The Beaver in the Otter (4×24)

“The Beaver in the Otter”

Episode 4×24 / Production 4×18

Written By: Scott Williams

Directed by: Brad Turner

There has been a murder on a college campus. But besides that, Jared is back.

BOOTH: Dishonorable discharge?

JARED: Court Martial convicted me of misuse of authority and theft of government property.

BOOTH: No Booth has ever gotten a dishonorable discharge.

JARED: Uh yea. No Booth has ever had to save his brother from an insane kidnapper.

Yeah, he did help.

BOOTH: Sorry.

JARED: I owed you for digging me out of crap my whole life.

BOOTH: You’re gonna need a job.

JARED: Well, I joined the navy when I was 17, so a job, that’s what civilians refer to as duty, right?

BOOTH: Look, hey, I’ll help you find a job.

JARED: I saved your life, you find me a job, yeah that seems fair.

They investigate the college kids. Booth explains his views on fraternities.

BRENNAN: They keep track of sexual conquest with stars on the wall?

SWEETS: It’s emotionally stunted..

BOOTH: Guys, it’s a college fraternity.

BRENNAN: They seem like really terrible people.

BOOTH: They’re college kids, ok, it’s their job description to be bad, it’s what they do.

SWEETS: Yeah, but still, a community of young man mutually supporting bad decisions.

BOOTH: Look, these kids, they go out into the world, they’re alone, they have no supervision, they have to be bad just in order to figure out what it is, you know. Scientific fact, their frontal lobes are the size of raisins.

BRENNAN: No, that is not a scientific fact.

BOOTH: What they gotta do is build their frontal lobes, with exercise, ok and that comes from doing the wrong thing.

SWEETS: Ok, so your theory is, you gotta be bad to be good?

BOOTH: Exactly, facts of life, my friend.

Booth and Jared connect.

BOOTH: Listen, I got you a job interview.

JARED: Yeah?

BOOTH: Ya, an army buddy of mine up in Pittsburgh is looking for someone to head up its criminal intelligence unit.

JARED: You found me a job in less than 24 hours? 

BOOTH: Just an interview. You want to use my car?

JARED: No.

BOOTH: Jared, you can’t show up to a job interview on a bike!

JARED: Seeley, I’m not going to the interview.

BOOTH: Why?

JARED: ‘Cause I don’t want a job. I’m gonna take this thing and I’m going in a trip.

BOOTH: Oh, you’re going on a trip? Where?

JARED: I’ve always wanted to see India, without, you know, spying on Pakistan.

And now, a lesson in slang.

BOOTH: A cougar is an older woman who prefers younger man.

BRENNAN: Wouldn’t that indicate that every woman is a cougar?

BOOTH: Thanks for the insight there, Bones.

Sweets notes Booth is upset and asks him what’s wrong. Booth explains about Jared.

BOOTH: I set up a perfectly great job interview for him, but instead he decides he just wants to travel across India on his motorcycle. Yeah, that’s right, talk about a narcissistic dependence on stupidity! SWEETS: ‘K, I’m gonna suggest that you’re jealous of your brother’s decision.

BOOTH: I don’t want to go to India.

SWEETS: You feel trapped here by the responsible nature of your job, your interpersonal relations.

BOOTH: What?

SWEETS: Whereas Jared is completely free.

BOOTH: I am free! Free as a bird, free to do whatever I want!

SWEETS: Yeah, what you’re not free to do is control your brother’s life.

BOOTH: Control Jared? Good luck with that one!

SWEETS: It’s not for a lack of trying. Of course, you could always get a motorbike and go with him. BOOTH: A motorbike? A motorbike is used for people who deliver pizzas in Amsterdam.

Jared asks Booth to go with him to India. Booth checks in with his partner.

BOOTH: Jared wants me to go to India with him.

BRENNAN: Are you going?

BOOTH: We don’t like each other.

BRENNAN: So…not going?

BOOTH: I mean, he’s my brother, so I love him.

BRENNAN: I’m confused, you are going?

BOOTH: I mean, Jared should not go to India alone, he’ll get in all kinds of trouble.

BRENNAN: You said he’s never been alone.

BOOTH: Exactly, you know what? He’ll get eaten alive.

BRENNAN: If you go with him, then he won’t be alone, you won’t let him be bad and his frontal lobe will always be the size of a raisin, that’s what you said. Makes no scientific sense.

BOOTH: Yeah, I said that…got it.

