Friday, January 22, 2010

High Profile 'Bones'


This week's episode was very risky.  The show took on one of this country's greatest mysteries, one of our most tragic moments, and perhaps, the incident most cloaked in conspiracies and secrets: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  I wasn't sure how this was going to play out, but I LOVED it!!  They presented both sides of the argument, they drew some interesting conclusions and they left us with almost as many questions as the assassination itself.  Whose bones were those at the Jeffersonian?  Who were "the men in black?"  Why was the team investigating the cause of death of the individual on the table?  None of it was clear at the end, but honestly, I wouldn't have liked it any other way.  Taking on something as huge as the Kennedy assassination deserves an ending with as much intrigue as the real tragic incident.  However, there was one mystery that the gang was able to clear up before the end titles: the owner of that positive pregnancy test.  Oh, baby!


But first, let's tackle the all-too-awesome case involving the secret identity of the bones, the covert "men in black," and the possible link to President Kennedy.  Obviously, the men were not from the agency they claimed to be from (I'm guessing Secret Service along with Booth, but I'm not ruling out the CIA or NSA).  The remains certainly seemed to be those of President Kennedy, but the agency who sent them could have used someone of similar stature who died around the same time and recreated Kennedy's wounds to test the folks at the Jeffersonian.  Perhaps, they did want to see if modern forensics are able to ascertain the truth to the assassination.  Maybe it was all just to test one or more members of the team.  Hard to say.  The important thing with this case was Booth's connection to it.  He didn't want to think that his government could lie about Kennedy because that might lead him to believe that they lied about the people he killed as an Army sniper.  He wanted to trust it and the work that he did for it.  Fair enough.  Once Bones understood where he was coming from, she let him have this one.  There was no way to know for sure who the bones belonged to, so she let the benefit of the doubt stand as the truth in order to give Booth back his sense of faith in the government.  It was HUGE coming from her and it wasn't lost on Cam or me.

If you remember way back at the season premiere, it seemed pretty clear to me that Brennan had realized her own feelings for Booth.  I'm even willing to hypothesize that she left the country when she knew he was going to be alright because she wanted to remove herself from the situation.  She wanted to remove any feelings she had for him, so she left the country and buried herself in her work while Booth continued to recover.  It worked for the time while she was gone, but when she got back and he was back, I think she realized that distance had done nothing but bury the feelings for a couple of months.  They haven't revisited this too much this season (as I mentioned last week, there have been "glimmers"), but her actions this week further my original thoughts on it.  She wouldn't have done what she did for anyone else.  OK so she likes him, he likes her -- now we just need one of them to stop being a scared-y cat and make a move!

So, what about that pregnancy test?  It was Angela's.  But, it was a false alarm.  The real story here was Hodgin's reaction to her being pregnant (before he found out it was a false alarm).  He confessed his feelings for her and said he would marry her and help her raise the baby.  Wow!  I think Angela has some serious thinking to do before she goes back to Wendall.

No "Good, Bad and Ugly" this week because the entire episode was one big AWESOME!!  If you missed even a minute of this week's episode ("The Proof in the Pudding"), check it out for free at Hulu.com

3 comments:

John said...

I hated this episode. I hated the JFK thing and EPT story.

Writing about with who killed Kennedy is warranted only if you have some information to advance the case one way or the other or to just recap the various theories. This workup seemed to be just a way of generating heat without light and thus an abuse of a national tragedy. It would be sort like writing an episode semi-validating the conspiracy theories about U.S. involvement in 9/11 using just made up "proof".

As an aside, they didn't even bring up one of the main arguments against Oswald being the lone shooter. He was left handed and firing a right handed bold action rifle.

The pregnancy test story was ridiculous. Why would Angela (who lives alone) bring in and perform a pregnancy test at work? Why would Bones have done so? Why would Michele bring a pregnancy test to her mother’s work place and take the test there? The only reason for this would be to have a story about the results and that is a plot driven by the scriptwriter’s needs and not that of any character.

And Cam’s actions were beyond unprofessional. Bones and Angela both have grounds for filing a complaint against her. They should, but they won’t.

And Hodgins (and maybe Angela) are awfully quick to terminate Wendall’s parental rights. Neither has the right (and most especially Hodgins) to do that.

And I never got the idea that Angela was in love with Wendall, just that she liked having sex with him.

TVFan said...

I thought the same thing about the pregnancy test: Who would take one at work? I guess you could argue that Michelle would take one there so Cam wouldn't find it at home, but still, it was weak.

RichE said...

(whispered) Pssst... I don't think John liked it :-)

I enjoyed it, though it was not without its holes.

I can't say I care either way about the JFK stuff. It was an interesting way of getting a case. If they are the best at what they do then why wouldn't some high profile cases would be put in front of them to re-examine. No doubt the largely single set (the labs) and reduced staffing helped with the budget too.

Of course they were never going to come down one side of the JFK argument or other. These types of shows are always doing it. How many Xmas episodes of shows (ER being a particular regular example) have made references to Santa Claus and/or the Virgin Birth and then just kind of let it go with out saying anything significant about either? They daren't for fear of alienating part of the audience.

My main issue was with the Secret Service guys. They prevented Sweets leaving, insisting that no-one gets in or out and it was all top secret. However, they continued to allow cellphone calls to be made and Internet access to be used. Experiments were done out of sight of the guards and gang allowed to disperse. After it was clear that the gang were not doing only what they were supposed to do why let them continue? Was it top secret or not? It weakened the whole "doing this under duress" element.

Yes, the pregnancy test was clearly a MacGuffin, but so was the Secret Service guys storming the place instead of doing things via the normal channels but getting it done on the quiet. Cam was a little unprofessional about the pregnancy test but she was freaked out about the possibility of it being Michelle's. Plus, it is not as though they are all just colleagues. I'd guessed the end result of it, even if not the method used. Of course the "at work" thing was a plot device but it was hardly that ridiculous. They are all at lab a lot of the time. Angela may live alone but is clearly with Wendell a lot. The ladies toilets at work may be one of the few areas of real privacy she has. You don't exactly expect other members of staff to go rooting through the trash.

A surprise for me was Bones' keenness to do the "science jibber-jabber". I wouldn't have thought she would see herself like that. She normally goes into the long technical explanations without realising that the recipient has no clue what she's on about. I know she's growing into an actual person, but that seemed like a big leap.


RichE.
Kathryn Morris UK