Bones decided to go alternate reality on us for its season finale. Bones and Booth are cast as a couple who own a nightclub called “the Lab.” Bones and Booth’s nightclub is the site of a murder and the investigators are Booth’s brother Jared and Cam. The show uses the dream episode as a good excuse to drag in every actor who’s played a lab assistant or bit character to come back for more. While last week the crime was secondary and somewhat lame, in the finale the crime is the centerpiece of the story.

The murder in the bathroom of “the Lab” brings all of the employees into the mix as suspects. Sweets is the bartender. Angela is the hostess. Hodgins is a crime novelist. Even Zach reappears as a goofy busboy. The arrows of the investigation seem to repeatedly point toward Bones and Booth. Their ever loyal employees don’t help matters by concealing evidence and generally acting like detectives. Evidence points everywhere but is all inconclusive. From gang ties to possible infidelity between the fantasy-couple, motives are everywhere. In the counter investigation that Booth is conducting Jared his brother and Bones’ father Max come up as prime suspects.

Bones gets a complete head scratcher of a guest star for its season finale. Motley Crue shows up to play “the Lab” as part of Booth’s head trauma-inspired dream. At the same time, Jared and Cam end up in a standoff in the club’s alley. Jared is exposed as the murderer. He killed the victim protecting his brother wife who the victim had come to kill as retribution over disputed protection money. Bones steps into the fray, thanking Jared for his protection and asking that he now give himself up. He does and is taken into custody just in time to have Motley Crue play “Dr Feelgood.”

Booth awakens in a hospital bed with Bones gently writing at his bedside. Teary and relieved Bones rushes to him. She explains that he’s been a coma for several days but that his operation was a success. Booth looks quizzically at Bones and asks her “who are you?” The season ends.

Bones does a pretty good job of playing up its campy side this week. Keeping track of each character’s new role is a little difficult, and that’s to the episode’s detriment.  Generally though, I found it more fun that it sounds on paper. My general problem with this episode is that it just felt drama-less. I figure most of the audience assumed that this was all an intense dream sequence brought on by Booth’s brain surgery. Thus, where is the tension? The only tension the episode is able to serve up in anticipation of next season is Booth’s amnesia. Though that may play itself into a more interesting set of stories next season, in itself it doesn’t carry enough weight. Here’s looking forward to next season’s round of fresh corpses and unrealized sexual tension.

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.

Bones is always finding new and creative way to turn up bodies. A few weeks ago they found a skeleton being used as a prop in a metal band’s stage decor. This week, they find a dead body shoved into a mascot costume. Bones, is there any place you can’t find a corpse?

The mascot corpse had been mutilated during a pep rally by the students and at first its a little difficult to determine the cause of death. In particular, the students fired a canon filled with random junk at the mascot leaving perforations and random junk scattered throughout the body. Eventually though, the affable Muslim intern from a few weeks ago finds a bullet.

The victim was nicknamed “beaver” and was a member of a frat. The investigation first turns to the fraternity brothers first. The victim was a popular guy and regular party animal. He had however slept with another student;s girlfriend, this putting the jilted boyfriend in the crosshairs of the investigation.

Booth’s brother also reappears this week. After helping Booth in the gravedigger climax a few weeks ago, Jared received a discharge from the military. Booth decides its up to him to get his little brother back on track. Jared ignores his brother, buys a motorcycle and is set to take a trip to India. He even invites Booth along. Booth is going to be forced to let his little brother go on his own.

After some insane DNA tests involving the sheets from the frat house, they discover that Beaver had been sleeping with an older woman. While looking for evidence of his lover’s identity they also find evidence that the victim was acting as a campus bookie. All of these clues though still have uncovered a true cause of death.

At this point the writers have a lapse of creative mojo because in order to get a cause of death, the don’t set out any logical pattern. They simple have Bones star at the corpse with sappy pop music playing until she has a moment of revelation. That’s some pretty lame story telling.

