Seeley Joseph Booth is a fictional character in the American television series Bones (2005–2017), portrayed by David Boreanaz. Agent Booth is the male protagonist of the series. The character made an appearance in the Sleepy Hollow episode "Dead Men Tell No Tales" as part of a two-part Halloween cross-over with Bones.
Character background and history Booth is from Philadelphia but was raised in Pittsburgh, though another episode indicates he had spent some of his childhood in Buffalo. He is a fan of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team; he has pictures of the team hanging on the back wall of his office, has been seen wearing a Flyers T-shirt when off-duty and is known to become extremely annoyed whenever he is interrupted while watching a Flyers game. During many episodes he is seen drinking from a Pittsburgh Steelers coffee mug, suggesting he is also a fan of that football team. In his apartment Booth has a Pittsburgh Penguins hockey jersey of Mario Lemieux, which implies he is a fan of the Penguins. He is implied to be a Philadelphia Phillies supporter as well; in season 8, his mother brings his childhood toy – a miniature Phillie Phanatic stuffed toy – to give to Christine and in season 6, episode 16 "The Blackout in the Blizzard" he acquires a row of seats from the former Veterans Stadium and recounts for Dr. Brennan how he attended game 6 of the 1980 World Series with his father, describing it as the "best day of [his] life". A deeply religious man, he was raised and still is a practicing Catholic, having served as an altar boy during his youth; throughout the series he is often seen wearing a St. Christopher medal, which was given to him by his grandfather before being deployed to Somalia, around his neck. Little is known about his schooling years, though it has been implied that he went through the public school system and he once mentioned attending five different schools by the time he was nine. It is not mentioned where or when he attended college but he has stated that he attended on an athletic scholarship before a shoulder injury ended any dreams of going professional and taught dance to help pay for tuition. He has been an avid athlete and sports fan since his high school days. His home and office walls are adorned with various sports memorabilia including a signed picture of Bruins player Bobby Orr and the jerseys of NHL legends Mario Lemieux and Bobby Clarke.
In Season 3 it is stated that Booth is 35 years old and that Brennan is five years younger than him and, in Season 4 episode The Con Man in the Meth Lab, the "squints" celebrate his birthday. In the episode Women in Limbo of season 1, it is stated that Brennan is born in 1976, which should put Booth's birthday in 1971. Booth mentioned in a Season 5 episode ("The X in the File") that he had watched Rocketship 7 as a child, a show that had ended in 1978. In season 11, Booth (and his brother, Jared) are mentioned as now being in their (early) 40s.
Family Booth is the older of two boys and has a younger brother Jared (Brendan Fehr). Their father "flew Thuds and Phantoms in Vietnam" and moved to Philadelphia where he worked as a barber and eventually started a family. After his death, Booth found a Purple Heart medal among his possessions, indicating he was likely shot down and injured at some point during the war. Their mother Marianne (Joanna Cassidy) was a dancer and composed jingles for television advertisements. Booth is a (fictional) member of the Anglo-American Booth family, best known for producing generations of actors including John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln; because of the latter, Booth does not like to talk about the fact.
For the first three seasons, details on Booth's family background were generally sketchy as he rarely mentioned his family members. He is still uncomfortable discussing his childhood and becomes especially defensive when asked about it. Prior to Jared's appearance in the episode "The Con Man in the Meth Lab", Booth's long-time friend Dr. Camille Saroyan was the only one who knew about his childhood; in the same episode, Sweets observed the brothers and independently came to the conclusion himself that they were products of a physically abusive household. However, it is not until Season 5 when Booth's grandfather Hank is introduced that his abusive background is fully revealed.
In Season 8, Booth bluntly tells Brennan that he "grew up in a household of violence and hatred", one of the few times the character has ever openly spoken of his past. When his younger brother Jared is first introduced, it becomes apparent that Booth was estranged from his family. Their father was an abusive alcoholic; this was reinforced by the fact that Booth is able to almost instantly recognize suspects with a drinking problem even when they are sober. Booth used to protect Jared from their father when he became violent, and was extremely protective of him. The extent of their father's abuse was never fully revealed but based on Booth's vague admissions throughout the show and Hank and Marianne's own statements, it was likely that he was also emotionally neglectful of his ex-wife and sons. One of Booth's deepest fears and insecurities is that he would become like his father, which continues to trouble him to this day. It is implied that their mother was also subjected to abuse by their father as she once mentioned to Brennan that she was thrown down a flight of stairs by her ex-husband. Eventually she left the family out of desperation. In the Season 8 episode "The Party in the Pants", she contacts Booth for the first time in over two decades to invite him to her wedding. The boys were essentially singlehandedly raised by their paternal grandfather Hank (Ralph Waite), whom Booth affectionately calls "Pops". Hank had stumbled upon his son abusing Seeley and drove him out of the house. He calls Booth "Shrimp" as Seeley was a young child then. From then on, he raised his two grandsons as his own. Booth has admitted that he might have killed himself as a kid had it not been for his grandfather.