Wow, she listened to me!?

They find out the death was accidental, with a nail gun. Back to Jared!

JARED: You think it’s a good idea for me to go to India.

BOOTH: Yeah, I do, alone. Our whole lives, as kids, I was always standing behind you. Or you had the Navy stand behind you, but this time, y’know, I think you should stand alone. You don’t need your big brother.

JARED: So, come as a friend.

BOOTH: We both know, I’m not your friend. I’m your big brother.

JARED: Yup.

BOOTH: Alright, right, so, got you something.

Is it new? Is Booth telling the truth?

JARED: It’s Grandpa’s St. Christopher’s medallion.

BOOTH: Noo, no. It’s a new one. I got you that.

JARED: Seeley, it looks like the one Grandpa gave you.

BOOTH: Nooo, Grandpa gave me mine when I was shipped out to the rangers. This one, I’m giving to you. Patron Saint of Travelers. It kept me safe in Somalia; let’s hope it does the same for you in India. Wear it around your neck.

JARED: I don’t know man, am I alone if I take a Saint with me?

BOOTH: You’re not alone.

Booth and Brennan practice brain development.

BRENNAN: So, uh, do you…do you really think you have to be bad to be good?

BOOTH: Yeah, I do.

BRENNAN: Well, I’ve never done anything bad.

BOOTH: I believe you.

BRENNAN: I mean, I’ve made mistakes, of course, but I’ve never purposely done anything bad.

BOOTH: And I believe you.

BRENNAN: I don’t want my frontal lobe to be a dried up raisin.

BOOTH: You know what? We’re going to do something bad now!

Like letting-ice-cream-melt bad?!

BRENNAN: What?

BOOTH: Have you ever dined and dashed? You know the concept, right? We’re gonna run outta here without paying the bill.

BRENNAN: No…That’s stealing.

BOOTH: That’s why they call it bad. We’re doing something bad.

BRENNAN: No! No! I can’t…really?

She’s so, so, so cute here!

BOOTH: Come on.

BRENNAN: No!

BOOTH: One.

BRENNAN: Are you serious?

BOOTH: Two.

BRENNAN: Oh my God!

BOOTH: Three…go, go go!

BRENNAN: No no oh! We’re bad. We’re bad!

BOOTH: Get in the car!

BRENNAN: Woohoo! We’re baaaaad!

Questions:

What do you think about Booth/Jared in this episode? Jared did finally stick his neck out for Booth back in “HitH”, so is it cool that he blows off the job opportunity? Is Booth being too “mother hen”? Is Sweets right?

And how adorable is Brennan in the end? And of course, how sweet Booth is to let her feel “bad” while sneakingly leaving the money anyway.

The Girl in the Mask (4×23)

“The Girl in the Mask”

Episode 4×23 / Production 4×17

Written By: Michael Peterson

Directed by: Ian Toynton

Brennan is trying to decide which squintern to hire.

BRENNAN: Well, I’ve decided to take your opinion into account as I make this decision.

BOOTH: Really?

BRENNAN: I’m making an effort.

BOOTH: Well.

Aw, he’s pleased.

Booth’s friend from Japan asks him to help find his missing sister.

BRENNAN: When were you in Japan?

BOOTH: A few years ago on an exchange program with the Tokyo police. Nak’s a great guy, man. He and his sister, you know, they made me feel like family.

BRENNAN: But he’s overprotective?

BOOTH: He worries. Every parent does.

BRENNAN: But he’s her brother.

BOOTH: Raised his little sister after his parents died. That makes him a parent.

They find a body that may be Ken’s sister. As they investigate, Brennan gets to know Booth’s friend more.

NAKAMURA: I owe you for talking Booth out of sending me home.

BRENNAN: Wasn’t me. Booth is a very empathetic man.

NAKAMURA: Yes. Are you aware how we met?

BRENNAN: Um, some kind of exchange program?

NAKAMURA: Hai. Most of the FBI agents showed up and started telling us how to handle our organized crime problem. Booth said nothing. Two, three days, just listening.

BRENNAN: He was quiet? That…that does not sound like Booth.

NAKAMURA: Then he asked a question. He asked, “How would you gentlemen handle our organized crime problem?” He was respectful.

BRENNAN: That is the basis of your friendship?

NAKAMURA: That, and a situation incited by a gallon of sake, a police boat, and Uraga Harbor at dawn.