After some more electronic wizardry, a few photos are found on the victim’s computer. One of which was a sexually explicit picture of the dean’s wife. Obviously, the dean now has a motive. Despite that, the dean as murderer just doesn’t add up.In the end, its not the jilted boyfriend but the girl he claimed to be involved with. The victim was trying to force himself on her and she shot him with a nail gun.

A pretty good episode overall for Bones. Aside from the fraternity sheet testing, this one seemed almost plausible. Plus, I’m pleased how Bones has treated the Muslim assistant. I had worried that they would turn him into a cartoon character, happily they’ve avoided that impulse so far.

This week Bones opens up a bit to Asian culture. Note, I’m using the term “culture” very loosely. Booth is asked by a Japanese detective friend Ken, to help him find his sister who has been living in America. Sadly, she turns up dead. Only her head is found in a swampy marsh wearing an anime mask. Now in the lab, the brother brings in a Japanese forensic scientist to work with the group. Once again, Bones goes Emo and the Japanese scientist, Dr Tinaka has random piercing, blue highlights and is totally androgynous.

The victim was pursuing modeling. The photographer sends them to a Japanese tea house which then leads them to an escort agency. Booth’s Japanese detective friend is his right hand man on the investigation. Obviously this leads to many altercations as he discovers the seedy world his sister has been living in. After questioning the pimp, we find out that the victim’s roommate, not the victim, was working as an escort.

Aside from the usual forensic jargon, the crew spends most of their time trying to guess Dr Tinaka’s gender. Its silly and immature, but that’s Bones.

Eventually, Booth finds the missing roommate. The murderer intended his gruesome crime to be a signal of warning. The terrified roommate leads them back to the pimp, but the suspected murder weapon turns up clean. The pimp did decapitate her, but the murder was caused by drowning. The pimp offers to point Booth to the murderer if he gets immunity. Finally, the investigation ends with the pimp going free, and the rough escort agency customer is in custody for the killing.

This was an excellent episode of Bones over all. The plot was tight and not overwrought. Most importantly, the Japanese guest stars where excellent (if a little too stereotypical) and were actually helpful in moving the plot in a good direction.

I have noticed that Bones is obsessed with punk, emo and metal kids. Not sure why this is the case, but quiet often someone with heavy eyeliner is involved. This week a skeleton is found being used as a prop for a Norwegian metal band. It allows the cast to make all sorts of references to metal bands and underground music. Its all a bit shallow, but its saved by two very important elements.

First off, Bones snagged a great guest star. English actor and legendary comic Stephen Fry returns as Dr. Gordon Wyatt. He’s a fantastic addition to any show. In theory, he’s there to clear Booth for duty after some anger issues emerged. In truth, he’s crucial to the understanding of the psychology of the case and in giving some backstory about Dr Sweets.

Sweets is probably the most maligned character on the show. Bones and Booth constantly pick on him and his profession. This week though, Sweets gets to shine. Its revealed that Sweets himself was a metalhead. We also discover that he was an abused child who has recently lost his loving adoptive family. Sweets is revealed as something more than the affable cherubic doofus. Its a welcome change. I think revealing this will help him settle even more as a regular cast member.

As usual, the actual crime investigation is secondary. The investigation weaves a path through an underground metal scene so obnoxious that its laughable. Everyone of the metalheads want credit for the murder and tries to one up the other by being more glib and horrific about it. It all makes for many eye rolling moments until the killer is revealed to be a singing in a bad in the victim’s band who felt by the victim’s decision to “sell out”.

The episode is excellent but is only made so by the addition of Fry and the surprisingly textured performance of Sweets. If Bones can find a way to tone down the camp just a touch, it might be a better show. Let’s hope we get more episodes like this one.

The evidence in this weeks Bones crime is made up entirely of two garbage bags of nearly-liquified human remains. Its a bit far to go to reenforce Bones’ status as THE place to go for network TV corpse-porn. Never the less, the investigation starts strong. Inside the bag, some rare metals and stones are found. This leads to an eccentric blind genius and his laboratory of super smart weirdos. Bones never ceases to make people into insane caricatures. Sometimes its funny, other times its just sad.

