After the previous farcical episode of Bones, I had some serious misgivings about how the show was going to rescue itself in the second half of its double header. I am happy to report that Bones got back to basics and the episode was satisfying as a Hershey bar and about as nutritious as well.

In the open we see Booth playing hockey in his local water cooler league. One of the opposing players is clearly dirty and Booth takes matters into his own hands. The two drop gloves and Booth administers a serious beating.

Some time later the body of the hockey thug is found frozen beneath the ice of a frozen lake. Its one of the nastier bodies Bones has seen in a while, so that was a proper return to form. Due to Booth’s previous altercation with the victim, a replacement FBI agent is called in to substitute. Payton Perotta, a beautiful blonde rookie agent is brought in to both be a partner for Bones (giving Booth an opportunity to make Bones jealous with his flirting) and some eye candy for the viewers.

The award for most ludicrous elements of the show this week was a tie between the Jeffersonian intern collecting blood samples on an ice rink and Booth’s hockey-induced hallucination involving a professional hockey player. In this montage not only does the hockey player give Booth the inspiration to solve the crime, but also a reminder that he is not an abuse alcoholic like his father. Yes, it isn’t a true episode of Bones without a shoehorned-in morality moment.

After last episodes non-crime investigation, this episode delivers with a proper murder. The thuggish hockey player was involved in a variety of small time cons and capers. All of those things are red herrings though as its finally determined that he was killed by a teammate with a grudge. The teammate had been an NHL hopeful and the murder victim’s dirty hockey playing cost him his chance. Not a real good motive for murder, but at least it was an actual murder.

This wasn’t the greatest episode of Bones ever, but at least it had a proper murder, a gooey corpse, and a huge suspension of disbelief. That’s really that’s what Bones is about and I hope they stick to it.

After a very long layoff, Bones is back on a new night. Fox has moved it over to the Thursday nights to compete head to head eith NBC’s comedy lineup. To celebrate this new night (or to make up for last week’s missed episode) Bones featured two episodes back to back. The first of which was so campy, it made me question my own taste in television.

Though Bones is certainly not known as a realistic forensics show, the first of the two was ridiculous beyond comprehension. The body(ies) of a pair of conjoined twins is found in the desert and Booth and Bones are called in. After easily discovering that the twins worked a traveling circus, the crew inexplicably decides to send Bones and Booth on an undercover mission to the circus. Posing as a knife throwing act, Booth and Bones infiltrate the circus and their tight lipped carnies.

The ringmaster is played by ex-Conan O’Brian sidekick Andy Richter, and he makes for a well received but underused addition. Slowly but surely the plot winds through the backstory of the twins. Like most young girls they desired to be famous and well loved. Unlike most young girls, they where permanently joined at the butt. Despite all this craziness, Bones seems more interested in solidifying their faux Russian knife throwing act. That little knife-act side story was full of dead ends and false tension. Are we really to believe that Booth might actually slip when throwing knives and injury Bones? I have to admit I was actually rooting for one of the knives to miss its mark.

Although we’re meant to suspect everyone from the sleazy attorney who tells us way too much about sex with Siamese twins to some thuggish clowns to a gentle giant strongman its finally revealed that the twins where actually killed in an accident while trying to develop a new conjoined twin high wire act. The carnival people covered it up. No proper motive is ever given for why the circus folk wouldn’t call an ambulance or the police, other than the fact that they “won’t talk to outsiders.” No, I’m not kidding.

This is by far the silliest episode of Bones this season. In the end, there was no actual crime to investigate and the episode was so over the top and campy that it was borderline parody. At the end of this episode, it pained me to say that I was not looking forward to the next.

In another attempt to rekindle some of the drama of Bones’ third season, Bones father Max is hired as an assistant in the lab. Fans will remember him as an accused bank robber and murderer from last season. He’s a stereotypical good guy and loves teaching kids about science around Jeffersonian museum. Bones is made seriously uncomfortable and wants him fired.

The remains of a former Marine are found in some trees in the protected habitat of a rare bird. It leads to a confrontation with the department of wildlife who are there to protect it. Bones is treading on some pretty lame ground here.

As usual, through some impossible set of circumstances the crew figures out where the victim lives. After searching his apartment they find a passkey which leads Booth to a high end private school. The victim had been more of a bodyguard for one of their students since their defense department father had some threats made against him. After questioning the kids, the trail now leads to a doctor who is an amateur pilot. At the same time, Hodkins discovers that the body had been burned by plane fuel. Now that he has the goods on her, Booth presses the doctor on her relationship to the victim. She suggest that it the Defense department father. Mr King, who had reason to kill the nanny because of some bad stock deals he’s been involved in. It doesn’t make sense, but neither does any particular plot point on this show.

