Bones has been extra ridiculous the last two weeks. Happily, Bones has finally gone back to a dormant plot from last strike adjusted season thus adding a level of actual danger. The Gravedigger is back and this time, he’s captured Booth. Holding Booth for ransom, the Gravedigger demands a piece of evidence that Hodgins has stolen, Understandably after being nearly killed by the Gravedigger Hodgins has become silently obsessed with the case.

Booth awakens, locked up inside a decommissioned military ship set for detonation. Having been drugged, tasered and beat up Booth has visions of a long dead Army friend. The friend’s death has been a weight on Booths mind for a long time. Booth and his new imaginary friend begin trying to escape from Booth’s planned watery grave.

The FBI coordinator (played by the Wire’s Deidre Lovejoy) demands that the crew hand over their evidence. The Gravedigger has given our favorite corpse examiners a few hours to bring the evidence to him, or Booth dies. The race against the clock begins.

Bones is the most rattled we’ve seen her all season. She seems to want to hand over the evidence to the Gravedigger immediately to save Booth. Happily, Hodgins convinces her to give them time to investigate and they begin running interference with the Feds. The Feds have some leads as well but the also are stymied when a principle witness turns up dead. The Feds are less than pleased with the team after finding out about the theft of their evidence. Thus they aren’t helpful when the crew asks to examine the body of the latest victim.

Hodgins and Bones decide to give up their evidence to the Gravedigger as time is running short for Booth. Clearly the Gravedigger is a less than honest foil because when they deliver the evidence a bomb is detonated. The two escape safely, but Hodgins obsession is all the more enraged.

Now intent on finding a way to examine the murder victim, Bones approaches Booth’s brother. After even more uncharacteristic emoting by Bones, the brother pulls some strings and delivers the murder victim’s body to the crew.

As the crew picks over the corpse, Bones continues his spirit walk with his dead Army buddy. All sort of flimsy catharsis occurs as Booth tells his invisible buddy that he has always blamed himself for his friend’s death and that he even named his son after him. Sadly, this whole plot element feels forced. I really don’t think that adding this layer of tortured soldier to Booth’s already crowded backstory really adds much. Particularly not in this episode.

Now with the body, the group begins to piece together the mystery. Finally, the Gravedigger is revealed. As it turns out, the fiery haired lady FBI coordinator is the culprit. It supposed to be a big reveal, but I really don’t think the producers stuck the landing on this one. It certainly wasn’t as impressive as the Gorgomon reveal, but it had the potential to be. Its a shame they squandered the opportunity.

So with the Booth’s location gleaned from some static laden phone calls and the Gravedigger revealed, Bones heads out on a helicopter to save Booth. Booth (with the help of the imaginary soldier) has been able to escape to the deck of the boat and the helicopter pulls away from the detonating ship just in time for a stereotypical but satisfying boom.

This episode had so much going positive for it that is saddens me to say that it was a disappointment. I was really expecting some big excitement over the Gravedigger’s identity. Sadly, it was a letdown. I loved seeing Deidre Lovejoy in the episode as I think she’s an immensely talented actress and she just plain doesn’t get enough work. Unfortunately, Bones only gave her two speeds to work in, plain jane and silently crazy. The show never really developed the Hodgins obsession with the murder. It never really developed the Gravedigger’s motivations either. Both of these points could’ve have used more development, and the Booth as mournful soldier could’ve been used much less.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is coming to Fox News Channel this week. Obama refused to appear on the network during the primary season, but now that he has been officially declared the Democratic nominee he has agreed to appear on the conservative talk show.

Obama apparently met with Fox News Channel Chairman Roger Ailes and News Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch recently, which may have paved the way for Obama’s appearance on the channel.