NAKAMURA: You’re a lucky woman, Dr. Brennan.

BRENNAN: To work with Booth. I know.

NAKAMURA: To work with Booth. Yes.

For some reason, we have a dumb B plot line where they argue over a Japanese doctor’s gender.

ANGELA: Hey. So, I googled Tanaka. 300 hits, all Japanese, none with a personal pronoun.

HODGINS: Maybe we should just ask her.

ANGELA: Him.

SWEETS: You people can identify human remains based on a tiny little finger bone, but you can’t judge the sex of a person standing right in front of you? Does nobody else see the irony in this?

HODGINS: Of course. But, as a scientist, I also see the challenge.

SWEETS: Well, Dr. Tanaka identifies with a subset of an urban Japanese aesthetic known as kei. It glorifies androgyny.

HODGINS: Well, mission accomplished there, Dr. Tanaka.

ANGELA: You know, I think you’re probably right. We should just ask him.

HODGINS: Her.

B&B are back out in the field.

BOOTH: James Sok, right? Elegant Escorts?

SOK: Yeah. So? I run a legitimate business.

BOOTH: You’re a pimp. I don’t like pimps.

BRENNAN: He really doesn’t.

BOOTH: No.

Brennan and Ken talk again.

NAKAMURA: She was beautiful, wasn’t she?

BRENNAN: Yes, she was. A beautiful young woman.

NAKAMURA: Which is probably why she came to America. She felt like a woman and wanted to be rid of a big brother watching her all the time.

BRENNAN: My parents left me and my brother when I was 15. My brother was the only family that I had then. But he walked out on me, too.

NAKAMURA: I’m sorry.

BRENNAN: I turned out quite well, actually. But it would’ve been nice to have had a brother like you. According to the FBI logs, she called you every day, often twice a day. And the conversations… never were less than five minutes and averaged 15 minutes.

NAKAMURA: This has meaning for you?

BRENNAN: Objectively speaking, it would indicate a, an irrefutable desire to connect. A deep and abiding love.

NAKAMURA: I cannot imagine never talking to her again.

BRENNAN: I myself have no one in my life whom I talk to that much. Outside of work, I mean. Perhaps that is good.

NAKAMURA: How so?

BRENNAN: I can see how much pain you’re in.

BRENNAN: Is it worth it? To have your own happiness so contingent upon another human being?

NAKAMURA: If I was willing to give up my life for Sachi… why would I not be willing to risk my happiness for her?

The escort guy and a photographer were in on the murder. Ken’s sister was trying to protect her roommate from them.

SOK: One day, that girl Sachi barges into Vogler’s place, screaming, saying she was going to call her cop brother if Vogler ever touched her friend Nozomi again. Vogler pushes her into his koi pond, holds her down, just to shut her up. Idiot kills her. He paid me to clean up the mess. So yeah, I put the girl’s head in Nozomi’s apartment. And Nozomi took off, like I knew she would. I had a business to save. But I didn’t kill anyone. It was Vogler.

Wrap up time.

NAKAMURA: And Sachi can rest with our parents. If the teachings are correct, she will be reborn, and Sok and Vogler will have to answer for their actions.

BRENNAN: That… is highly improbable. But I hope that it’s true.

NAKAMURA: I am forever in your debt.

Booth celebrates with ice cream.

BOOTH: There, huh? It’s good for what ails you.

BRENNAN: Usually in this situation, we’d have alcohol.

BOOTH: Which is exactly why we should do this, okay, from time to time.

BRENNAN: Will he recover? Your friend Ken?

BOOTH: From losing his sister? Um… well, you don’t recover from something like that. You just survive.

BRENNAN: People die. There’s a fault in the design if we can’t recover from it.

BOOTH: “Fault in the design?” What are we, coffee pots?

BRENNAN: No, I just mean that we should be designed so that we can handle the worst.

BOOTH: We are designed that way. We aren’t sent anything that we can’t handle.

BRENNAN: I’m not convinced that loving someone is worth it.

BOOTH: I got a son, and it’s worth it.

BRENNAN: Even if he died?

BOOTH: Whoa. Bones, don’t even say anything like that. Don’t even put that out there. It is worth it, and everything around it is worth it. Every moment, everything… is worth it, so eat the ice cream before it melts.

BRENNAN: I wish it was beer.

BOOTH: Right. You know what? Okay. You’re right.

BRENNAN: Now, this is what I’m talking about.

