The last few episodes saw the relationship between Brennan and Booth take a sad, shitty turn. Booth’s sudsy 100th episode admission of love was received with about as harsh of a rejection as fans could have feared. And what made it so bad was that Brennan knows that she wants the same thing he does. But his influence on her has slowly chipped away the clinical, standoffish character she’d been most of her life. So before fully giving in and arriving at the inevitable—god, please make it inevitable—conclusion that the feeling is mutual, she has to go off on a journey of self-evaluation and, in a term Booth knew she would understand best, evolution.

For the TV landscape of the last decade, the end of fifth seasons above all others are marked by the game changer. Character departures, flash forwards and devastating interpersonal schisms are commonplace. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that one of the two leads would head off in some story-shifting plot development last night. But it wasn’t just Booth or Brennan. With the exception of Doctors Saroyan and Sweets, the entire Jeffersonian team disbanded… for a year.

They gathered one last time in the very unrealistic venue of an airport terminal. (Past the security checkpoint? I couldn’t tell.) Brennan headed off with Daisy on some anthropological goldmine of an expedition, Angela and Hodgins were going to drive Billy Gibbons’ magical car across the Atlantic and, in a moment I’ll freely admit made me weep, a surprisingly old-looking Booth, heartbroken and out of place in his army fatigues, headed back to Afghanistan. [Sidenote: this series' biggest misstep thus far has been its treatment of post-war trauma, so lets hope it remembers Booth is as thick-skinned as they come and won't return in season six with any social disorders or homicidal inclinations.]

It’s not a total bummer though. Five years in and our duo have still managed to successfully stave off a hookup by many different but believable turns. Fans can  gripe, but a fully realized romance between Booth and Brennan will be the death knell for Bones. So as long as the show runners can keep thinking of realistic ways to postpone their fated union, I’m glad to watch.

I hate to be a sucker for the old forensics show x serial killer + conspiracy theory = third season routine, but Bones is playing out this “Gormagon” storyline with an almost Hitchcockian deftness at maintaining suspense. Last night’s episode, “The Knight on the Grid,” picked up the only uncaptured villain in the world of Bones for the first time since the season premiere. He’d been mentioned, and suspected in other murders, but last night we finally saw him. He’s incredibly spry on a motorcycle, and he makes dirty bombs packed with human teeth! He’ll pin a child to the bottom of a pool just to get you off his back! He’s a villainous dynamo the likes of which you’ve never seen before! And considering he’s also two or three different people working together, you’re going to see a lot more of him this season (you know, if there is more). The episode sidetracked a little with Brennan’s ongoing familial issues of crime and parole. It doesn’t make for the most compelling viewing, but it furthers a greater plot and makes our awkward heroine that much more human. I like that Bones is really playing with the formula this season. I’ve always thought they did a good job distinguishing themselves from other procedurals, but they apparently aren’t content with just that.

The episode finished off with a thoroughly annoying montage set to angsty lady rock. I was angry and hurt that this glorious car-bombing, cannibal-chasing, baby-drowning night of Bones would conclude with a slide show of soap opera caliber facial expressions, but then they threw in one last scene: a shot of a spiky-toothed serial killer jumping from a coat closet and onto a lobbyist he no doubt proceeded to eat! It was enough to make me feel emasculated to anyone within earshot and dub “The Knight on the Grid” the scariest hour of TV this season.

Between forced science-speak and annoying FOX programming plugs (even you can’t make me watch Jeff Foxworthy, Boreanaz!), last night’s episode maintained the third season’s surprising increase in awesomeness and offered more than the usual allotment of laughs with gratuitous scenes of horse/jockey role-playing and the thinking man’s Deschanel at her comedic peak (in a hesitant monotone: “Stop! Or I’ll kick you in the testicles!”). Also my assessment/profession of guilt a couple weeks back is looking less unfounded by the episode. Season three of Bones is chock full o’ serial storylines! The search for Angela’s mystery husband continues, we still don’t what the hell happened to Zack in Iraq and Bones and Booth’s broken chemistry has made us completely forget about wanting them to throw down. We just want them to be buddies again!

As you might imagine, this week’s taboo case brought to light yet another subject matter that Booth and Bones do not see eye to eye on. Old-fashioned, romantic Booth thinks fetishes are a dirty way to avoid true intimacy. Rational, woman-of-science Bones thinks some people are wired for kink and doesn’t see a problem with a little role-playing. Did they agree to disagree like every other week? Nope! When faced with Booth’s sweet confessions about relationships and cliché statements about “making love,” even Bones is helpless. Another round to you, Seeley.

“I will not feel guilty for loving a procedural drama. I will not feel guilty for loving a procedural drama…” Oh, hello, you caught me in the middle of a little self-flagellation. After two seasons of religiously watching Bones (FOX; 8PM), I still feel a little shame for adoring a show with such a conventional premise. There’s something about Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz though – they are a whimsical juggernaut of chemistry. Just look at them!

Continuity abounds in tonight’s season premiere with the search for Angela’s estranged husband, mounting sexual tension between our two leads and the inevitable reference to Brennan’s seriously dysfunctional family. Bones is good, occasionally gory fun and is always worth a watch if you’re in the mood to detox from all of those serials you’re obsessed with.

Tonight is also the premiere of Reaper (CW; 9PM) – one of the few new shows this season that seriously deserves to be required viewing. I had so wanted to leave CW behind with their anticlimactic execution of Veronica Mars, but there’s no denying the appeal of a hilarious cast and well-executed, lighthearted science fiction. Check out my original review of the pilot here; the only noticeable difference in tonight’s episode will be the swapping of Nikki Reed for the much more interesting Missy Peregrym in the role of Andi. Here’s hoping Reaper is the first new CW show to actually garner an audience. Gossip Girl certainly wasn’t.

HIMYM isn’t the only show jumping on the social media bandwagon. In an attempt to woo new viewers, Bones made eight MySpace pages for characters that’ll show up in a May 8th episode. Fox promises that there are enough clues in the profiles for viewers to figure out the identity of the victims and the killer before the episode even airs. In what seems like an open, marathon game of Clue, each character has a slew of photos, friend comments (from the other characters!) and their own blog. Each page is being updated several times weekly. Now, as much as I like Clue, I really don’t want to read Colonel Mustard’s blog. I just want someone to tell me he didn’t do anything shady in the Library and be done with it. The whole attempt is admirably ambitious but a little foolish. The online attention span of Americans is far too short for an endeavor of this scale.

I love me some Bones, but isn’t the allure of these procedural shows being able to turn your brain off for a non-serialized mystery? Bones has always been different because it manages to be charming and sporadically hilarious despite operating under the guise of a CSI knockoff. It’s enough to keep me watching, but it’s not an experience I care to take much further.