The 25 best 'Bones' episodes, ranked

Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz in 'Bones' — Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz on 'Bones'. Photo: Richard Foreman/FOX

The Fox crime procedural Bones aired a whopping 246 episodes from 2005 to 2017. The 12-season series follows FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) and forensic anthropologist Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) of the Jeffersonian Institute Medico-Legal Lab as they solve crime cases related to human remains. Their working relationship, which features many debates over the nature of science vs faith, evolves into a romantic one as the series goes on, to the delight of Bones and Booth shippers.

Now that the series has ended, we've selected the 25 best episodes for when you need your Bones fix — ranked in order — saving the best for last.

25. "The Movie in the Making" (season 11, episode 18)

Emily Deschanel and Pej Vadhat on 'Bones'. FOX via Getty Images

Bones: The Mockumentary? This out-of-the-box episode wound up being one of the funniest hours of Bones' later seasons, but it was also a bittersweet retrospective, as the camera crew pushed the Jeffersonian team to look back on the friends they'd lost. And when a segment on what these grown adults want to do "when they grow up" led Cam (Tamara Taylor) to propose to Arastoo (Pej Vahdat), the results were movie magic.

24. "The Pathos in the Pathogens" (season 8, episode 23)

Emily Deschanel and Tamara Taylor on 'Bones'. FOX via Getty Images

The case of a victim with a deadly virus turned personal when Arastoo was infected, leaving the team with only a few hours to catch the killer and save their friend. The tense hour raised the stakes in Cam and Arastoo's budding relationship, and it even paired up Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) and Brennan — an always underrated duo — to concoct an herbal remedy that bought Arastoo more time. But the highlight of the episode was Brennan's bold play to get the murderer to give up the antidote: She stabbed him with a hypodermic needle that she claimed was infected. It wasn't, but if she had the virus, she'd have used it. And she wouldn't have been sorry.

23. "The Santa in the Slush" (season 3, episode 9)

David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel on 'Bones'. Isabella Vosmikova/FOX

Thanks, mistletoe! In the spirit of giving — and blackmail — Bones' second Christmas episode brought fans the first (on-screen) kiss between Booth and Brennan. But there's a lot more to love about this episode than a little gum exchange: As Booth and Brennan both tried to keep their respective families together for Christmas, the hour turned into a sweet defense of the white lies we tell to keep the holidays innocent. Booth also got Brennan a very good Christmas gift. And did we mention that they were investigating the death of Santa Claus?

22. "The Double Death of the Dearly Departed" (season 4, episode 22)

Trust Bones to have this much fun at a co-worker's funeral. Easily the show's most slapstick hour, this episode found the team trying to stealthily investigate a death that looked like murder — while at the guy's wake. Highlights include Cam and Brennan stealing the body and taking it for a little drive, Hodgins making a dramatic toast to distract funeral-goers from the action, a sushi misunderstanding, and Sweets (John Francis Daley) accidentally telling a suspect that murder is "nothing to worry about." As a bonus, Booth and Brennan each got to sing. Guess who was better.

21. "The Knight on the Grid" (season 3, episode 8)

Ryan O'Neal and Emily Deschanel on 'Bones'. Everett Collection

Before the Gormogon arc broke apart the original Jeffersonian team, it gave us this bitingly funny episode (that's a cannibalism pun). The hour swung broadly between drama and dark humor: On the one hand, you've got Sweets making Star Wars references and searching for serial killers on Craigslist, and on the other, you've got human teeth as bomb shrapnel. Meanwhile, the return of Brennan's brother, Russ (Loren Dean), put Booth in a tough spot, but he found a way to honor both his duties to the law, and his loyalty to his partner. As Sweets would say, that's just how he rolls.

20. "The Graft in the Girl" (season 1, episode 20)

Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz on 'Bones'. Carin Baer/FOX

When a bad bone graft infected Amy Cullen (Alexandra Krosney), the daughter of Booth's FBI boss, with a terminal illness, the team raced against the clock to find the source of the graft and to save the other recipients. But it was too late for Amy, a teenage artist who just wanted to fall in love and visit the Louvre. This quietly tragic hour gave Angela (Michaela Conlin) a chance to shine as she designed a virtual reality program that allowed Amy to tour the Louvre from her hospital bed. If you weren't reaching for the tissues and/or planning an international flight by the end of this hour, you weren't paying attention.