BOOTH: Good. We agree to understand that this is worth it.

 

*Besides the pointless and useless B plot, I liked seeing Booth with a friend and learning more about him pre-Brennan.

*I like how Brennan was wanting Booth’s input as to choosing a squintern and his quiet pleasure about knowing she wants his opinion.

*It is interesting how Brennan and Ken bonded over family. Maybe B&B now have Ken over for dinner at their place when he’s in America?

The Double Death of the Dearly Departed (4×22)

“Double Death of the Dearly Departed”

Episode 4×22 / Production 4×16

Written By: Craig Silverstein

Directed by: Milan Cheylov

The team apparently must attend a man’s funeral who worked at the Jeffersonian.

BRENNAN: They say cause of death was cardiac failure resulting from a congenital defect.

BOOTH: You’re not gonna talk like that when we get there, right?

BRENNAN: Like what?

BOOTH: You know, it’s a wake, Bones, it’s not a crime scene. You know, “Hey I’m sorry for your loss.” “How are you holding up?” Stuff like that.

BRENNAN: I know, I just don’t agree with the social convention which requires us to attend a day long grieving ritual simply because the deceased worked at the Jeffersonian.

BOOTH: Try not to say “the deceased.”

SWEETS: Grief can be very difficult to process so, if anyone needs to talk…

BOOTH: That’s why they have booze, Sweets. Right?

BARNEY REILLY: Hank said you worked at the museum, but I didn’t think you’d be here. I- I’m Barney, Hank’s brother.

BOOTH: (whispering to Brennan) I’m sorry for your loss.

BRENNAN: I’m sorry for your loss.

Brennan notices something is wrong with the body and tells Booth she wants to investigate.

BRENNAN: Did you get the injunction?

BOOTH: No, the judge turned us down.

BRENNAN: But why?

BOOTH: Why? Because both the paramedics and the medical examiner said that Reilly here died of heart failure. No evidence of translation.

BRENNAN: But I am contradicting them. My record and credentials…

BOOTH: Okay, look, the judge said he didn’t want to grant a request to an author of pulp mystery books just because she wanted to get a little free publicity. There, I said it.

BRENNAN: That man is a fool. They are not pulp.

Brennan confronts the undertaker about suspicious bruising and broken ribs not listed in his report.

FRANKLIN: The infusion of embalming fluid increases the stainability of bruises on the dermis. A bruise not seen immediately postmortem often presents itself post-embalming.

BOOTH: Okay, is it good enough for you?

BRENNAN: What about the rib breaks?

FRANKLIN: Rib breaks and sternum cracks, which I noted in his file, were the result of Dr. Reilly’s assistant attempting to revive him with CPR after finding him unconscious in his office. May I go? I have more work to do.

BRENNAN: Those are not the ribs that would break during CPR.

BOOTH: Maybe she was just bad at resuscitation.

BRENNAN: No, Booth, this is translation. We need to do a full examination of the body at the lab.

BOOTH: But we do not have an injunction.

In one of the weirdest Bones scenarios of the series, we see B&B taking out the body.

(See the Gravedigger/grabbing Booth thing doesn’t make any sense! You need two people….I digress. Let’s move on.)

The team figures out something weird about the victim’s situation.

BRENNAN: So, Hank Reilly had a heart attack, was declared dead by the paramedics and the medical examiner, and then sent to an undertaker…

CAM: Where he was stabbed to death.

FRANKLIN TUNG: It was late. Everyone had gone home, and the body had just come in. I had cleaned and disinfected him, and was about to administer the pre-injection to flush his veins before I began the arterial embalming. I went in through the right femoral artery. And suddenly – WHAM – His eyes opened. His body jerks up and spasms.

CAM: You panicked and stabbed him?

FRANKLIN TUNG: It was a reflex. I…Have you seen those zombie movies? They can really warp you.

BOOTH: Listen, Cam, how is it that a guy can appear dead to two sets of medical professionals

BRENNAN: There are several forms of paralysis which mimic death.

CAM: Embalming would have destroyed any trace of paralytic toxins in his system. Except..a trace amount of the toxin may still be found in the vitreous humor of the eye.

CAM: Vitreous humor tests positive for tetrodotoxin. One hundred times more lethal than potassium cyanide. Naturally occurring.

BRENNAN: But he wasn’t dead.

