Episode 4 x 11 / Production 4×02
Written By: Queen Carla Kettner
Directed by: Jessica Landaw
For some reason, Cam decides to hire Max for a random job that he apparently didn’t keep for long since we never heard of it again!
BRENNAN: How could you have hired him?
CAM: Your father was the best candidate.
BRENNAN: Well, are you sure? Dad is an excellent liar.
CAM: He’s also an excellent science teacher. I thought you’d be pleased.
BRENNAN: Well, you were incorrect! Is there a probation period?
CAM: Yes.
BRENNAN: Well, what would please me is if you terminate him at the end of that time.
B&B check out a scene where parts of a skeleton are found in a tree. Cue clueless Brennan.
WENDELL: Dead guy’s hyoid.
BRENNAN: “Guy” as in sexually non-specific urban colloquialism, or in reference to the gender normally associated with penis, Mr. Wendell?
WENDELL: Uh…the penis?
Booth discovers Max in the lab.
BOOTH: Your dad works here now?
BRENNAN: Not my idea.
CAM: She wants me to fire him.
BOOTH: Why?
BRENNAN: This is a crime lab! My father is a bank robber and an accused murderer.
CAM: Booth’s killed more people than Max has, and he works here. In fact, Dr. Brennan, you’ve also killed a person. And, I’ll point out, Max was never convicted. So, in the eyes of the law, he’s never killed anyone.
BRENNAN: Why are you defending him?
CAM: Why aren’t you?
BOOTH: He is your father.
BRENNAN: Whose sperm hit whose egg shouldn’t determine who works here.
I mean, Brennan is making some really good points. Why didn’t Cam check with Brennan first or at least give her a heads up her dad would suddenly be there?
Meanwhile, Cam comes to check out Hodgins’ ideas.
CAM: How are you gonna do that?
WENDELL: We could experiment.
HODGINS: Is that what you’re after here?
CAM: You’ll recall I mostly disapproved of your experiments with Dr. Addy.
HODGINS: You didn’t disapprove of the results.
CAM: You have me there, Dr. Hodgins.
Sweets calls Brennan out.
MAX: Tempe doesn’t want me working at the, uh, Jeffersonian.
SWEETS: Why?
BRENNAN: It’s a conflict of interest. We catch criminals, my dad is a criminal.
Why doesn’t anyone understand my point?!
SWEETS: That would be valid.
BRENNAN: Thank you.
SWEETS: If it were your real reason. But it’s not…at the time you abandoned your daughter, 15 years ago, you were a well-regarded science teacher. Now…here you are, basically in the same situation. And subconsciously, she doesn’t want to risk feeling that sense of abandonment and bereavement again.
Cam reveals her secret plan to Angela.
ANGELA: I heard you tried to get Hodgins interested in doing an experiment.
CAM: Let’s just say I planted the seed.
Brennan walks in on Hodgins, Wendell, and Max working on an experiment.
BRENNAN: Dad, what are you doing in here?
HODGINS: Max had a great idea for an experiment.
BRENNAN: Dad, you said you wouldn’t touch evidence!
WENDELL: He’s been very careful not to touch the evidence, Dr. Brennan.
BRENNAN: I’m sorry, Dad, but you’re fired. You took part in a forensic experiment. You said you wouldn’t, but you did, so now you’re fired.
Max and Booth meet up. Max tells Booth he’s fired.
MAX: Can I ask you a question?
BOOTH: Sure.
MAX: You, are you, uh… Are you sleeping with my daughter?
BOOTH: No.
MAX: Why? Are you gay?
BOOTH: No.
MAX: Is she not attractive enough?
BOOTH: Bones is beautiful.
MAX: Is it because of me? Because I killed one man, and we both know he deserved it.
BOOTH: Right, just cut it out, Max, alright, I’ll talk to her. Probably ain’t gonna get anywhere with her, but… I’ll talk to her.
MAX: You’re a good man. And I want that for her.
Time for lunch with Sweets!
SWEETS: Well, in my opinion, it isn’t your father’s presence that’s causing you anxiety, it’s the memory of his absence.
BRENNAN: I can understand quantum mechanics, but I can’t understand you.
