Episode 4 x 10 of Bones: "The Passenger in the Oven"
Bottom line: 3 steamboats out of a possible 5.
Bottom line: 3 steamboats out of a possible 5.
Bare bones (sorry!): Some really cute moments...but will NEVER eat on an airplane again! Quite possibly will never use a microwave. Or eat meat. Or talk about meat. Or think about meat. I liked this episode a lot but compared to last week it just didn't have as much "meat" to it. Um, yeah.
THE BODY
Grossness factor: I'd give it a 10. If my above meat comments didn't alert one to the grossness of the body, let me reiterate: seeing this body will RUIN Thanksgiving dinner for you. Unless you eat tacos for Thanksgiving. Fish tacos.
Grossness factor: I'd give it a 10. If my above meat comments didn't alert one to the grossness of the body, let me reiterate: seeing this body will RUIN Thanksgiving dinner for you. Unless you eat tacos for Thanksgiving. Fish tacos.
THE CASE
Liked the case much better this week than last. Victim is a travel writer who is having an affair with a husband whose wife is dying of a terminal illness. Said mistress proceeds to follow them on the wife's dream pre-death vacation. Quality individuals, (the philanderers) obviously! Travel chick ends up well-done in an industrial microwave. The cheating husband not that torn up about the state of his mistress. I was wishing the microwave could have held an extra 180 lbs of meat. And felt pretty much as callous about the woman's death as Brennan and Booth did in the end. Also, I'm a vegetarian now. Can't really harp on that fact enough! The murderer was kind of obvious to me when the son of the philanderer and the dying Mom was stone cold drunk and yelling, "I've got your back Mom." But B/B went through their usual list of possibly suspects. Is it the pilot? The writer was writing a piece involving him. Possibly the cheating husband? Or the hunter on board whose band aid was found? (Kudos to Angela and Hodge for identifying finger injury and size from a picture of a bandage.) Maybe the stewardess who had a racket going with her boyfriend to steal credit card numbers? Nope it's gotta be the drunk teen who's going off on the FBI agent. The coolness factor of the case involved the time limit of solving the case prior to landing in China so Booth didn't lose jurisdiction. This required patching together an autopsy using available equipment from the cabin: denture cream, knitting needle (what kind of metal detector do they have in DC that allows that??), cigarette lighter, granny glasses, etc. The tertiary characters, especially Booth's seatmates who were murder-mystery fans, were lots of fun.
Liked the case much better this week than last. Victim is a travel writer who is having an affair with a husband whose wife is dying of a terminal illness. Said mistress proceeds to follow them on the wife's dream pre-death vacation. Quality individuals, (the philanderers) obviously! Travel chick ends up well-done in an industrial microwave. The cheating husband not that torn up about the state of his mistress. I was wishing the microwave could have held an extra 180 lbs of meat. And felt pretty much as callous about the woman's death as Brennan and Booth did in the end. Also, I'm a vegetarian now. Can't really harp on that fact enough! The murderer was kind of obvious to me when the son of the philanderer and the dying Mom was stone cold drunk and yelling, "I've got your back Mom." But B/B went through their usual list of possibly suspects. Is it the pilot? The writer was writing a piece involving him. Possibly the cheating husband? Or the hunter on board whose band aid was found? (Kudos to Angela and Hodge for identifying finger injury and size from a picture of a bandage.) Maybe the stewardess who had a racket going with her boyfriend to steal credit card numbers? Nope it's gotta be the drunk teen who's going off on the FBI agent. The coolness factor of the case involved the time limit of solving the case prior to landing in China so Booth didn't lose jurisdiction. This required patching together an autopsy using available equipment from the cabin: denture cream, knitting needle (what kind of metal detector do they have in DC that allows that??), cigarette lighter, granny glasses, etc. The tertiary characters, especially Booth's seatmates who were murder-mystery fans, were lots of fun.
SQUINTS
Caroline (calling her an honorary squint now!) and Sweets were nice additions to the standard squints. Caroline will always have my heart after her Puck-work in Santa in the Slush. And I love Sweets. He is the greatest 'shipper of all time! Their unlikely pairing did the interrogation work this epi. Sweets actually gets the credit for deducing the affair angle from the boss of the well-done travel writer. Booth indicates his thanks to Sweets via an offering of a drink:
Caroline (calling her an honorary squint now!) and Sweets were nice additions to the standard squints. Caroline will always have my heart after her Puck-work in Santa in the Slush. And I love Sweets. He is the greatest 'shipper of all time! Their unlikely pairing did the interrogation work this epi. Sweets actually gets the credit for deducing the affair angle from the boss of the well-done travel writer. Booth indicates his thanks to Sweets via an offering of a drink:
Booth: I owe you a beer with a Rye chaser.