CAM: Yet. That occurs anywhere from 20 minutes to eight hours after ingestion. Until then, heart and respiratory rates mimic death. Tung hits a nerve while tapping the femoral, Reilly bolts up, still in a coma. BRENNAN: And Franklin Tung stabs and kills him.

CAM: But somebody else poisoned him first.

BOOTH: Ah, so technically, Franklin Tung committed manslaughter, while somebody else committed attempted murder?

Brennan questions another Jeffersonian scientist who’d ordered a toxin sent to work.

BRENNAN: Your field is the anthropological study of Caribbean culture. How does a Class 1 neurotoxin assist with that?

SWEETS: Oh, I got it! Uh, neurotoxins are widely believed to cause the trance state in reported cases of Haitian zombism. Am I right? I’m right, right?

BRENNAN: Zombies? There are no such things as zombies; just an island superstition.

DR. JONAH AMAYO: And now you’ve managed to insult an entire culture and their belief system.

BOOTH: She does that to everyone.

SWEETS: Dr. Amayo’s work in voodoo and Santeria is fascinating. And a little scary.

DR. JONAH AMAYO: You, you people need to work on your small talk skills.

Booth wants to interrogate the family’s lawyer, a young woman.

BOOTH: Can you get lost?

BRENNAN: Why?

BOOTH: I can be devastatingly charming if you aren’t watching me.

BRENNAN: Oh. Okay.

Brennan hatches a plan to keep the wake attendees away from the casket as they investigate.

BRENNAN: Say someone enters and desires to gaze upon the visage of their dead relative one more time in a vain effort to say good-bye to someone who can neither see nor hear them because there’s no such thing as a soul or spirit….

BOOTH: Bones, Bones, Bones, just give him a reason not to show the body.

BRENNAN: “We are encountering fluid seepage at the moment and the body is not available for viewing just now.”

FRANKLIN TUNG: I would never phrase it that way.

Booth asks Brennan to interview the victim’s brother.

BRENNAN: Oh, do you think Barney killed Hank?

BOOTH: Why don’t you go ask him?

BRENNAN: Why? Is it because I’m an attractive and sexy, young woman who will loosen his tongue?

BOOTH: Oh, definitely, of course there’s that. But also, he wants you to publish his book. Go ahead.

Booth distracts the crowd while the body is brought back in.

See, still need two people for this job.

Brennan devises a way to determine who spiked the victim’s tea with poison by offering it to the funeral attendees.

BRENNAN: Hank Reilly specialized in Egyptian embalming rituals and practices. He was an expert in grieving. Hank would appreciate nothing more than the most common of funerary practices: the raising of a glass. It’s not alcohol, but an even more ancient drink: tea. Hank’s greatest passion, aside from sex. I took the liberty of bringing this tea from Hank’s personal stash. The same tea he drank on his last day with all of us. I can think of no better way of saying “adieu” than to share one last cup of tea with Hank.

ANNE REILLY: No!

BARNEY REILLY: Mom, watch what you’re doing!

BOOTH: You poisoned your own son?

BARNEY REILLY: What? Mom, what’s going on?

ANNE REILLY: He wasn’t my son. It wasn’t fair of your father. He work it so you got nothing. He got everything.

______________________________________

BOOTH: One thing for sure, Barney, your mother loved you.

BRENNAN: She used her own heart medicine to kill your brother, so you would get your fair share. She mixed it in his tea.

BARNEY REILLY: And she died because she ran out of her medicine killing him. Oh, Ma…I would’ve done fine. Hank, I didn’t want the money this way. I know you would have done right by me.

B&B wrap up time.

BOOTH: If I die, I want you to do me a favor.

BRENNAN: Well, you will die, Booth. It’s inevitable.

BOOTH: All right, whatever, Bones. When I inevitably drop dead before you, I’d like you to come out and, you know, spend some time and talk to me every once in a while.

BRENNAN: Well, I’ll feel foolish knowing that you can’t hear me.

BOOTH: Promise me.

BRENNAN: I promise.

BOOTH: Hey! There you go, huh? Hey, you agreed. I didn’t think you would agree. Now, why did you agree?

BRENNAN: I believe that if I pretended you were still here, I’d feel better for a moment. Also, speaking to you would require me to figuratively look at myself through your eyes – again temporarily – and I think that would make me live my life more successfully.

BOOTH: Hmm, you know what, Bones? That is the best thing that anyone has ever said about me.

BRENNAN: I’ll say it at your wake.

