| “ | Look, I barely remember him. I was taken out of Serbia by the Red Cross and I was placed with a family here. As far as I'm concerned, those are my parents! That man, Radik? That man wasn't my father. | „ |
| ~ Mark Kovac's insecurity. |
| “ | Did you kill my father, Agent Booth? | „ |
| ~ Kovac to Agent Booth of Radik's murder. |
Mark Kovac, also known as The Son of Radik, is the final antagonist of the 2005 FOX crime-comedy TV-series Bones, who served as the main antagonist in Season 12.
He was a Emergency Medical Technician who became a serial killer by torturing FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth's former associates in the army, including innocents who were involved in their lives to hunt Booth. His actions were part of his revenge against Booth for assassinating his father in front of him at the age of six on his own birthday, who was an infamous war criminal back in Serbia.
He was portrayed by Gerardo Celasco.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- He rampaged into serial killing by seeking Seeley Booth's former associates, and even those from the war he fought with. In this process, he used his sister Jeannine's old real-estate listing for places where he would torture and mutilate his victims. His rampage in the present made a significant toll on Booth's post-army life by:
- Torturing ex-priest Aldo Clemens in an abandoned record studio by tying him with tape on a table, forced the rats in the cage to burrow into his ribs, to the point where Aldo had to sacrifice himself by fracturing his neck on impact to the edge of the table, withholding Booth's name. He later dumped Aldo's body onto a picnic site, and tied a balloon onto him, signifying the events of his own tragic backstory.
- Torturing innocent elderly woman Margaret Kwan extensively in an abandoned gym until she gave up Michael Reiss's name, to where he slit her throat since he got what he needed.
- Torturing Reiss extensively in the same abandoned gym, this time for fun and used the defibrillators to keep him alive until he died of a heart attack.
- Not to mention, all these tortures were so brutal that Arastoo Vaziri and Dr. Jack Hodgins indirectly described him as "certainly sick and dangerous" because he aligned with the concept of the dark tetrad, where he's associated with narcissism, sadism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy.
- He installed IED explosives inside the abandoned record studio to destroy the evidence left behind of Clemens's torture and murder, so that when Booth and Brennan arrived to the scene, the explosives activated and attempted to blow both of them up as they escaped from the building.
- He sent two of his late father's bodyguards, Goran Milovic and Andre Belgrader, to storm the safe-house containing Dr. Temperance Brennan's father and Booth's father-in-law Max Keenan and their children Christine and Hank Booth, using Keenan's new pacemaker to locate their whereabouts prior to visiting the FBI to attempt clearing his name off the suspect list upon meeting Booth.
- This attack not only killed the redeemed Keenan, who succumbed to his wounds after surgery, for saving the kids and other FBI agents from the bodyguards, but also endangered Booth's family, who had nothing to do with his father's death.
- He murdered his prison escape partner Fred Walden after he informed him of his own origin place, which was later used for his retreat rather than keeping him alive to assist him.
- He hired Kyle Capoun to steal Camille Saroyan's Jeffersonian I.D. during her wedding with Vaziri, to access the lab's platform and insert the bombs his sister created. Once he obtained the I.D. from Capoun, he had him killed for his usefulness.
- He stole an entire crate of HMX explosives from an army ammunition plant in Montgomery County, where he supplied his sister the materials to create the other set of bombs to destroy the Jeffersonian Institution.
- He, along with his sister, attempted to kill everyone inside the lab with the bombs, not only Booth but the entire Jeffersonian staff, who were innocents that had nothing to do with his suffering. The building suffered from several of their bomb explosions to the point where the lab had to be majorly repaired and renovated for an unknown period of time, and delayed the progress of the Jeffersonian team to catch him.
- He activated the other bombs himself with the electronic repeater, when Booth disarmed one of the bombs in the platform.
- It was also implied that he controlled and tampered the institution's power by shutting off the lights in the lab, and closing the doors to supposedly lock and kill everyone inside.
- He taped a decoy phone on a moving van to trick the authorities on his whereabouts.
- He fought the FBI authorities back in a firefight at Walden's residence, driving a jeep that struck Booth's hand, rendering him incapable to counterattack until Brennan relocated his arm. He also attempted to kill Booth, Brennan, and Aubrey in the same event by using a sub-machine gun, until Booth regained his aiming mobility to shoot him in the head, before driving into a pile of gasoline drums, engulfing an explosion that incinerates his remains and the vehicle.
- Despite his father being more heinous than him to the point where Booth rightfully, and ordered, had to assassinate him in the middle of his sixth birthday, his own actions are in league with his father's, and did more on-screen dirty work than his sister, who aided in his plans by making the bombs he used to destroy the Jeffersonian Institution.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He had a completely tragic past, as not only did he lose his father in front of him at the age of six on his own birthday, but his innocence from the Serbian war, which is what made him vengeful towards anyone related to his father's assassin throughout his life.
- Years prior to Season 12, Booth mentioned to Brennan that he killed Radik during his son's sixth birthday, and felt remorseful to the fact that his son watched his father die in front of him, and loved him without knowing his true father in life. His tragedy is portrayed sympathetically, even by the heroes who felt true remorse for traumatizing him after the event.
- Flashbacks to 1995 when he was six at Bosnia where he enjoyed his sixth birthday with his father, also shows that he truly did love his father despite him being a war criminal.
- Most of his direct murder victims involve Booth's friends from the US Army, but it becomes minor when he pursued to kill everyone that Booth loved, such as his family or Dr. Brennan, who had nothing to do with his tragedy but be related to his father's killer.
- When Booth mentioned gruesome details to his father's death during his interrogation, he was infuriated about the event, and told Booth to stop. Before that, he insisted that Radik's not the father he knows anymore. This shows his insecurity, because he lied to himself and the authorities that Radik wasn't his true father and that he was a monster, despite that Booth recalled the assassination and he wanted Booth to stop because he went too far.
Trivia[]
- Mark Kovac was primarily a mentioned character in the second to last episode of Season 1, "The Soldier on the Grave," about Radik's assassination by Booth. It became a provisionally significant story twelve years later in Season 12, which showed his heinousness enough to qualify in the first place.
- So far, Mark Kovac is the only Bones villain to be Inconsistently Heinous.
External Links[]
- Mark Kovac on the Villains Wiki
- Mark Kovac on the Bones Wiki
