The X in the File (5×11)

Written by: Janet Lin

Directed by: Allison Liddi-Brown

Well, so this is happening.

ANGELA: I’m not sure if I can wait for tonight.

WENDELL: Okay, I was fine until you just said that.

ANGELA: You know, I have a key to the Egyptian storage room.

WENDELL: Not on campus, not at work.

ANGELA: Come on, are you really as virtuous as you seem?

WENDELL: I can be very bad when the time is right.

B&B arrive at the scene of possible aliens with the local sheriff.

BOOTH: Come on Bones, you don’t believe that there are other real life-forms out there?

BRENNAN: Well, the probability is very high but any aliens visiting this planet would have sufficient intelligence not to die in the middle of the desert.

BONDS: Didn’t even dig a shallow grave. Just left her here to be eaten.

BRENNAN: Which is the smartest possible way to get rid of human remains.

Wendell feels bad.

WENDELL: No, no. I’m worried about Hodgins not knowing.

ANGELA: Listen, Wendell, Hodgins and I are in the past.

WENDELL: I mean, if you were really, totally in the past, then we wouldn’t be keeping this a secret from him. ANGELA: Do you want me to tell Hodgins?

WENDELL: If you don’t mind, I’d like to do it. He’s my friend.

ANGELA: A man-to-man, look-him-in-the-eye kind of thing?

WENDELL: Yeah, something like that.

ANGELA: Okay, let’s do it your way.

Investigating possible aliens makes you jumpy.

BRENNAN: Also, signs of inflammation to the tannin fibers here and damaged…

BOOTH: You know, I won’t say anything about the scream if you don’t say anything about the gun.

BRENNAN: Those terms are satisfactory.

They find a memory card on the victim with a suspicious video on it.

ANGELA: Well, look, I’m gonna keep working on this footage, but you guys have to admit that this makes the hairs on your arm stand on end, right?

BRENNAN: The hairs on my arm are not reacting in any way. But thanks, Angela. (to Booth) It’s not a spaceship.

BOOTH: Well, if it smells like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…

BRENNAN: But then it would be a duck, not a spaceship, so your point escapes me.

BOOTH: It’s just a metaphor.

Hodgins confides in Sweets.

HODGINS: You were right, Sweets. Everything is not fine. It’s not fine at all. Don’t know if I want to crawl into a hole and die or run over Wendell and Angela with a truck.

SWEETS: You know, it’s natural to have those feelings.

HODGINS: But I’m a better man than this. I mean, I want to be happy for them. You know, I really do.

SWEETS: Well, it’s easier for us to accept loneliness as long as the person we were once with is also alone.

HODGINS: What do I do?

SWEETS: Do you want Angela back? I don’t think you’re jealous. I think that you’re grieving what you’ve lost.

HODGINS: Grieving? As in grief?

SWEETS: Yes.

HODGINS: Oh, man, the only thing that cures grief is time. Unless you’re recommending a lot of alcohol.

SWEETS: I can’t really recommend alcohol.

HODGINS: Man, that’d be great if you could, though, right?

SWEETS: I recommend time.

B&B find out the victim was trying to find UFO’s but found illegal dumping and was killed for it.

BONDS: You got the right to shut the hell up, Blaine. Killing that poor, crazy woman for her video. Yeah, by the way, that video, it was hit down her throat on a thread of dental floss, you moron.

BRENNAN: He is a moron. You are definitely a moron! Well, not literally, figuratively. It’s very satisfying to use an insulting colloquialism even when it isn’t accurate.

BOOTH: Right. It’s even better when they resist arrest and you get to hit them.

Let’s wrap it all up!

BOOTH: Maybe aliens are anthropologists? Maybe they just wanna study our religion and sex and love and our funny languages and line dancing?

BRENNAN: That’s an interesting possibility I hadn’t considered.

BOOTH: Well, living creatures, they like to reach out, Bones.

BRENNAN: Living creatures like to reach out and eat each other.

BOOTH: Oh. So, what are you saying, that the aliens just wanna come down here and drink our spinal fluid?

BRENNAN: Well, if the aliens are advanced enough to fly faster than light, then they can probably make spinal fluid.

BOOTH: Oh, you just said that aliens are nice.

BRENNAN: I did not.

BOOTH: You just basically said that aliens are nice anthropologists.

BRENNAN: I don’t think so.

BOOTH: You think the aliens are you.

BRENNAN: You got me. You know, I’m one of them.

BOOTH: I knew it.

BRENNAN: I was sent down as an advance scout.

BOOTH: I knew it! No probing. No probing!

BRENNAN: Hey, probing is a valuable way to gather information.

BOOTH: We know how you people like to probe…Did you hear that?

BRENNAN: What was it?

 

I could’ve done without the Wendell/Angela stuff because I think it continues to make Angela look bad. But Hodgins comes out a good guy anyway. And B&B are really sweet and playful with each other. Once they get away from their usual environment, they get freer, I think, with each other. They aren’t “undercover” here but they are in a small town with no one else they know around, and that gives them freedom. 🙂