This is a list of fictional characters in the American police procedural television series Bones. The article deals with the series' main, recurring, and minor characters.
The series' main characters consists of the fictional Jeffersonian Institute's forensic anthropology department staff members Dr. Temperance Brennan, Dr. Camille Saroyan, Angela Montenegro, Dr. Jack Hodgins, and the interns Zack Addy, Clark Edison, Wendall Bray, Arastoo Vaziri, Daisy Wick, and Vincent Nigel-Murray; FBI agents Seeley Booth, Dr. Lance Sweets, and James Aubrey; and the United States Department of Justice prosecutor Caroline Julian.
Character overview Character Portrayed by Seasons 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12Main characters Temperance "Bones" Brennan Emily Deschanel colspan="12" Seeley Booth David Boreanaz colspan="12" Angela Montenegro Michaela Conlin colspan="12" Zack Addy Eric Millegan colspan="3" colspan="2" colspan="5" colspan="2" Jack Hodgins T. J. Thyne colspan="12" Daniel Goodman Jonathan Adams colspan="11" Camille Saroyan Tamara Taylor colspan="11" Lance Sweets John Francis Daley colspan="2" colspan="8" colspan="2" James Aubrey John Boyd colspan="9" colspan="3" Recurring characters Caroline Julian Patricia Belcher colspan="11" Parker Booth Ty Panitz colspan="7" colspan="3" Gavin MacIntosh colspan="10" colspan="2" Russ Brennan Loren Dean colspan="3" colspan="9" Howard Epps Heath Freeman colspan="2" colspan="10" Oliver Laurier Chris Conner colspan="2" colspan="10" Tim "Sully" Sullivan Eddie McClintock colspan=9 Gordon Gordon Wyatt Stephen Fry colspan="4" colspan="6" Marcus Geier David Greenman colspan="3" colspan="9" Max Brennan Ryan O'Neal colspan="11" Alex Radziwill Danny Woodburn colspan="5" colspan="2" Clark Edison Eugene Byrd colspan="2" colspan="10" The Gravedigger / Heather Taffet Deirdre Lovejoy colspan="3" colspan="3" colspan="6" Wendell Bray Michael Grant Terry colspan="3" colspan="9" Colin Fisher Joel David Moore colspan="3" colspan="6" colspan="2" Arastoo Vaziri Pej Vahdat colspan="3" colspan="9" Daisy Wick Carla Gallo colspan="3" colspan="9" Michelle Welton Dana Davis / Tiffany Hines colspan="3" colspan="6" colspan="2" Vincent Nigel-Murray Ryan Cartwright colspan="3" colspan="3" colspan="6" Hank Booth Ralph Waite colspan="4" colspan="3" Paul Lidner Elon Gold colspan="4" colspan="6" Avalon Harmonia Cyndi Lauper colspan="4" colspan="2" colspan="3" Douglas Filmore Scott Lowell colspan="5" colspan="2" colspan="3" Genny Shaw Tina Majorino colspan="5" colspan="5" Michael Hodgins Various colspan="5" colspan="7" Finn Abernathy Luke Kleintank colspan="6" colspan="3" colspan="3" Christine Booth Ali and Suzanne Hartman colspan="6" colspan="2" colspan="4" Sunnie Pelant colspan="8" colspan="4" Christopher Pelant Andrew Leeds colspan="6" colspan="5" Oliver Wells Brian Klugman colspan="7" colspan="4" Rodolfo Fuentes Ignacio Serricchio colspan="8" colspan="4" Jessica Warren Laura Spencer colspan="8" colspan="4" Dr. Beth Mayer Betty White colspan="10" colspan="2" Karen Delfs Sara Rue colspan="10" colspan="2" Notes
Main characters The following characters have been featured in the opening credits of the program.
Temperance "Bones" Brennan Portrayed by Emily Deschanel
Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan (seasons 1–12) works as a forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington, D.C. and is also a best-selling novelist. She is nicknamed "Bones" by FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth. Brennan and Booth work together on Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) cases concerning recently found human remains. Although she is an expert in her field, Brennan is socially awkward and has limited knowledge about pop culture. Her birth name was Joy Keenan, while her brother's birth name was Kyle Keenan; their names were changed by their parents in an effort to protect them from enemies from their past. Brennan's parents left her and her older brother, known as Russ, when she was fifteen. She also thinks herself to be extremely rational. She is not usually (barring a few episodes, such as the "Doctor in the Photo") the one to get the most emotionally attached to the cases and/or the people involved. She and Booth became a couple and have a daughter, Christine, and are later married. In the season 10 episode "The Eye in the Sky", she is revealed to be pregnant again. At the end of season 10, she and Booth quit the team, planning to move away. In the first episode of Season 11, six months have passed and Brennan has given birth to a son named Hank Booth II, after Seeley Booth's grandfather.