19. "The Blonde in the Game" (season 2, episode 4)

Emily Deschanel, Tamara Taylor, T.J. Thyne, Eric Millegan, and David Boreanaz on 'Bones'. Carin Baer/FOX

Heath Freeman's Howard Epps, Bones' first recurring serial killer, knew how to dig his "creepy serial killer hands" into everyone's business, and he pushed Brennan to the edge here. Her exasperation with Epps is sometimes comedic — Brennan really did not understand why anyone would marry this guy — but it turned dark when Epps set up a scheme from inside his prison cell to make Booth kill a man. To save Booth's life, Brennan wound up taking the shot instead. The final scene of the hour is one of Bones' best: Booth comforted Brennan with a tiny plastic pig. This show's reverence for life has never been cuter.

18. "The Con Man in the Meth Lab" (season 4, episode 9)

Emily Deschanel and Brendan Fehr on 'Bones'. Greg Gayne/FOX

Booth's hotshot younger brother Jared (Brendan Fehr) rolled onto the scene in this episode, charmed Brennan into joining him at a White House party, and almost upended the whole show. He tried to convince Brennan that her partner was afraid of success; in reality, Booth was just taking the hit for Jared's mistakes. It's an hour that sheds light on the reasons why Booth never shined a light on himself, which was also why Brennan went out of her way to celebrate him when she came to her senses. The experience pushed Booth to confess a closely guarded secret: His father was an abusive alcoholic.

17. "The Woman in the Sand" (season 2, episode 8)

The first rule of this underground fight club is that you should never stop talking about it. When a murder investigation took Booth and Brennan to Vegas, the pair wound up in their first undercover operation, posing as a couple of hot high-rollers named Tony and Roxie. Brennan found it surprisingly easy to get into character, but Booth — who's forced to fight while trying not to lose his gambling sobriety — wasn't having quite as much fun. At least, like us, he got to enjoy watching Brennan shed her skin.

16. "The Spark in the Park" (season 9, episode 11)

Emily Deschanel and Richard Schiff on 'Bones'. Patrick McElhenney/FOX

The story of a murdered gymnastics prodigy rose and fell on guest star Richard Schiff's subdued performance as her grieving father, a brilliant physics professor fracturing under the weight of a pain he can't express. Fortunately, no one understood that problem like Brennan, who returned to the good professor's office throughout the investigation to offer her support. By the time the episode was done, the professor had charted his daughter's every move in an equation on his chalkboard, and math never looked more like love.

15. "The Killer in the Concrete" (season 2, episode 18)

Ryan O'Neal, David Boreanaz, and Emily Deschanel on Bones (2005). Isabella Vosmikova/FOX

One year after burying her mother, Brennan ran into her fugitive father (Ryan O'Neal) at the gravesite, kicking off this busy, dangerous, and slyly funny hour about family obligations. When Booth got captured in the middle of a case, Brennan put aside her reservations and teamed up with Max to find him; her obligations to her dad might not have mattered to her more than the law, but her obligations to Booth sure did. She even went so far as to "lie her ass off" to the Federal Bureau of Investigation once they knew where to look. Reunited, Booth and Brennan decompressed by singing together at the diner, as partners do.

14. "The Skull in the Desert" (season 1, episode 17)

It would have been a nice field trip to the desert if not for all the murder. After Angela's photographer boyfriend, Kirk (Kevin Paul), went missing in this season 1 episode, Brennan grabbed her sunglasses and caught the first flight out there, and then she talked Booth into doing the same. It turns out Kirk was killed, and as the trio investigated the tight-knit community, Angela worried about a more self-imposed kind of isolation. But it's Brennan who reassured her that she would get another chance at happiness; nothing happens just once. Science sometimes made Brennan seem cold, but here, it was the best encouragement she had to offer.

