Hart Hanson’s “Bones” brought the surprisingly entertaining art of forensic anthropology to Fox viewers’ living rooms for a respectable 12 seasons. In fact, the show was so loved that a potential Season 13 has been in the hopes and dreams of the people involved (and, of course, the show’s fans) ever since the “Bones” series finale that almost had Emily Deschanel crying aired in 2017.
Over its run, “Bones” became known for many things, from its clever and often surprisingly brutal cases to the ever-evolving chemistry between main characters Temperance Brennan (Deschanel) and Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz). Another staple of the series is its complex and chilling serial killer villains — but if you ask Hanson, “Bones” could have done without them. In fact, he’s made it clear that Fox browbeat him into adding these bad guys to the show. “You would have noticed over the years in ‘Bones’ that we tried, as much as we could, to make you a little bit sympathetic to the killer, like ‘I would have killed that person, too,’ and serial killers don’t have that,” he recounted to Gold Derby. “So I have no interest in them. I’m the first one to admit any time you see a serial killer in ‘Bones,’ I’ve been bullied and forced and cajoled into it.”
One of the show’s most iconic serial killers was a notable exception, however. Hanson was legitimately thrilled to bring in the terrifying Gravedigger, whose modus operandi was to bury people alive in cars and other small containers and hold them for ransom. But what set this villain apart from the others of their ilk in Hanson’s eyes?
Hanson came to understand Gravedigger’s full potential
The showrunner’s personal fears and anxieties are a big part of his fascination with the Gravedigger. “I would betray national secrets if someone buried me in a small enough thing,” he told Gold Derby. Even then, the original plan was to make the Gravedigger a one-off villain for the Season 2 standout episode, “Aliens in a Spaceship.” In this scenario, the Gravedigger would have been Julie Ann Emery’s Janine O’Connell instead of Deirdre Lovejoy’s Heather Taffet. However, Fox had pushed for the show to include a longer serial killer storyline, and Gravedigger fit that bill perfectly.
“Oh, this serial killer thing is working. We want to see this again. It’s scary,” Hanson said, explaining how he became aware of the Gravedigger’s potential. “You’re going so quickly [during a TV season] that if something’s working, let’s exploit it for everything we can. The other idea I had was that kidnappers and blackmailers always get caught in real life, and especially in TV and movies, because they negotiate. I thought, what if we removed that storytelling trope from this? There’s no negotiations with this person. None.” This realization led to the Gravedigger’s chilling method of burying her kidnapped victims and releasing them only if the ransom is delivered within a set time limit. “So here’s the nightmare of being buried alive, and then a kidnapper who you can’t catch,” Hanson said, breaking down the double threat the Gravedigger posed.
For fans who enjoyed “Bones'” serial killer arcs, it proved to be a good thing that Hanson was intrigued by the Gravedigger. After all, it made the leap from making her a one-off villain to turning her into a more formidable enemy ever so much easier.
The Gravedigger’s serial killer arc was instrumental to many iconic Bones stories
Another element that weighed into the decision to make the Gravedigger a recurring serial killer villain was simple and involved far less meddling from the network. Hanson felt that the killer’s arc would have been far too predictable if it had been solved during “Aliens in a Spaceship,” considering how “Bones” typically built its episodes.
“Looking at [the script as a one-off], who’s not going to know this is Janine?” Hanson explained. “We kinda made a deal with our ‘Bones’ audience early on, which was the killer would not come out of nowhere. You’d have seen them. We’re not pulling a fast one on you. One of these people did it. And what a dumbass idea! Because 246 episodes of trying to keep people from guessing who the killer is when the killer is in the show? Oy! If you start going, ‘Yeah, we’re going to know it’s her,’ then better to turn that person into a red herring than the actual person.”
Of course, the Gravedigger wasn’t the first serial killer to appear on “Bones” — that would be super-intelligent manipulator Howard Epps (Heath Freeman) from Seasons 1 and 2 — nor was she the last. Hanson’s explanation makes it clear that the decision to expand the Gravedigger’s story was instrumental in establishing the multi-episode serial killer arc pattern, which the show would continue to use to great effect with villains like the Gormogon (Laurence Todd Rosenthal) and the Puppeteer (Ravi Kapoor).
