TVGuide.com: In assessing the Zack reveal, many of our readers are tossing around words such as "unforgivable," "manipulative," "cop-out," "illogical"....
[Laughs] The first thing you do, of course, is be delighted they are tossing any words around. They're responding, which is what you want. The really bad response would have been silence.
TVGuide.com: Right. As one reader noted, "what good TV does" is get people talking.
And we certainly did that. There are a bunch of reasons why we did what we did, the most important being that we're going into our fourth season and you want an audience to know that you're not "in a box," that anything can happen. Even though we're half a comedy, you don't want an audience settling in and getting blasé. We knew pre-strike even there would be changes at Bones.
TVGuide.com: Some have speculated that the strike-shortened season chipped away at what could have been a better build-up to the Gormogon arc, laying the foundation for Zack's motivation — such as post-traumatic stress.
That's very good, yes. Initially the plan — and things go through so many iterations — was that we would find that Zack was either the apprentice to the Gormogon, or that he was approached by the Gormogon, rebuffed the offer, and then was killed. Any number of scenarios were explored. But coming back from the strike, we only had two episodes to set things up, and this presented the maximum bang for our buck — "Let's shock everyone" — and that seems to have worked to an extent. I am delighted for our show, and for Eric Millegan, that some people are furious.
TVGuide.com: Anything else you want to say about the finale and Eric's status with the show moving forward?
Eric was a consummate pro about it, and he hated keeping it a secret. He was really worried that his fans would turn against him. But we have not seen the last of him. He won't be in every episode, but Zack has certain talents we can use in a "Hannibal Lecter" kind of way. We can go visit him and he can look at stuff. If my voice sounds light right now, it's because the decision was not made lightly. But we've got to do what we've got to do.