9 Incredible "Bones" Moments, And What They Meant To John Francis Daley

Put the lime in the coconut... Then start sobbing uncontrollably about Bones.

By
Ariane Lange
by Ariane Lange

BuzzFeed News Reporter

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Dr. Lance Sweets had come a long way in his seven years on Bones. John Francis Daley's precocious psychologist entered as a sort of foil to Emily Deschanel's Brennan and David Boreanaz's Booth — he appeared in just a handful of episodes in his first season on the show, with no guarantee that the character would be integrated into the team. By the time of the character's untimely death in the Season 10 premiere, he was not a foil, but a friend — it is now hard to imagine the Jeffersonian without him. Daley talked with BuzzFeed News about some of his character's most memorable moments over the last eight seasons.

1. Sweets' final words. Season 10, "The Conspiracy in the Corpse."

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Sweets is dying on the floor in a parking lot, but he uses his last breath to comfort Booth and Brennan. "The world's a lot better than you think it is," he says, "It's..." and then he's gone. "It's tough to do last words without it sounding melodramatic," Daley said. "I don't know if I pulled that off." Judge with your own tear-meter.

2. The first scene. Season 3, "The Secret in the Soil."

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The FBI is evaluating whether Brennan and Booth should continue working together, so they bring in a pipsqueak analyst to work with them. That pipsqueak is Sweets, and both Booth and Brennan are dismissive: Booth because of Sweets' youth, Brennan because of Sweets' "pseudo-science."

"I was very gawky and birdlike," Daley said. He explained that it's often awkward for an actor to find himself working on a show that's already been on the air for several seasons, but that wasn't the case on Bones. "The first scene was with David and Emily in my office. ... They were both really friendly and generous. They welcomed me."

3. Coaching Brennan on facial expressions. Season 4, "The Bones That Foam."

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Brennan, who is poor at reading the emotions of others, is getting a private tutorial from Sweets on recognizing facial cues — he mimics expressions and has her guess what he's "feeling."

"I was teaching Brennan how to act more like a human being, and less like a Vulcan," as Daley put it. As one might expect, this is not a test for which she has a natural aptitude. "That was a really fun episode, just the two of us, back and forth."

4. Sweets being ridiculously good at chess. Season 9, "The Master in the Slop."

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The team investigates the murder of a chess master, and Sweets gets to use his mad chess skills to infiltrate an elite chess club. "I had to memorize the moves," Daley said. The actor enjoyed "the fact that I got to do it so nonchalantly." Genius for a day, Sweets.

5. Sweets singing in a band. Season 4, "The End in the Beginning."

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Creator and executive producer Hart Hanson had heard Daley's band, Dayplayer, and asked if they would appear on the show. They're in the convoluted episode that takes place in Booth's coma-delusion, where he and Brennan own a nightclub called The Lab — Sweets is a bartender and singer. "It was a chance to break free from the character that Sweets is established as," Daley said. Dayplayer, though, was named Gormogon in the episode, "unfortunately."

6. Sweets destroying an apartment with sex. Season 9, "The Drama in the Queen."

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Sweets and a new intern have a flirtation throughout the episode, which leads to apartment-destroying sex. "The house looks like it's been ransacked for drugs, or for money," Daley said. "It kind of looked like I was throwing her around my apartment." The really memorable part, though, happened after the filming ended. "On the day, [Laura Spencer and I] were both too uncomfortable" to muster up the proper amount of sex noises. "We ended up looping some guttural moans," he said, noting that the actors recorded their noises separately, which made the experience even stranger. "It's always awkward when you have to loop grunting."

7. Singing the coconut song to mourn Mr. Nigel-Murray. Season 6, "The Hole in the Heart."

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As the team gathers around Vincent Nigel-Murray's (Ryan Cartwright) coffin, Brennan reveals that the late Jeffersonian intern's favorite song was Harry Nilsson's "Coconut." Sweets says, "Seriously? 'Cause that's like — that's my jam," and begins to sing. Everyone joins in.

"It's a ridiculous song," Daley said. "To play it in an emotional moment, I think, was cool, because it goes against expectations." It was difficult, he said, for six actors to get the pitch and the timing right. "It was a little more challenging than one would think, but because I am so musically gifted, it worked," he said.

8. Breakup dance break. Season 8, "The Method in the Madness."

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Brennan tells Sweets he can't move on from his breakup with Daisy until he has celebrated being single, and then she puts on T. Rex's "20th Century Boy" and starts grooving. No one can resist those incredibly unsmooth moves, so Sweets starts jerking his limbs around rhythmically too. "We got to be very dorky. It's fun to see Brennan dance, because it's very dorky, and very reminiscent of my style of dancing."

9. Breakup bowling with Booth and Brennan. Season 3, "The Man in the Mud."

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Sweets walks into the room bereft — he's just been dumped by his girlfriend. Booth immediately invents a bowling date with Brennan and invites Sweets to come with them. Still moping, Sweets says he doesn't want to go, and Booth proceeds to drag his chair out of the building with the psychologist in it. Daley said, "The heartfelt moments of the show, they're undercut by a certain level of goofiness."

Daley left Bones to focus on writing and directing. He called BuzzFeed News from the set of his feature film directorial debut.

John Francis Daley @JohnFDaley

Much love to the cast, crew and fans of "Bones." I grew up with you guys.

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