Back at the lab, Bones’ father is charming the staff with his Mr. Science-like ways. He helps in an experiment regarding the bones of the victim. In turn Bones fires him for getting involved. I for one am glad to see the cold and calculating Bones act in such an irrational manner. Its worth seeing her poor flustered acting to give her shallow character some depth. The annoying Sweets, Max and Bones have lunch together and while Bones tries to pretend that firing her father is logical, Sweets sees right through it. Max agrees to leave the Jeffersonian, but pledges to remain an active. We’ll see, not sure how much the “sure I killed a guy, but check out how good with kids I am!” the show can stand.

After some overly complex computer model investigation, the crew believe that the victim was drug after death by someone around Mrs. King’s height. She confesses, but she’s protecting the real killer. The evidence Bones digs up confirms the suspicions and points to one of the King’s children. Alexa, the daughter killed the nanny to keep from being kicked out of the fancy-shmancy school. The mother was trying to cover up for the spoiled rotten little snot.

The final wrap up was a pretty sappy one. While wistful Enya-like music plays, Booth asks Bones to keep her father on at the Jeffersonian as a favor and she accepts. Looks like we’ll have Max back in the picture for a few more episodes. Great.

I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of turkey and corpse references. For a show as over the top as Bones, Not having a turkey episode was almost antithetical the whole goofy premise of the show. I doubt we’ll see any more maturity at Christmas.

Last week’s episode of Bones was the best of the season so far and I hope that Bones continues the momentum it gained last week. I was looking forward to some even more ridiculously mangled corpses and impossible murder plots. This week Bones really delivered on that.

Bones and Booth are on a cross pacific flight to China so that Bones can help investigate an ancient corpse. During the flight, one of the attendants find a cooked corpse shoved into a giant microwave oven. With only four hours to go before their plane touches down in China, our favorite couple springs into action.

Using the magic of the internet (airplane wifi actually working might be the least believable aspect of this episode) Bones contacts the crew back in DC. Using various junk that they commandeer from the passengers, they make various tools McGuyver style.

The victim was a travel writer who had just written an article about pilots who hid drunk driving convictions. The pilot of the plane is actually featured in her article, thus making him the number one suspect. As usual though, the first suspect isn’t the killer. It turns out another man on the plane had an affair with the victim, becoming the new best suspect. Twists and turns lead to a stewardess, a passenger who is a gun nut and finally the son of the victim’s lover. The teenager just wanted his family to be whole again, so he shoved his father’s mistress into a microwave. Nice.

Back at the lab, the relationship between Angela and Roxy is growing and Hodgins is clearly disturbed, but really, who wouldn’t be? This leads to Hodgins digging for information and generally acting like the jilted lover he is. Eventually, the two are forced together finally forceing the moment where Hodgins asks Angela if her bisexuality was the reason they couldn’t make it work. She tells him the truth and he seems to accept it.

Afterward Angela the skank and her new lesbian lover are having drinks. Angela asks Roxy to move in with her. She turns Angela down saying it’s too soon. I’m glad to see Angela get jilted for a change, its a rare moment of karmic justice.

Not a bad episode overall, but the idea that they must solve the mystery before the plane lands is pretty lame and unneeded. I’m certain the Chinese government would intervene in the investigation, but I’m equally certain that they’d be happy to turn the murder of a US citizen over to the FBI.

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.

After taking a few week off to make room for the election Bones kicks off this week with two drunk teens finding a corpse inside a crushed car. Why is it always drunks, stoners or people trying to have sex who find these insane corpses? Is it some sort of penance? Bones and Booth discover the victim is an artist who uses the crushed cars in industrial sculpture.

The artist’s hangers-on get an injunction keeping the crew from tearing the car apart as it is apparently “historic art”. The artists and artistic community is also pretty much a one-note joke about overly tattooed, oddly dressed, pretentious freaks. The tangled web of the murder is eventually unraveled by sweat on an axe handle and a woman who wears kabuki makeup with a second set of eyebrows drawn on.

Angela’s sexual peccadilloes make an appearance this week as we learn that she not only has had sex at least once every six weeks since she was sixteen but she also had a year long serious relationship with another woman. Its a little insulting to find out a character we’ve known as straight exposed as having a gay relationship. I’m aware that there are legitimately bisexual people in this world, but sexuality isn’t a light switch that you can turn off when its inconvenient. Booth compounds the damage by playing the flummoxed jock who is ridiculed for being surprised that someone he’s known for years has had a long term homosexual relationship. Its hard to imagine how he wouldn’t be surprised.