MAX: Well, I’ll make it easy. I’m leaving the Jeffersonian.
BRENNAN: Well, you are?
MAX: But I’m staying with you.
SWEETS: He isn’t saying he’s literally staying with you. He’s promising never to abandon you again.
BRENNAN: I’m sorry, but if it wasn’t for that evidence thing, I’d- I’d let you keep your job.
SWEETS: That’s simply not true.
MAX: Hey, it’s all right. We’re good!
SWEETS: Nothing I say has any impact!
They get to heart of the case. The victim was a nanny, and one of his charges was going to get in big trouble.
BRENNAN: So what happened? Did Cal catch you?
ALEXA: He threatened to tell the school.
MR. KING: Why wouldn’t he have just told us?
ALEXA: Cal said you wouldn’t do anything. You never do. He said I had to learn a lesson.
BOOTH: What kind of lesson?
ALEXA: They would have kicked me out of school! Zero tolerance… My friends are at that school! I got the gun out of the garage and I shot him… Mom came home and saw.
MRS. KING: I drove the body to the country house, took it into the woods, and burned it. She’s my daughter, I had to protect her.
MR. KING: No, you did what you always do. Make everything bad go away.
BRENNAN: It’s counterproductive to raise children in a world without consequences.
BOOTH: Well, it looks like little Lexy here is going to have to come face-to-face with some pretty nasty consequences. But not the kind of consequences you’re gonna have to face, Mrs. King.
B&B case wrap up!
BRENNAN: Well, Caroline should charge her as an adult.
BOOTH: She’s 11 years old, Bones.
BRENNAN: Yeah, well, she’s old enough to speak Chinese.
BOOTH: Uh, they don’t take that into account.
As they watch Max, Booth plays the “partner” card.
BOOTH: Don’t fire Max. Let him keep his job. You know, he’s a teacher, he’s not a janitor.
BRENNAN: I can’t overlook the sanctity of the forensic lab, Booth…
BOOTH: Yeah, maybe you can overlook it for me.
BRENNAN: For you?
BOOTH: Yeah. Personal favor.
BRENNAN: What, like a partner thing?
BOOTH: Partner thing.
BRENNAN: I know you, Booth. You’re trying to do me a favor by telling me it’s a favor for you.
BOOTH: No,no, I… I can’t afford that school. I can’t enrich Parker, not with the science thing, but… you can, Max can. Look at my little boy there with your dad.
BRENNAN: Okay. Yes. All right.
BOOTH: Thanks, Bones.
Cam did a lot of interpersonal meddling in this episode. Was she right to:
*Hire Brennan’s dad without asking her first, or at least giving her a head’s up he would be working closely with her?
*Sneakily getting Hodgins to return to conducting experiments, which she still mostly doesn’t approve of?
Is Brennan correct in getting her dad fired because of mostly personal (and also valid practical) reasons?
Was Booth inappropriately using the “partner card” to get Brennan to agree with him and let Max stay?
How long did Max actually “teach science” because I feel that they never brought it up again??
Why did Cam hire a admittedly shady dude to work anywhere near evidence? How did she get Max’s number? Why did that all even happen? LOL
Boots & Blazers 
This episode was written by our Queen Carla Kettner as bnb pointed out.
-I love seeing Max developing a relationship with Brennan, Booth & Parker!
-Haha, Max says to Booth as he goes by him and squeezes his arm “Guns of Steel”
-LOVE the scene where Booth says “Bones is beautiful” to her dad.
-Max is a shipper of these two.
“MAX: You’re a good man. And I want that for her.”
Sara on the BT board said it well with this about the episode;
“We see Parker in this episode (and Booth feels pressure to justify his parenting decisions), the case has two bratty kids involved in the murder, and Brennan has issues with Max being employed by the lab. Because those storylines don’t really extend much past the episode, it feels a little forced to me.
But the end is cute and (at the time) felt like B&B were growing closer together even more. 🙂”
^ It seemed to me that B&B were trying to develop a family type relationship in that end scene.
I don’t think Booth was inappropriately using the “partner card” in the end. He was using the family card…i.e “There’s more than one kind of family” and he wanted that with her.
I think Max taught science very early in his career!