Back at the lab, the crew theorizes that a wood chipper isn’t to blame but a deep freeze. The body seems to have been frozen in liquid nitrogen and then shattered. The theory is ruined however, after a Mythbusters-style experiment goes askew after a frozen turkey hits Angela in the face.

Now the investigation takes a turn for the insane. Lab results suggest that the victim was dieing of leukemia, but the victim had a recent exam and was given a clean bill of health. A source of radiation may have been the cause of death. While investigation some sort of massive vibration chamber in the lab, Bones and Booth are locked inside. Someone attempts to kill them, but they escape with the help of the blind scientist. After some seemingly random lab results come in, the investigation settles on the uber-emo pseudo scientist. Again as usual, the capture of the murderer is a total anticlimax. On Bones, catching the murderer isn’t nearly as important as the various corpse shots and inter-laboratory shenanigans.

On that front, Angela’s father is in town. Angela’s dad blames Hodgins for their messy break up and he’s in town to defend his daughter’s honor. Angela’s dad is played by ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons. He spends most of episode menacing Hodgins through a restaurant window and trying to look tough for a man in his seventies. Daddy gets his revenge in the final scene when Hodgins wakes up in a desert with a brand new “Angela forever” tattoo.

Not sure what the point of having Billy Gibbons guest star was. I can only assume one of the producers is a ZZ Top fan. It really added nothing to an already stale relationship. Sadly, this episode of Bones was more pointless than most.

While most of the network TV world was salivating over the finale of ER, Bones pushed forward with what was one of the better episodes in a while. A body is found in an animal park half eaten by lions. The episode takes a serious turn as we discover Dr Saroyan once lived with the victim. Booth decides that Saroyan should be his right hand for the investigations giving her an opportunity to find some closure. Despite living together when she was young, the victim’s daughter doesn’t recognize Saroyan when she delivers the bad news. The daughter’s reaction to her father’s death is the most natural and well acted reaction to a Bones murder ever.

As the investigation unfolds, a disgruntled patient of the murder victim is hypnotized by Sweets. The scene is typical silly Bones fare as Sweets and Angela wander through an imagined cocktail party filled with animals. The eyewitness leads them to a philanthropist who was arguing with the victim at the party. In turn that leads to the philanthropist’s son who the victim denied a residency. That too turns up a dead end.

Saroyan tries to return to the victim’s daughter, pressing her about her memory. The young girl still carries anger toward for Saroyan for leaving her when she was a child. Its an excellent and powerfully emotional scene. That’s a rare feat for this show.

Undercutting this well-acted plot is Angela and her lame celibacy decision. Its a waste of screen time and our attention. It sucks up an infuriating amount of momentum away from what was a pretty compelling investigation.

As usual, Bones finds the murderer in the last possible place. A nurse who the victim was cheating on proves to be the killer. This gives Saroyan and the victim’s daughter a chance to reconcile. In the final scene, Saroyan invites the newly orphaned teenager to live with her and the two embrace.

Bones is fluff. Often what makes it fluff is the way moments as grave as death and loss are glossed over to give us close up views of corpses and jokes about horny forensic scientists. Bones didn’t lack for the gooey bodies or the silly inter-cast banter, but the addition of some believable emotions made for an episode that stood out. Bones might want to consider the trend.

Bones attempted to be topical this week. Touching on relationships, teen pregnancy and religious activities in the workplace. This week’s intern is a devout Muslim who prays to the east five times daily. I don’t mind shows dealing with religion directly as long as it does so in a responsible way. I’m concerned Bones isn’t quite serious enough to do it properly.

The body of a teenage girl is found encased inside a salt truck. Because of her distinctive size its easy to find the victim’s identity. She was about 12 weeks pregnant at the time so at first the investigation focuses on her father and mother. The parents’ appear conflicted and cagey. After some prodding, a friend of the victim (also pregnant) comes to visit Booth.  The friend reveals that she and the victim had shared a boyfriend. Booth visits the boyfriend who stupidly denies that he impregnated the girls. He claims that he never had sex with them, but that the victim had a conflict with her volleyball coach as well.

