Compared to your average real-world boss, Bones was positively loving towards her “squinterns,” as she affectionately called her interns (a term that would gradually catch on with the other mainstays at the institute). But again, this is Dr. “Two plus two equals four; I put sugar in my coffee and it tastes sweet” Brennan we’re talking about, so she wasn’t always buddy-buddy or emotionally open with them in the customary sense. Still, by the final season, she had gotten better about actually expressing how she felt when the time came to bid her “squints” farewell, which made for a moving exchange both on- and offscreen.
As Deschanel recalled to Entertainment Weekly on the day the finale aired in 2017:
“There are so many scenes leading up to the finale that got to me, and then scenes in the finale. The last scene with the squinterns — it was really special because I rarely get to see them all together. We’ve all had so many different times, just personally, off camera, and so many things have happened for all of them and for me over the course of working with them over so many years. Carla Gallo started tearing up, and then I started crying […] My character is looking back and thanking them for everything all of their characters have done, so that was an emotional thing on camera and off, and it really allowed us to recognize the importance of that time. And it was the last scene I was going to film with them. […] But the one saying goodbye to the squints, that really got to me.”
Who says Bones could never be a cinnamon roll? All it took was 12 years of hunting down serial killers and couples therapy with Booth.