BOOTH: Oh, it’s raining now. Come on. Get under the umbrella. It’s raining. Just make sure when they put me in the ground, I’m dead.

BRENNAN: Yeah, no problem.

BOOTH: All right? Maybe, ah, you know, leave my body out for a few hours and check on me every once in a while.

BRENNAN: No. I’d rather refrigerate you, or else you’d start to smell.

*So the showrunners needed to back off the Mayhem intensity thing from last episode, and string us along for a couple more seasons so…a funny funeral?

*I love how this episode does validate my annoyance at the Gravedigger arc aka bodies are heavy to carry 😉 

*Booth can be charming to other ladies when Brennan is not there observing him, eh? And she does listen, and go away…maybe because she doesn’t want to watch him be charming to anyone but her?!

*Even when at a cemetery, talking about death, B&B still manage to be so sweet to each other.

Mayhem on the Cross (4×21)

“Mayhem on the Cross”

Episode 4×21 / Production 4×15

Written By: Dean Lopata

Directed by: Jeff Woolnough

Brennan teaches us how to speak Norwegian.

BRENNAN: What’s black metal?

CLARK: I dunno. It’s Norwegian. Whole different kind of black.

CAM: Apparently, it’s a genre of heavy metal featuring macabre imagery of death and horrific violence. Skalle. That’s the name of the band? Skalle.

BRENNAN: Oh, it means “skull.”

CAM: You speak Norwegian?

BRENNAN: No, I’m a forensic anthropologist. I know how to say “skull” in just about every language.

CAM: Well, Skalle…

BRENNAN: Skall-eh.

CAM: Skall-ay…

BRENNAN: Skall-eh.

And our pal is back!

WYATT: And on a happier note, I’m to meet your bright young thing. Dr. Sweets?

BOOTH: Sweets, why Sweets?

WYATT: Well, he wants to interview me for the book he’s writing on you and the lovely Dr. Brennan.

________________

WYATT: Gordon, Gordon Wyatt. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Sweets.

SWEETS: Dr. Wyatt, I am a huge admirer of your book on the role of sexual sadism in female serial killers…I was wondering if you had a chance to take a look at…

WYATT: Your manuscript? Yes, indeed, and may I say, Dr. Sweets, that I think this is probably the best work I have ever read on the dynamics of opposite personality types working towards a common cause.

SWEETS: Okay, now I’m hearing a caveat.

WYATT: It’s a small one. It’s just that Brennan and Booth aren’t in any way opposites.

SWEETS: Wow, small? What is that—British understatement?

WYATT: Well, yes. He’s a man, she’s a woman. He’s instinctual, she’s empirical.

SWEETS: Opposites.

WYATT: Superficial ephemera, Dr. Sweets.

SWEETS: Wow. Okay, what about the sexual component in their relationship?

WYATT: Ah…

SWEETS: Would you agree that they have both, uh, sublimated their attraction to each other out of fear of endangering their working relationship because their working relationship is paramount to both of them?

WYATT: Alas, I’m afraid I wouldn’t agree with that, no.

SWEETS: Wow, which part?

WYATT: Well, everything you just said. Yes, one of them is acutely aware of that attraction. Struggles with it daily, as a matter of fact.

SWEETS: Wow. I’m sorry I keep saying that… but which one?

WYATT: It’s your book, Dr. Sweets. I would never tell you what to write.

It gets hard to decipher the black metal band scene.

ANGELA: So our victim—Mayhem—was the bassist. The drummer is Wrath and the guitarist Pinworm, but they do have a new bassist now. His name is Grinder.

CAM: What about real names?

HODGINS: I imagine they play that pretty close to the vest.

ANGELA: Yeah, kind of ruins the magic when you find out that Satan’s name is Todd or Larry.

B&B take Wyatt out into the field.

WYATT: So, why do I have the feeling that I’m being taken somewhere terrible for a… a gangland whacking?

BRENNAN: We are going somewhere terrible. We are.

BOOTH: Look, we… we need your expertise.

WYATT: Well, I’m sure the estimable Dr. Sweets is more than qualified.

BRENNAN: Booth is lying about needing you.

BOOTH: What?

BRENNAN: He wants to talk you out of quitting psychiatry.

BOOTH: Bones, I was easing into that, okay?

WYATT: As a matter of fact, I might be able to help. You know, as a young man, I dabbled quite extensively in the rock music scene.

BOOTH: Oh, wait a second. What, were you, lead dulcimer in a flute band?