The coach explains that most of volleyball team has gotten pregnant over the last year. The show is trying to draw a line between a real life fluff news story about a group of high school girls that had a pregnancy pact. After talking to the girls, the investigation settles on the knocked up girl’s ring leader. Discovering that an pudgy boy is the unlikely father of the children, Booth takes an interest in the kid. Sadly, this interest leads to an ham handed dialogue scene between Booth and the kid in which Booth tells him about the responsibilities of fatherhood.

Angel’a lesbian lover Roxy also breaks up with her in the most stilted and lame manor I can think of and Hodgins comforts her (sleeps with her) and the two seem to be headed toward a new relationship. Much of Angela’s time on screen is spent chatting about her desire to “live in the moment” and “remain casual”. Its very squishy and self serving and it all makes Angela look even more lame and whorish than before.

As usual, despite all signs pointing in the opposite direction, the investigation comes back to the least likely and most often forgotten suspect. In this case, a chiropractor who the pregnant girl tried to extort money from. Many of the themes that get brought up in this week’s episode are really not explored at all. The new Muslim intern is bright, helpful and aside from his repeated prayers he wasn’t remarkable at all. I hope that was the point. Angela’s love life took up too much time and didn’t have any real payoff. Bone’s odd lack of impact on the episode was also unusual. Generally speaking I wouldn’t recommend this one. Keep moving people, there’s very little to see here.

Last time Bones gave us with a promising though anti-climactic wrapping up of the dormant “Gravedigger” story line. This week the group brings the campy corpses back with full force with the murder of a Sci-Fi Convention booth babe.

A group of preteen nerds find a particularly disgusting corpse in the park. After tracing the victim back to a Sci-Fi convention, the crew becomes embroiled in the world of fantasy geeks and medieval weapons enthusiasts. Booth is out of commission this week with a back injury, so agent Prada is paired up with Bones for the investigation.

Prada and Bones are chafing under their new partnership. Throughout the episode there are several references to Prada’s interest in Booth as well as the repressed relationship between Bones and Booth. Though the show continues to dance around it, my guess is we’ll see Bones and Booth’s relationship sprout some before the end of the season.

The first suspect questioned by the new team mates makes and sells replica weaponry. He’s nervous but seems sincere. We learn that the victim may have been trying to sell a very valuable movie prop sword. The Bones’ writer’s really tries to bolster the value of “Excalibur” throughout the episode. Its a bit stilted but they use the value of the sword as a red herring for the crime’s motive. After searching the victim’s ransacked apartment, an answering machine message leads them to a black-lipstick wearing dominatrix who collects medieval weaponry. For one of the first times in memory, Dr. Sweets is key to the entire episode. He cracks the goth woman’s facade, but it seems like a dead end.

After a few other suspects and suppositions, the crew finds the sword buried in the park. The suddenly helpful Dr Sweets suggest that the set the sword up for a fake auction at the Convention. After getting into a heated bidding war with a shadowy Englishman, Sweets and Bones head back to the lab celebrating their false victory. In a proper moment of surprise, a man in a black knight costume smashes Sweet’s car forcing them into a ditch. After the crash, the Knight takes the sword from the wrecked car. As he tries to make his escape, Bones wakes up and leaps into action and fights him hand to hand. Using some hilarious forensic kung fu Bones fights off the knight and takes the sword back as he flees.

Later at the lab, it occurs to Bones that the knight was fighting with authentic medieval style and armor. After finding some authentic chain mail on the spot were they were attacked, the dam breaks and Bones realizes the killer’s identity. It was the meek and sincere replica weapons dealer. He had fallen in love with the victim and his overwrought sense of chivalry drove him to murder.

Bones is not a series you look to for social commentary. Its goofy and childish. Allowing the crew to romp through a Sci-Fi convention was actually a stroke of genius because you can portray cosplay nerds as crazy as you like without any repercussions. The next group Bones should touch on should be the furries.

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.