There’s one more week of Bones, and although there hasn’t been a blood pumping rush to a finale, there does seem to be some urgency in the works. Constantly full of cartoony gore, Bones can be inherently ridiculous. On the other hand, as a detective show Bones can be tense and emotional. Walking the line isn’t easy and very often its done in such a clumsy fashion that it completely undercuts both the humor and the emotion. This week that clumsy approach was really jarring.

The rotted semi-melted corpse of a wine critic is found in a cask or red wine. Watching wine snobs spit up red wine mixed with corpse was pretty funny, I must admit. Obviously a body that has disintegrated and red stained bones made flexible in the vinegar of wine making is going to be a task. Through several tests involving watermelons, wine bottles and denture cleaner, the murder finally reveals itself. One of the wine makers feels threatened that his plan to undermine a neighboring vineyard would be discovered by the critic, and he killed him stuffing the body in a wine barrel.

The real impetus of the story is Bones’ all to sudden decision to have a baby. Not only to have baby, but to have one using Booth’s sperm. Dr Sweets almost falls over himself in disbelief as Bones and Booth spend the entire episode trying to pretend that this doesn’t signal something deeper about their relationship.

The lead selling point of this episode is a special guest star. Stewie from Family Guy joins in as a Booth hallucination. Who at Fox thought it would be a god idea to have Stewie guest star in an episode of anything other than American Dad? Despite the ridiculousness of it all, Bones tries desperately to explain it away. Booth has seen visions several time this season and Bones finally forces him to go to the doctor. Within moments, Booth is diagnosed with a benign brain tumor and is on his way to surgery changing the entire tone of the episode.

This week made me wish that the writer’s hadn’t bothered with a murder. Other than giving the crew some time to bounce sperm donor jokes off of each other and hit fruit with wine bottles, it didn’t serve much purpose. Also, the complete 180 degree turn between silliness with a cartoon baby to the seriousness of a brain tumor was so quick it almost made my nose bleed. Despite that, we clearly have the set up for next week’s season finale. The preview promises a return of all the old faces and a possible bedroom scene between Bones and Booth. I’m gonna throw down $2 on it being a dream sequence.