Seeley Booth Portrayed by David Boreanaz
FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (seasons 1–12) is the official liaison to the Jeffersonian. A decorated former Army sniper, he frequently consults with Dr. Brennan and her team in his investigations, where his warmth serves as a counter to Dr. Brennan's hard, objective and analytical approach. Booth has, however, shown little hesitation when required to risk his life for his friends, but expresses some reluctance in later seasons; when he's sent overseas in season 10, he states that he's not going to do so again, as he's worried about being killed in combat and leaving his son Parker without a father. At the end of Season 4, it is revealed Booth has a brain tumor causing him to hallucinate. In season 5, Booth admits to Dr. Saroyan that he is in love with Brennan. It is also revealed that he is a direct descendant of presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth, a fact that upsets him greatly. In the season 6 finale it is revealed that Dr. Brennan was expecting Booth's child after they had spent the night together when both were suffering from the death of Vincent Nigel-Murray and slept together. Their daughter Christine was born in Season 7 and the couple marry in Season 9. Later in season 9, after his fighting against a corrupt government group, three corrupt FBI agents are sent to kill him as a warning to the others to stop the investigation. After that fails, he is framed, arrested and imprisoned for murdering the three agents, who were supposedly just there to serve a warrant for his arrest. In the opening episode of Season 10, Dr. Brennan effects his release, but the nightmare continues to escalate, leading to the death of their co-worker Sweets. Following the arrest of the conspirators, Booth remains traumatized and blames himself for Sweets' death. Later in season 10, he rekindled his old gambling habits to cope with his pain, which results in him being kicked out of his home by Brennan. After regaining her trust, he reevaluates his choices and decides that it would be best for his family if he retired from the FBI. He leaves the team along with Brennan, planning to pursue prior job offers. When Season 11 begins it is revealed that Booth now has a son named Hank Booth II, after his grandfather.
Angela Montenegro Portrayed by Michaela Conlin
Angela Montenegro (seasons 1–12) works as a forensic artist at the Jeffersonian Institute and is Brennan's best friend. She changed her name in her late teens, but only one girl, her double-ex, Roxie knows her real name. Angela is the squint squad's team specialist in craniofacial reconstruction and can generate holograms using her three-dimensional graphics program (The Angelatron) to simulate various scenarios of a crime. She is open, friendly and caring, and constantly tries to draw Dr. Brennan out of the lab. She is one of the few Squints known to get emotionally attached to cases, and Brennan later states that when she started working at the Jeffersonian, Angela had to party and have sex all the time to deal with the horror of her job. In the episode "The Man in the Fallout Shelter", it was revealed Angela's father is Billy Gibbons, a member of the band ZZ Top. Her middle name is supposedly "Pearly Gates", which is also the name of Billy Gibbons' 1959 Les Paul guitar. In season five, she marries Dr. Jack Hodgins while in jail for an outstanding warrant. During the ceremony, she whispers her real name to the justice of the peace, though it is never revealed to the viewers. In season 6, we learn that she is pregnant with her first child, a son, Michael Staccato Vincent Hodgins, who was born during the season finale. Following the death of Sweets and Booth's arrest, Angela begins to get sick of the horror of her and her husband's jobs and begins thinking about quitting her job for good and moving her family to Paris. Although they do buy a house there, she ultimately decides to stay after Brennan and Booth leave the team. In "The Life in the Light" it was revealed that her actual name, as displayed on her passport, is Pooky (or Pookie) Noodlin. She never changed it because her father implored her not to, as the name was very important to him.
Jack Hodgins Portrayed by T. J. Thyne Dr. Jack Hodgins (seasons 1–12) is an entomologist, mineralogist and botanist, but conspiracy theories are his hobby. He is one of the more "normal" people in the group and tries to help teach Zack how to be socially competent.
Hodgins' family was extremely wealthy, and he thought he was the last living heir of the Cantilever Group. Hodgins wants to keep his wealth a secret, as he wants to be treated like everyone else. In season 5, he marries Angela Montenegro while in jail for an eight-year-old warrant. His son with Angela, Michael Staccato Vincent Hodgins, was born in the season 6 finale.
In season 8, episode 12 ("The Corpse on the Canopy"), Hodgins loses his entire fortune to Christopher Pelant. Pelant seizes control of a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper and aims it at a girls' school in the Afghan province of Kandahar while simultaneously draining all of Hodgins' financial accounts. He uses the same computer network to do both, forcing Hodgins to choose between saving the school or preserving his fortune, and Hodgins chooses to save the lives of the girls.
Towards the end of season 8, Hodgins and one of Brennan's interns, Finn Abernathy, find the lost recipe for Finn's grandmother's hot sauce, and together they successfully market the product. Hodgins thus recovers some of his fortune.
In season 9, we learn more about Hodgins' family, as he discovers he is not an only child. Hodgins chooses to find a way to help his new family member (a mentally unstable older brother named Jeff) financially, even though Hodgins has lost his family's fortune.
In the season 10 episode "The Eye in the Sky", Hodgins independently creates a shatterproof material after destroying multiple glass beakers during an experiment. During the following episode, he becomes a millionaire again after selling his material to a major company. To make Angela happy, he buys them a house in Paris, but later she convinces him that she's happy where they are. They decide to stay and keep doing what they love at the Jeffersonian. In the episode "The Next in the Last" Hodgins regains the money Pelant stole, but decides to donate it all to charities.
Season 11 saw a major setback for Hodgins in the episode "The Doom in the Boom" when he is one of several people injured by a booby-trapped corpse's explosion. He seemingly has only minor injuries, but later suddenly loses the use of his legs. From this point on in the series, he uses a wheelchair.
Camille Saroyan Portrayed by Tamara Taylor