13. "The Boy With the Answer" (season 5, episode 21)

Emily Deschanel and Deirdre Lovejoy on 'Bones'. Greg Gayne/FOX

The trial of Heather Taffet (Deirdre Lovejoy), a serial killer known as the Gravedigger, opened up old wounds for Brennan, Hodgins, and Booth, all of whom had been on the wrong end of her deadly game in the past. As a final twist of the knife, Taffet got most of their evidence thrown out, then led the Jeffersonian team straight to the body of a boy she killed years ago, forcing them to drop their own charges so they could testify as expert witnesses rather than as victims. This episode offered a peek at the trauma these people channeled into their work, even when justice seemed impossible (because sometimes, it wasn't).

12. "The Woman in Limbo" (season 1, episode 22)

Bones set a high standard with its first season finale, which dug into the mystery of Brennan's missing parents. When a body in bone storage was identified as Brennan's mom, she discovered her parents were bank robbers who assumed new identities when she was a baby, and it took a visit from her estranged older brother for her to learn the name she was born with (Joy Keenan). This episode pulled a lot of rugs out from under Brennan, but Booth and the rest of her co-workers, who dedicated themselves to solving the case, caught her every time.

11. "The Proof in the Pudding" (season 5, episode 12)

Nothing like pulling an all-nighter to investigate the murder of JFK, right? When a group of agents brought a skeleton into the lab and declared that no one was allowed to leave until they determined the cause of death, all signs indicated that the squints were staring at the 35th president of the United States. And that he was shot by more than one gunman. This episode gave conspiracy theorist Hodgins plenty to do (especially when Angela had a pregnancy scare), but it's Booth who had the most to lose. He and Brennan proved how far they had come when he set aside his feelings to get to the truth, and Brennan gave him the kindness of a (probable) lie. Was it JFK? We'll never know. But probably yes.

10. "The Blackout in the Blizzard" (season 6, episode 16)

In this David Boreanaz-directed hour, a citywide blackout stranded most of the team in the lab, giving everyone an opportunity to bust out their old-school science tricks, while Booth and Brennan wound up trapped in his building's elevator. The episode gave the show's two main couples plenty of time to talk, as Hodgins and Angela faced overwhelming news about her pregnancy with optimism and Booth looked back on a rare happy memory with his dad. By the end of the hour, he and Brennan wrote down the date they believed they would get together and burned their papers like wishes. D.C. should get hit with more blizzards.

9. "The Man in the Morgue" (season 1, episode 19)

Scott Lawrence, David Boreanaz, and Emily Deschanel on 'Bones'. Sam Urdank/FOX

Brennan's trip to post-Katrina New Orleans took a turn for the supernatural when she woke up bloody in her hotel room with no memory of the past day. As she and Booth were thrown into a world of voodoo forgetting spells, they discovered that a doctor Brennan was working with had been brutally murdered; Booth proved how much he trusts his partner's innocence when he hid evidence that she was at the crime scene. He also gave Brennan a big speech about why he respects her, and she poked a guy in the eyes when he tried to send her home with a curse. Back at the lab, this was the first episode to hint at Hodgins' upcoming flirtation with Angela.

8. "Two Bodies in the Lab" (season 1, episode 15)

It took Bones more than half a season to put Brennan in the position to need rescuing from Booth, and even then, she kept fighting. In this high-stakes hour, Brennan found herself in the mob's sights, and when she's captured, Booth breaks out of the hospital to find her, leading to a well-earned first hug. But it's the little moments that made the hour, like Booth's attempt to get to know Brennan by rummaging through her music collection. The partners were jamming to "Hot Blooded" in no time. Sure, Booth got blown up right after that, but it's still their song.

7. "The Doctor in the Photo" (season 6, episode 9)

Emily Deschanel on 'Bones'. Adam Taylor/FOX

Bones looked inward in this atmospheric hour, which shook Brennan with her resemblance to an emotionally closed-off doctor who turned up dead. She made the resemblance literal by seeing her own face in the doctor's photo, and as Brennan started to crumble, her co-workers tried to reassure her that she wasn't alone. An exploration of the idea that problems created in our heads are no less real, the episode honored Brennan's fear that she'd be forgotten while repeatedly proving that she wouldn't be.

