I’ve said several times before that Bones is the cotton candy of forensic crime shows. There’s no substance only sugary gooey rotten corpses and poorly developed characters. Despite this, the show is somehow satisfying and can even surprise. The opening scene in this weeks episode is a perfect example of the show’s likability.

A group of cadets is being drilled by a sergeant on improper meth lab-raiding tactics. Apparently firing tear gas into a meth lab will make the whole thing explode. After firing the tear gas canister, the trailer launches a bloody corpse (now also on fire) several stories into the air and bringing it down onto the windshield of a squad car. Top that, CSI.

The body is misidentified at the start and the crew eventually figures that the corpse was actually impersonating their original victim. There is another body related to the murder. The motives an machinations of the murders are so ludicrously complex that rewriting would put you to sleep. In the end, as if by magic, the whole case is unraveled into a neat ball of deceit, money and gunfire. The final piece to the puzzle involves a hostage scene with a crooked sheriff who shoots Bones in the arm while making an escape. Happily, Booth gets to look like a badass taking down the crooked cop with a shotgun. Its a nice redemptive moment for Booth since he spends much of the episode looking like a chump.

Booth’s brother Jared shows up to add a layer of character development. Jared asks Bones to be his date for an evening and thus stokes Booth’s jealousy. Jared gets himself into trouble and although at first he seems like a real suave dude, he gets drunk and plows his car into a light pole. In attempting to get his little brother out of trouble, Booth makes a deal to keep it a secret. Sadly, it means that Booth loses the right to his big collar and all the glory that goes with it. He doesn’t want to let anyone know about saving his little brother’s behind and it leads to a uncomfortable confrontation between Bones and Jared. Little brother is exposed as a fraud and Bones proposes a nice birthday toast for Booth.

This was a significantly enjoyable episode. Booth gets some redemption, his brother gets his comeuppance and Bones gets to stare lovingly at Booth so the audience swoons with anticipation of the “Moonlighting” moment that hopefully won’t come too soon. For the first time, I actually thought I saw some proper development in a character in this show this season.