red "Cocky" buckle, Booth wears a stylized eagle buckle throughout season one and the first part of season two. He also likes to wear colorful socks.

Booth states in "The Girl in the Gator" that Howard Epps was his fiftieth kill. However, Booth is not technically responsible for Epps death, so as of "The Man in the Cell" his official kill count is at 49. However, as of "The Mastodon in the Room", Booth's official kill count is at least 54, as he killed the serial killer dressed as a clown in "Mummy in the Maze" (50), Gormogon in "The Pain in the Heart" (51), a corrupt sheriff in "The Con Man in the Meth Lab" (52), a doctor in "Harbingers in a Fountain" (53) and a terrorist in "The Mastodon in the Room" (54).

Reception

John Kubicek of BuddyTV placed him on his list of the "15 Hottest TV Dads", describing the occasional moments he shares with his son as "tender and real". He was included in TV Guide's list of "TV's Sexiest Crime Fighters". His relationship with Temperance Brennan was listed in Entertainment Weekly's "30 Best 'Will They/Won't They?' TV Couples" and TV Tango's "Top 10 Romantically Challenged TV Couples".