6. "Mayhem on a Cross" (season 4, episode 21)

David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel, and Stephen Fry on 'Bones'. Greg Gayne/FOX

This episode opened at a rock concert, but its revelations couldn't be quieter. When Stephen Fry's FBI shrink Dr. Gordon Wyatt returned, he unearthed a painful secret from Sweets' past: He was abused as a young boy before being saved by his elderly adoptive parents, who recently died. Gordon encouraged Booth and Brennan to invite Sweets into their lives and compare metaphorical scars, leading Brennan to share a painful story about the abuse she suffered as a foster kid while Booth admitted that his grandfather was the only reason he made it to adulthood. It's an uncommonly sad hour that helped explain what made these people do the work they do.

5. "The Man in the Fallout Shelter" (season 1, episode 9)

Michaela Conlin and Emily Deschanel on 'Bones'. Isabella Vosmikova/FOX

All of Bones' pieces fell into place in its first Christmas episode, which quarantined the team in the lab over the holidays. As they made the best of it with decorations and Secret Santa, they learned more about each other's lives outside of work — like the fact that Booth had a son and Angela's dad was a rocker played by ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons. But the lab was already Brennan's home, and she worked through the holiday to bring good news to an old woman. It's a bittersweet story about loneliness put to good use, and it came to a hopeful conclusion when Brennan, ready for closure in her parents' case, opened the last Christmas presents they ever gave her.

4. "Judas on a Pole" (season 2, episode 11)

Real-life Brennan, Kathy Reichs, makes a cameo appearance in this episode, which introduces Ryan O'Neal as Brennan's dad, Max — not that he'll admit it. Posing as his childhood friend, Max was in town to kill off the people threatening his kids, including a couple of higher-ups at the Bureau. This hour of FBI conspiracies (directed, fittingly, by The X-Files' David Duchovny) got increasingly tangled as Booth was suspended for asking the right questions. As for Brennan, she realized Max is her dad just in time to watch him leave her again, but, as Booth reminded her, there's more than one kind of family.

3. "The Verdict in the Story" (season 3, episode 13)

Bones' best courtroom drama pitted Brennan and her relatives against her work family: Max went to trial, and the Jeffersonian had to testify for the prosecution. None of Brennan's co-workers enjoyed testifying against her father, and Angela even got held in contempt rather than play a part in the conviction. But the boldest move here was Brennan's ploy to get her father acquitted. Taking advantage of the jury's need for a good story, she showed how much she's learned from Booth and how far she was willing to go for the people she loves, framing herself to get her father set free.

2. "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole" (season 5, episode 16)

For its 100th episode, Bones flashed back to Booth and Brennan's first case, and it changed everything. The flashbacks in this Boreanaz-directed hour traced the beginning of a love story: Booth and Brennan, intrigued by one another, got drinks and kissed outside a bar. They didn't waste any time. But they've been wasting time since then because their first stab at a partnership ended badly. In the present, Booth took a leap and admitted that he wants to give their relationship another shot, but Brennan was too worried about hurting him to risk it. The episode rattled the show's foundations, but it doesn't shatter them; after it all, Booth and Brennan still walked off, arm in arm, to solve crimes another day.

1. "Aliens in a Spaceship" (season 2, episode 9)

When Brennan and Hodgins were buried alive by the Gravedigger, it was an hour so tense it needed a countdown clock, and it's widely accepted as the series' best. The science in "Aliens in a Spaceship" was vital, as Brennan and Hodgins tried every trick in the book to stay alive underground while their friends worked every angle to find them. As Booth pointed out after the ordeal, this case depended on every last one of them — not only on their skills, but on their refusal to give up. The hour is packed with standout moments: Brennan turning Hodgins' handshake into a hug, Hodgins and Angela finally getting together, Booth running down that hill and pulling Brennan out of the dirt. And, of course, the letter Brennan wrote to Booth eventually made for a great wedding vow.

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