Speaking of Angela, her breakup with Hodgins rears its ugly and useless head again. Its like a rash. It pops up every now and again to annoy then receding into the background without any long term effects.

As a bonus this week, the super annoying intern Daisy made a return. She’s both helpful and annoying to every member of the crew and eventually, Sweets is asked to fire her. As he’s letting her go, the two kiss and reveal thier hidden relationship. For a split second I considered the possibility that this relationship would finally give Sweets something to do other than annoy the crew. Then, I remembered this is Bones and true character development is off the table. Bones continues to be the Halloween candy of crime scene investigation programs, sugary and shallow but always welcome even if it won’t fill you up.

..This I know…

After last week I felt like Bones might be hitting its stride. The bloated and mostly rotted bodies have been coming  with increasing gooey improbability and the cotton candy-like scripts have been rolling. Bones is a funny show in that way, you simply have to let little things like character development, plot believability and continuity be swept away in the wake of gory corpses and unbelievable forensics. Its a tightrope. The writers have to make it believable enough to be compelling while being unlikely enough to be palpable.

Two stoners find a woman’s rotted skeleton by the ocean. Its been floating around for a few weeks and is severed at the spine. This week’s stiff wasn’t nearly as nasty as the woman who was ripped apart by elevator hydraulics last week. As it turns out, the woman has had lots of plastic surgery and a serial number on her breast implant. The number leads them to her home at what appears to be a small commune. The victim was the commune’s religious leader. Luckily for the corpse lovers, the bottom half of the victim is found and it appears as though the pelvis belongs to a man. The victim had a sex change! Hooray for the gimmicks!

A message from what sounds like a jilted lover on the victim’s voicemail leads Booth to a member of the commune. He and victim seemed to have a love affair going but when Booth presses him on the revelation that the victim had a sex change, he’s unaffected saying he knew about it all along and wasn’t bothered at all. The trail seems cold.

The team tries to imagine what the victim looked like before the sex change and hit upon a mega church pastor who disappeared several years ago. The scene where Angela sketches the victim with more masculine features will absolutely stretch your ability to suspend disbelief to its limit. Booth discovers that the child of the victim had taken over the family business of hate mongering from the pulpit. Years later, the kid had a crisis of conscious and also abandoned the church. After Booth finds the prodigal son, we get a ridiculous sappy moment where the son loves and respects his father for becoming himself and looking for redemption. Sure, its heavy handed but at least there is a genuine attempt at emotion.

Unfortunately, with just a few minutes left, there really isn’t a suspect. Lack of sensible plot won’t slow down the Bones train however, as suddenly all becomes clear. After determining that she was killed by a boat and determining what kind of boat it was, Bones and Booth go boat hunting. The earlier suspect and member of the commune is the owner of the boat/ murder weapon. It wasn’t him though. It was his jilted wife.

I haven’t mentioned the rotating grad student role much over the last few weeks. I haven’t  simply because the gimmick hadn’t really panned out very much as a plot device. The various actors filling the role just haven’t been given much meat in the script to work with. This episode only bore that out more. The british kid who filled the role this week was as empty as he was useless. I sure hope they either inexplicably bring back the serial killer enabler from last season, or settle on a new cast member. This game of musical chairs with the grad assistants is getting old.

Red Swingline

One of the elements of Bones that I find most hilarious, is the openings. They somehow manage to find a way to insert a corpse (or a piece of a corpse) into the episode in a silly and mirthful way that somehow gets me to laugh 75% of the time. This week, a few office workers are treated to the sight of a piece of a woman’s leg falling down out of the ceiling of an elevator. Inexplicably, the foot still had a three inch heel on it. Crawling up into the elevator shaft, the group discovers the corpse had been rendered apart by the constant movement of the elevator. Mutilated corpse porn has now been achieved.

Booth finds the remnants of a joint on the roof next to the hole the body was stuffed into and suggests that the marijuana might lead them to their killer. I have to say, you really have to suspend belief for that one. Your average pothead doesn’t have the energy to mow a lawn, much less shove a body into an elevator shaft. The saliva on the joint leads them to a stereotypical pothead who is clearly not going to be the killer.

After finding seaman stains (why are there ALWAYS seaman stains?) in the office, attentions land on the office manager. The office manager has a fantastic mid-eighties mustache, which should always be thought of as a sign of guilt in my book. I bet the guy even drives a windowless van. Unfortunately for me, the porn-stache having office manager turns out to be yet another red haring.