Sweets: Sounds like it would make me sick.
Liked the Squints leaving early because "the cat was away" and Cam insisting that she was the cat, not Brennan. Hodgins and Angela were working well together again despite Hodge feeling a bit jealous of Angie's new relationship with Roxie. Speaking of said relationship Angie asked Roxie to move in with her, a huge move for Angela, but Roxie refuses wanting to just let the relationship take them where it may.
Cute moments: Sweets asking the squint squad to join him in karaoke and them all making excuses to not join him. Was he NOT present at their last karaoke party? Brennan and Angela's convo via sat link. Brennan overheard Angie and Hodge's relationship talk but tuned it out in favor of their more-interesting-to-her band-aid talk. What is interesting to most...is not to Bren! Too funny! Why Angela continues to think Brennan could give her relationship advice is beyond me, but never ceases to be funny. Cam made only brief appearances since most of the action was outside the lab and she had no body to work with. She had some nice interactions with Booth and Bren via Sat link. Cam likes flesh, Brennan likes Bones. Well-established impasse. To serve her purposes Cam tells Bones to look at the flesh as a Bone wrapping. Morbid, but funny to think of skeleton being a present to Brennan and skin/fascia/muscle being the wrapping paper. Christmas takes on a new meaning!
BOOTH
He was much fluffier in this episode than last which was a good thing IMO because Booth's personality doesn't lend to dwelling in self-reflection or self-pity. Booth was all about getting into first class with his Brennan. His sneak-in attempt is caught the first time by the flight attendant and interrupted the second time by the murder. But what do you know? in the end he was actually allowed to stay there! If at first you don't succeed.... The division between Booth/Bren was accentuated: 1st class/coach; scientist/cop; iron gut using cooking equipment to separate soft tissue from bone/"most definitely not a squint." Brennan makes the comment that identification of ancient remains is her real passion, not murder solving. This upsets Booth for most of the episode with him coming back to her comments multiple times. More on this in the relationship section. The ever-adorable DB is wonderful with the murder-mystery ladies with whom he is sharing his row in coach. One, Brennan's biggest fan, offers him advice both on having his prostate checked AND on using her knitting needle as a probe. (For the body...not his prostate!) I loved the ending with Booth, Bren, and Cam convincing Caroline to risk an international incident by signing a warrant for the teens arrest at only the word of the two B's and a case with more holes than the reasoning why Booth was going with Bren to China in the first place. (To guard proprietary technology...um, so does every archaeological dig have it's own sexy FBI agent to guard proprietary technology? Actually, I'd say I have proprietary intelligence that should not be shared with foreign governing bodies. Do I need an FBI agent to shadow me?) Anyway, the "solve" was fun with Booth reading the kid his rights in the waning moments of the flight. LOVED DB's delivery of:
"Because this is the United States of America."
To which everyone applauded. Brennan began to bow thinking the applause was for her. Of course, it was for the pilot's skill in a smooth landing which was, in her opinion, not worthy of applause.
BRENNAN
Methinks the Bone lady is catching on to some things. Her people reading skills are improving. Slightly. First, she seems to register Booth's hurt at her words regarding her true passion. She gives him a light punch in the arm and a tease, "Does that make me an accomplice?" Booth: "An accomplice to an upgrade!" Twice in the episode she comments on other people's view of their relationship and seems to be wondering what she was missing that they were all seeing. In the highlight moment of the episode (more on this later!!!!) she was as clueless as we would expect our Tempe-girl to be, but she delivers it so charmingly that you can't help but be amused. The character growth, if there was any for Tempe, occurred with Booth nicely maneuvering her into realizing that it was her choice to leave the lab, not his. It seems a bit strange that she would want to go back to the strictly clinical/educational setting all of a sudden when generally she is clamouring for more action.