WYATT: As a matter of fact, I was the founding member of a proto-glam rock outfit.

BRENNAN: I don’t know what that means.

WYATT: It means that for three glorious years, I wore spandex, silver lame, pancake makeup, and played a guitar shaped like a spaceship. I was quite pretty in my way.

BOOTH: Wait. You… you were Noddy Comet!

Booth gets annoyed at the noise.

One. Good. Shot.

BRENNAN: Oh.

WYATT: Yes. Now, if you recall …it was shooting inanimate objects that had you brought to me for therapy in the first place.

BOOTH: I thought it was a justifiable shooting.

BRENNAN: I agree.

BOOTH: She agrees. See?

PINWORM: You going to put your gun down?

BOOTH: Don’t rush me, okay? I’m thinking.

While Booth pulls desk duty, Brennan tackles interrogation.

GRINDER: When I killed him, ate his heart and took his job.

PINWORM: I killed him, too.

WRATH: I never even noticed he was gone.

GRINDER: I ate his face off before I killed him.

BRENNAN: I am so much better at interrogation than I thought.

SWEETS: Those aren’t legitimate confessions.

Brennan goes back out in the field with her new partner, Sweets.

BRENNAN: I’m disturbed that despite my extensive training as an anthropologist, all of these bands sound alike and appear to share identical belief systems and mores.

BOOTH: Yeah, right, except for the trained anthropologist part, that’s how my dad felt about Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys.

BRENNAN: I have no idea what you’re saying.

BOOTH: Listen, Bones, I don’t want you there alone, okay? Just get a good look at this guy, and you get out; do you understand?

Sweets arrives in character.

BRENNAN: Murderbreath slit his own throat.

Brennan continues to improve her interrogation techniques via Booth & Sweets.

BOOTH: Okay, listen, Bones, just tell him you don’t care if he did it or not, you’ll just throw his ass in jail. Look, it’s all right to lie during an interrogation, Bones. It’s a technique.

BRENNAN: The evidence is inconclusive regarding your guilt, but I’ll damn well make sure it’s conclusive!

SWEETS: Whoa, what?

BOOTH: Attagirl. Give it to him.

He’s so proud. 🙂

BRENNAN: I will perjure myself if I have to, because you… make… me… sick, punk!

SWEETS: Dr. Brennan…

BRENNAN: I’ll put your ass on death row and laugh at your execution. I will testify that your knife was used to make these gouges. I will also prove that whatever implements we find—any props, knives, cleavers, all of your stage ware—I will show that it was used to mutilate his remains. Which they probably were.

SWEETS: Good to know.

BOOTH: There’s no rock concerts in prison.

BRENNAN: There are no rock concerts in prison.

MURDERBREATH: Rock concerts! I want immunity from desecration of human remains.

BRENNAN: No promises, dirtbag!

BOOTH: Just tell him that we will talk to the prosecutor on your behalf.

BRENNAN: But we’ll see what we can do.

They talk with Gordon Gordon about black metal…and Sweets.

WYATT: Your Dr. Sweets liked it as an adolescent. He’s turned out rather well…for the most part.

BOOTH: For the most part?

WYATT: Well, I read his book. And, as is the case with most writing, it reveals more about the writer than about the subject matter, which, in this case is you.

BRENNAN: Can you provide an example?

WYATT: For one thing, he finds it extremely frustrating—your lack of willingness to discuss your childhood experiences with him.

BRENNAN: What does that tell you?

BOOTH: No, do not ask him that. He’s going to think we both had traumatic childhoods.

BRENNAN: We did. Your father was a violent drunk and mine abandoned me.

BOOTH: Great, thank you. Just tell everybody here at the diner, won’t you, Bones? Go ahead.

BRENNAN: Sweets… has scars on his back. Old ones.

WYATT: Really?

BOOTH: What kind of scars?

BRENNAN: Well, like he’d been whipped.

BOOTH: Whipped?

BRENNAN: I saw them.

WYATT: That explains his near-obsession with your childhood trauma, doesn’t it?

Wyatt calls Booth out.

WYATT: Yeah, it’s a totem, a signifier of some kind that can only be discerned by the cognoscenti.

BOOTH: Okay, now how are we going to figure this out? None of us speak Italian.

WYATT: He does that, doesn’t he? He wants to be underestimated.

Wyatt and Sweets talk.

