FoxBones fans, are you losing your minds over the insane twist that came at the end of the show's season 11 finale? Yeah, us too, so we hopped on the phone with showrunner John Collier to discuss everything that went down and why producers decided to bring back a fan favorite character in such a unique way.
Read on to find out how it all came about and what you can expect from the show's twelfth and final season. (Yeah, MAJOR spoilers below, so bookmark this page and read later if you haven't seen the finale yet.)
E! News: How did you decide to bring Zach (Eric Millegan) back into the fold in this particular way?
Collier: We knew we wanted to bring Zack back. We knew that we were not going to end the series without bringing Zack back. It's important to the fans, it's important to the character, it was important to us. Something we really wanted to do. The question was when the series would be ending. Once we got definitive word from Fox that they were giving us these 12 episodes to wrap up the series, then it became a matter of not if but how.
So, how did you decide to bring him back in such an incendiary manner—making him a true villain this time?
You want to keep it interesting and fresh, don't you? [Laughs] We had the story first, and then we thought, any really, really solid story could end in any number of different ways. This one was the freshest, most surprising twist we could think of, and Fox was incredibly supportive of it. That really helped a lot. Everyone got very excited about it. Hart Hanson was very excited about it. Our cast was really on board with it and it just made more and more sense to us. And it leaves us open to really explore things more in season 12.
How did Eric react when you pitched the story to him?
He's thrilled to find some closure for his character.
How do you think fans will react?
Oh, it's going to be huge. [But] if you start to think in advance of what the fans are going to say, some are going to love it, some are going to hate it. My big hope is that they keep on watching because we're really taking it to an interesting and intense place. We have enormous gratitude and respect for them because they've let the creative team determine where the show's going to go. We'd hate to disappoint them but I really don't think it's going to happen.
Do you think this will help bring the series full circle as it winds down?
I wouldn't say full circle as much as the show has evolved and we're concluding it. We're not bringing it back to where we started but we certainly want storylines to pay off and to take the characters to a place that we feel is a good place to end it.
What can we expect from the final season?
What I can tell you is that the next season is all about—really, I feel like Hart Hanson, when he created this show, he planted these amazing seeds for the characters, and it's really a matter of harvesting everything he's done. And not just that—there's such strong characters, there's such a strong basic premise to the show that we're able to twist it and make it exciting to further develop it but keep it very, very true to itself. It's really about taking the fans on a journey, taking the show on a journey, and leaving it with what we feel is going to be a very, very satisfying resolution.
What did you think of the Bones finale? What do you want to see in the final season? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!