Angela Montenegro

Infobox character
colour = orange
name = Angela Montenegro


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first = "Pilot"
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gender = Female
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occupation = Forensic artist
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family = Billy Gibbons (Father)
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portrayer = Michaela Conlin
creator = Hart Hanson

Angela Pearly-Gates Montenegro is a fictional character in the television series, "Bones". She is portrayed by Michaela Conlin.

Brief character history

Angela Montenegro is a specialist in forensic facial reconstruction at the Jeffersonian Institute, frequently working with Dr. Temperance Brennan, who is her best friend. In addition to her artistic talents, she is obviously quite intelligent, developing, maintaining, and improving the lab's 3-dimensional graphics and computer simulation system. Angela Montenegro is not her birth name, but rather it came to her in a dream when she was younger and she changed her name to it on her eighteenth birthday. Her birth name has yet to be revealed.

Like the other characters in the series, Angela's background is revealed in various subplots as the series progresses. Little is known of her family, although it was revealed that she is the daughter of Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top and that she is half Chinese. Apart from this and the parade of faces and anecdotes from her love-life, not much is known of her background.

It is revealed that at one point, she married in a fire-water-influenced ceremony in Fiji. She was unsure whether the marriage "stuck" (was legal) and had no knowledge of where her husband was after the ritual. It was revealed on the last episode of the second season that the U.S. State Department considers the marriage valid, and halted her impending marriage to Hodgins.

Angela once was asked by Jack Hodgins on a date. She broke it off and went back to being just friends because she was afraid that if things get "messy", it would affect their co-workers negatively. Later, after he was found after being buried alive, they kissed, and at the end of the episode they went home together. Additionally, Angela asked Hodgins if she could sleep at his place one night after being spooked by restored video footage. Angela and Hodgins became romantically involved again and in "Glowing Bones In The Old Stone House" (2x21), Angela proposes to Hodgins after refusing his two marriage proposals. Their wedding is cut short in the season two finale when it is revealed that Angela is technically married to the man from Fiji, Grayson Barasa.

During Season 3, both Angela and Hodgins attempt to locate Barasa, even going so far as to hire a private detective, and he is eventually found. However, he refuses to give Angela the divorce, and she and Hodgins are left with nothing they can do.

In Season 4, Barasa comes to Washington, D.C., and gives Angela her divorce. However, due to Hodgins' overprotective and distrusting behavior, she feels it would be better if their engagement were canceled.

Characterization

Throughout the series, Angela Montenegro is described as a "free spirit", "good-time girl" and is a "wild-child" at heart. Season 2, Hodgins was quoted as saying Angela "was the heart of the team." She is the center of life and passion in the team, although not quite of normalcy and stability. While she may not exhibit the same social traits as her colleagues, she is well suited intellectually to the team. Angela also provides a sense of balance to the team as a whole. While Hodgins, Brennan, and Addy all have science deeply ingrained into their thought patterns, Angela is an artist at heart. In one episode she is even quoted as saying "this time, art made science her bitch". Early on in Season 1, she considered leaving the Jeffersonian, feeling that her work was unimportant, and that she was unsure if she could handle the graphic nature of the work done there. While every member of the team tried (in vain) to convince her otherwise, it was Dr. Goodman, the director of the Jeffersonian, that managed to change her mind. He spoke of the vital importance of her work in the respect that it provides an element of humanity to the victim; she gives a face to the victim, returning their identity. This rather emotionally provocative description by Dr. Goodman seemed to satisfy Angela.

She is open, friendly, and caring, seeming to have taken on a nurturing role in the team. She is the best friend of Dr. Brennan and constantly tries to draw her out (referring to her as "Sweetie"). She acts as an adviser and "social coach" to Zack. Her rapport with Jack seems to be that of a colleague, the two of them being the closest to socially normal within the team. Her appreciation for the well-scrubbed appearance of Seeley Booth is obvious.

Her personality according to her coworkers is "quirky" which she seems to be aware of herself. In fact, it is revealed in season three that Angela Montenegro is not her real name; she changed it when she was 18 after the name came to her in a dream. She once told Dr. Brennan, "I don't know how to talk to crazy people unless I'm dating them." ["The Woman in the Tunnel", "Bones" Season 1 Episode 16.] She is also the most socially sophisticated of the team, especially on matters pertaining to love and romance. Rarely an episode goes by when her sexual expertise does not come up in some conversation with the team. She was once advising Zack Addy on a sexual relationship and told him to "reap the benefits of my sexual wisdom Z-man." She also frequently shows attraction to a man who turns out to be guilty of the crime they are investigating.

She has also frequently visited many places, particularly islands. In one episode it was revealed that, over the past eight years, she has lived at twenty-five different addresses in six different countries. She has also made mention of going to Jamaica, and was once a magician's assistant during which she states that she was often sawed in half.

References