SWEETS: Okay, so are you bored with psychiatry? Is that it, people don’t have the capacity to surprise you anymore?

WYATT: Oh, people surprise me. You surprise me.

SWEETS: Me?

WYATT: Few people looking at you would know what you’d been through.

SWEETS: I beg your pardon?

WYATT: Well, you were adopted. And the people who adopted you were an older couple. Probably too old for standard adoption of an infant, meaning you weren’t an infant. You were, what… four?

SWEETS: Six.

WYATT: Six, yeah. Special needs. A child who’d been through some sort of hell, a damaged child. But these were loving, wonderful people.

SWEETS: Yes.

WYATT: They saved you…but now they’re gone. You’re an orphan.

SWEETS: My parents died within weeks of each other.

WYATT: Recently, I’d say. The wound is still fresh.

SWEETS: Just before I came to work here.

WYATT: Yeah. So now, you’re mostly alone in the world. But they had time to save you. They gave you a good life, and that’s why you believe that people can be saved by other people with good hearts. That’s the gift your parents left you. That, and the gift of a truly good heart. That gives you a deeper calling I do not share.

B&B trick the Pinworm guy into confessing and head over to eat with Gordon Gordon.

BOOTH: Well, here’s to Gordon-Gordon! Without him we would not have been able to solve the murder.

BRENNAN: I hate to admit it, but it’s true. To Gordon-Gordon.

WYATT: Stop, please. Look, this is exactly what Sweets wanted. I’m too good a psychiatrist ever to leave, et cetera. Well, no… Just put your glasses down, would you? Please. Might I offer you a word of advice regarding young Dr. Sweets?

BOOTH: Might we try to stop you?

LOL.

BRENNAN: Why do we need advice about Sweets?

BOOTH: We don’t. Sweets is just fine.

WYATT: He most definitely is not fine. I’ve read his book.

BRENNAN: What, does he say something mean about us?

WYATT: On the contrary. You might as well know that he lost both his adoptive parents just before he came to work for your de facto crime-fighting unit.

BOOTH: Geez, what are we? The Land of Misfit Toys?

BRENNAN: So what do we do?

BOOTH: Nothing.

And one of the best scenes in Bones history.

BOOTH: Well, uh, Gordon-Gordon is, uh, making dinner for us at my place, family-style. And, um, you’re invited.

SWEETS: Thank you, but I’ve actually got a lot of work here…

BRENNAN: My foster parents locked me in the trunk of a car for two days when I broke a dish. I was a very clumsy child. They warned me it would happen, but the water was so hot and the…soap was so slippery. I still don’t think it was fair, even though they gave me fair warning.The water was so hot…

SWEETS: No, it wasn’t fair at all. It wasn’t your fault.

BOOTH: Bones, what are you doing?

BRENNAN: I still hate psychology. Okay. Your turn. Go.

You want me to do WHAT?

BOOTH: I came here to bring Sweets back to my place for dinner, that’s all. Okay, if it wasn’t for my grandfather, I probably would’ve killed myself when I was a kid. That’s all I’m going to say on the subject matter. Understand? Are you okay, Bones?

BRENNAN: Yeah, I’m fine. Here.

BRENNAN: Why are you nodding?

SWEETS: Nothing. Just… Wyatt made an observation about you two, and I think I just saw what he saw.

BOOTH: You coming?

BRENNAN: Booth means that we’d like it if you joined us.

SWEETS: Thank you.

BOOTH: Great. Here we go. Let’s go.

BRENNAN: Gordon-Gordon is making cassoulet.

BOOTH: It’s stew. It’s bean stew.

BRENNAN: Cassoulet is better than regular stew, Booth.

BOOTH: Just because it’s French doesn’t mean it’s better.

SWEETS: It sounds better than stew.

BRENNAN: See?

BOOTH: It’s stew.

BRENNAN: It sounds better.

BOOTH: It’s stew.

While “Santa in the Slush” drew me into Bones, this episode solidified my deep and abiding love for the show and the cast. What David and Emily do in this episode is flat-out genius, and it still frustrates me that they don’t each have 1,000 Emmys for their efforts.

Watching GGW and Sweets together is fascinating and I wish we could’ve had more of, though I understand the restrictions.

They weave great Sweets hints throughout the episode…but that end scene…as Brennan is talking and Booth is watching… I. CANNOT. BREATHE. Just the intensity of everyone in that moment. Fine, fine acting.

Your thoughts?