Military and FBI After losing his athletic scholarship, Booth enlisted in the United States Army. He is at least a third-generation military servicemember—his grandfather, Hank, was an MP veteran of the Korean War and his father was a veteran of the Vietnam War. It is mentioned in season 4 that, prior to Jared's court-martial and dishonorable discharge for stealing evidence to save Booth, "no Booth has ever gotten a dishonorable discharge." Based on facts subsequently revealed throughout the show, he would have served during the 1990s, prior to joining the FBI. He was a sniper in the 101st Airborne Division, 75th Ranger Regiment, and Special Forces. He served in the Gulf War, Somalia, Guatemala, and Kosovo, along with other places. He also stated that he has trained with Delta Force operators and it has been indicated that he has experience in clandestine operations. For a time, he held the record for the longest shot made in combat. In the Season 5 finale, he is shown wearing a 101st Airborne Division combat patch, Ranger and Special Forces qualification tabs, a Combat Infantryman Badge, and Parachutist, Military Free Fall Parachutist, and Air Assault badges. He also has a Pathfinder Badge in his shadow boxes in his office. His achievement and service medals can be seen in the shadow boxes mounted on the wall behind his desk in his office. While in the military, he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal, a Purple Heart, and an Army Good Conduct Medal. He separated from the army at the rank of master sergeant.
In the episode "The Beginning in the End," Booth is approached by a Colonel Pelant and handed a letter from the Secretary of Defense requesting him to return to active duty to train Afghan soldiers at "tracking and apprehending insurgents". He is offered a promotion to sergeant major and a position as an advisor to the Afghan National Army. Although initially reluctant, Booth accepts and is deployed to Afghanistan during the time frame between Seasons 5 and 6 when he, Bones, Angela, and Hodgins leave Washington, D.C. for a year-long sabbatical.
Despite his distinguished service record, Booth is generally reticent about his military service and rarely speaks about it openly, even with Bones. Part of the reason is the classified nature of some his assignments. Bones subsequently discovers that he has been tortured while held as a POW in the Middle East, which Booth never elaborated on and has not been addressed since, after looking at his x-rays. In Season 2, he was kidnapped and tortured with a heated screwdriver by a mobster for refusing to give information and later told Bones that he has been "tortured worse". In Season 9, Bones mentions that he does not throw his socks into the hamper after coming home from work so that his feet stay warm, suggesting that he still suffers from the physical ramifications of the torture he endured. Booth is still haunted by memories from his time in the Army, having lost friends in combat and watched his own buddy bleed to death in his arms. As such, he is noticeably affected when investigating cases involving veterans and was also implied to have stopped attending unit reunions and gatherings in an effort to distance himself from his painful past in the military. It is apparent that he suffers from survivor's guilt, although the term is never used in the show, and his "kill count" is a major sore point and an extremely sensitive issue for him. Former priest and Army chaplain, Aldo Clemens, whom Booth regularly confessed to while he was in the service, told Bones that Booth was the reason why he left the priesthood and decided that God was his "worst enemy" and a "bastard". In the episode "Hero in the Hold," it is revealed that he has blamed himself for the death of his spotter, Corporal Edward "Teddy" Parker (whom Booth named his son after), on a sniper mission, even though Teddy had unintentionally disobeyed orders to keep his head down and was fatally shot as a result. He sought out Sweets for counseling in Season 6 after he was confronted by his former mentor and ex-military sniper-turned-vigilante Jacob Broadsky. Towards the end of Season 1 he confessed to Bones for the first time about the buried guilt of assassinating a man in front of his son, after much persuasion from a fellow veteran, telling her, "It's never just the one person who dies, Bones. [...] With each shot we all die a little bit." In Season 9, when Bones receives a $75,000 advanced check from her book sales and asks Booth what he wants to do with it, he opts to donate it to the Wounded Warrior Project, a charity for injured veterans. In season 12, while working a case involving his former Army buddies, Booth admits to Bones that he had been lucky and was only able to move on with her support.
Booth had a gambling problem which developed as a coping mechanism after leaving the military. According to flashbacks in "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole," he only began to quit after meeting (and subsequently asking out) Bones for the first time while working a case together. As of the series pilot, he has been clean after attending GA meetings and has been able to resist the urge on several occasions when a case required him to be at a casino or a similar environment. In several episodes he can be seen twirling a poker chip (sometimes his GA sobriety chip) or playing with dice. In season 10 he suffered a relapse when a case required him to go undercover to infiltrate an underground gaming ring but managed to get it under control again when Brennan forced him to re-attend GA meetings.