The group paws over the bones of the victim some more and we discover that the victim was killed by a stapler. No, I’m not kidding. This suggests that the murder was most likely an accident. I mean, who the hell could use a stapler as a weapon? In the final gambit, it turns out that the victim broke up a tryst between two coworkers in the break room. The lovers threw the stapler accidently rupturing an aneurism  in the victim’s neck. Then the couple stuffed her down the elevator shaft out of panic.

After five episodes it finally seemed as though Angela and Hodgins were going to address the fact that their engagement failed four episodes ago. The resolution is ridiculous and unsatisfying. Bones does many things well, but character development just isn’t one of them. Its clearly well past time to discuss the failing of the Hodgins/Angela relationship and something as heartbreaking as that would certainly take its toll. The characters however, seem less disturbed about it than they would be from a hangnail. Bones is fun and silly and not a whole lot more. This was a typical episode of Bones in that viewers expecting more than rotting corpses would walk away disappointed.

This week’s mutilated corpse has been brought to you by obsessive compulsive disorder.

Bones is one of those shows that has completely locked itself into its format. It broke slightly from the pattern last year when it was discovered that one of the lab rats was actually a deranged serial killer. This seemed like a hopeful development. The Gorgomon killer story line was one that was active enough to keep audiences looking for clues. It helped to tether the series and to allow for an interesting linking of episodes.  As I have mentioned before, I hoped this trend would continue. So far, the attempts Bones has made to impose some overarching themes have been ineffective. Aside from the Bones and Booth “will they/won’t they” subplot, its really been all about Hodgins and his emotional issues. Although its natural for him to be in turmoil, with his best friend turning out to be a killer and Angela breaking off the engagement, I am having a hard time seeing how this will turn into something more intriguing. This episode showed some signs that those hopes I had aren’t totally unfounded.

This week the band of corpse pokers is focused on the headless body of a science fiction writer who has a penchant for older women and obsessive compulsive disorder. The crew, though having a difficult time figuring the cause of death due to the lack of a head, follow the inevitable chain from the victim’s middle aged girlfriend to his psychologist to his sleazy book publisher. In a startling development, Zack escapes from the loony bin and helps the team solve the murder. He finds an obsessive pattern that points to the the victim’s mother as the murderer. Zack, after a cute coffee shop scene, returns to the psychiatric ward. In the end, Zack claims that he did not actually kill anyone last season but was only an accessory to the Gorgomon murders. We’ll see if the Zack story line grows in the coming weeks, I certainly hope it does. Bones could use some deeper intrigue.

The Ron Mexico episode

One of the most tried and true ways to keep a show in the minds of its viewers is by setting up sexual tension between two principle characters. Perhaps the most infamous examples of this is the old 80’s detective show “Moonlighting”. Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepard spent several years playing the ‘will they/ won’t they’ game with their audience. Everyone knew that at some point the star-crossed lovers would take the plunge and it was water cooler talk for years. Eventually, the writers had to make it happen. The show almost immediately took a nosedive in the ratings and ended up a footnote in American TV history. This technique has been used so often it has become one of TV’s biggest cliches. Bones is no exception.

Last week we got a steady dose of this sexual tension as Booth sabotaged Bones’ various boyfriends. I was beginning to think that this season’s overarching theme would be that sexual tension. I was wrong. Instead, we get Hodgins internal conflict. I like Hodgins generally, and in normal circumstances, I’d welcome a little character depth on this shallow show. In general, it comes off flat. This guy has just had his fiance break it off with him and a close friend turn out to be a serial killer. You’d figure he would have just a tad bit more emotion.

This episode’s meaty corpse was a vet who had been killed by a dog with filed teeth. Eventually, the investigation turns to a dog fighting ring (hello, Michael Vick). Bones and Booth find a pit behind a barn which had obviously been used to bury the remains of some dogs. Their reaction is simply ridiculous. They are repulsed and horrified. Seriously? This is the show that displays the most bloody and gruesome corpse porn on network TV and the principle characters are repulsed by a dog jaw? At this point I should noted that Cesar Millan (the Dog Whisperer) was a featured guest on this episode. I was reminded of the classic 80’s TV crossovers when the Jefferson’s would visit Archie Bunker. Only on Bones, crossovers include dog killers and a bloody corpse. Bones and Booth finally bury the euthanized dog that served as the murder weapon. Bones had become attached to the dog and even teared up as she said a prayer over the grave. I’m sad to admit I snickered a little at this point.

I’m as much a dog lover as the next person, but I had a hard time swallowing the after-school special-like message of this weeks episode. I think we can all agree dogfighting is cruel and disgusting. I however, find it slightly less disgusting that killing a man and throwing his mutilated corpse in the woods.