Methinks the Bone lady is catching on to some things. Her people reading skills are improving. Slightly. First, she seems to register Booth's hurt at her words regarding her true passion. She gives him a light punch in the arm and a tease, "Does that make me an accomplice?" Booth: "An accomplice to an upgrade!" Twice in the episode she comments on other people's view of their relationship and seems to be wondering what she was missing that they were all seeing. In the highlight moment of the episode (more on this later!!!!) she was as clueless as we would expect our Tempe-girl to be, but she delivers it so charmingly that you can't help but be amused. The character growth, if there was any for Tempe, occurred with Booth nicely maneuvering her into realizing that it was her choice to leave the lab, not his. It seems a bit strange that she would want to go back to the strictly clinical/educational setting all of a sudden when generally she is clamouring for more action.
2 MINUTE Drill/Booth and Bren Progress
As alluded to previously, I truly think Brennan is coming to a new understanding of her relationship with Booth. Since it's not something she can quantify she generally doesn't delve into relationship dynamics at all especially her own but she wonders in this episode: "Why does everyone always think we are having a sexual relationship? We rarely even touch." Perfect Brennan-ese! As though sexual tension is signified by a certain number of touches or something she can measure. The murderous, drunk teen!! is there to witness the "two minute drill" at the episode's end and acts as Greek Chorus to ask why Booth and Brennan don't just make out already in response to observing a famous smouldering "look" between them. Brennan responds questioningly, "Why do people always think we are going to make out?" LOL! Progress is seen here in both of their responses to other's perceptions of their relationship. In the past, both parties were quick to dismiss any romantic connection. "It was like kissing my brother." "NO! he/she's JUST my partner." Etc, etc. This time neither felt the need to qualify. This tells us that the idea is not quite so difficult to imagine for either of them any longer. The highlight moment of the episode for me (shown above this post in the video) was as follows:
Booth walks in to see Bren in her granny glasses.
Booth: OK, what I want you to do is take off the glasses, shake out your hair (demonstrates) and say, 'Mr. Booth, do you know what the penalty is for an overdue book?
Brennan is clueless to what he is alluding, per usual, and the moment is soon lost. But telling all the same. Booth has NEVER outwardly came on to Bones in this regard. He was lustful, openly lustful in a playful way, and too lost in the moment of his Brennan/naughty librarian fantasy to realize what he was saying, to whom he was saying it, and the fact that there was a well-done travel writer a few feet to his left. 'Twas a great moment that will go down as one of my favorites of their relationship. When Booth leaves the room, Brennan does just what he he'd asked-- taking her glasses off and shaking her hair out in attempt to figure out just what Booth had meant. Alas, she remains lost. Would have LOVED for Angie or Sweets to witness this scene on the Sat-link and to have smiled one of their BB-shipper smiles in response. I am still a bit undecided as to Booth's enlightenment with regard to his feelings for Brennan. At times he seems very aware of how he feels but unable/unwilling to address it. Other times he seems as blissfully unaware as Brennan is. The typical Booth reaction was missing in the episode at the moment when Brennan wondered why everyone thinks they have a sexual relationship when they rarely touch. Usually he would give Brennan a look that indicates he knows something she doesn't and would quickly change the subject not wanting to press the issue. This time he simply glossed over it with no "look." At the end of the episode, in response to the question of them making out, yet again he didn't really give an indication one way or the other of his understanding. We would have to guess that being the humanist that he is portrayed as being, he would be well aware that people are thinking they want to make out because this is exactly what he is wanting to do! It's something I love from the show and did miss...Booth cutting his eyes at her to see if maybe, maybe just this once, she gets it. Sigh. But that's OK, maybe next time! I LOVED how Booth handled Brennan to make her see that being with him, solving murders, was what she'd wanted. When she comes to this realization finally, he really did look like he wanted to kiss her! Or at least for her to put her granny glasses back on!! I'm not sure that I'd say they got closer to a romantic relationship in this episode, as the ending of "Con Man" felt more intimate to me, but they continue to show how perfectly in sync they are despite their many, many differences in nature. In the end, 1st class still didn't fit Booth with his chair refusing to recline as far as Brennan's did. Bren suggested that it was because he belonged in Coach, which may well be true, but it seems he will go anywhere--from a lecture at Oxford, to a archaeological dig in China, to a pottery class studio-- if Brennan is there. He is actualized enough to realize at least the basis of his relationship with Brennan. Just as he told the Flight Attendant: they like being together. For now, that's enough!
