Crystal Coleman

Previously on Bones, Christopher Pelant killed a lot of people, framed Brennan for killing more people, and then stole all of Hodgins’ money. But Booth shot his face up pretty good. Now he’s back in a Batcave style setup, stalking them. 

While looking through presents and photos from Booth’s mom and her new husband, Booth starts to needle Brennan about marriage again. She maintains that she’s not ready to propose to him. He points out that she’s terrible at catching things, so Sweets would say that the catch of the bouquet indicates a subconscious wish to be married. Fortunately, a body discovery interrupts this discussion. The body was found on a trail that was closed for two months. Hodgins estimates the time of death as only five days ago and Brennan finds multiple gunshot wounds. It appears to be a hit job. The team also notes a few remodeled gunshot wounds from 8-10 years ago. Sweets points out that the body was left near where the victim was killed; he thinks it might be Pelant. More bad news: the victim is retired FBI agent Alan Friedlander, Booth’s old partner.

Booth and Caroline Julian speak at a briefing for the other FBI agents on the case and Caroline promises that the DA’s office will be behind them 100%. Booth sets an Agent Walter on command station duty, but Walter wants to be in the field.

Strange puncture wounds are found on the bones, and all date from around 10 years ago. They are similar to those that would occur during a dog attack. The man has nothing in his medical records about a shooting or dog attack ten years ago.

Sweets looks back on his paper about compensatory narcissistic disorder — an example he used is the exact same set up that Pelant used. The paper was never published. Sweets thinks he was hacked. Booth gets a call telling him that another agent is down, having been shot in the head. There’s a witness this time, a woman who was knocked down when the killer ran away. Booth asks what the man looked like. Se describes him as having a hat and a tattoo on his arm. Booth gives her his card and tells her to call him if she remembers anything else. Walter finds a hat in the trash as Booth gets a call from Pelant assuring him that Booth won’t find the victim. He tells Booth that he crossed a line when Booth shot him. Now the rules have changed.

The wounds on the newly deceased Agent Stone appear to be the same as those found on the previous agent. Brennan wonders why they’re not using burner phones and Angela says they need to work on the grid so that she can track him. Cam suggests that Booth recuse himself from the case, but Brennan can’t tell him to do this. The agent has the same dog attack wounds, too. Both agents were at a Crystal Creek, which sounds like a Waco-type situation. Apparently Booth was there, too. Sweets reveals that in his paper, which Pelant is using against them, the killer uses a surrogate to do his killing.

Hodgins again regrets not killing Pelant when he had the chance. He says these new victims are his fault. Angela tries to be supportive, but he closes off.

Brennan is not happy when she hears about the Crystal Creek connection. Cam, Angela, and Sweets work on trying to track the Crystal Creek survivors. They find one in the Blue Ridge mountains with a tattoo matching the woman’s description of the suspect, Zane Reynolds. Booth is on the scene to try and stop the guy, posing as a construction worker. Reynolds comes with a shotgun telling them to get off his land. When he realizes that he’s surrounded, he points the gun to himself, but Booth stops him before he can pull the trigger. Booth and Sweets don’t get much out of him except that he shows no remorse, but wishes it were him. His alibi checks out and he’s cleared. Sweets tries to assure Booth that they’re all safe: all of Pelant’s victims are outside the circle; if he killed them, he’ll have no one to play with. Booth snarks about that being from another of Sweets’ papers but apologizes when Sweets reacts strongly to that.

Brennan calls Booth to meet her outside the Jeffersonian and give him the beef jerky that she never buys for him. Booth wonders what’s up and Brennan asks him to marry her. Everything going on made her see things more clearly. Booth, of course, says yes. Pelant, of course, can see all this on his cameras and he keeps playing the proposal over and over. Brennan drops that news in the lab like it’s nothing and Cam and Angela congratulate her. Booth tells Sweets and Sweets congratulates him but warns him that it’s taking the attention away from Pelant and he won’t like that.

At the Pelantcave, we see that he’s using technology to make videos speaking his instructions to someone, but he’s disguised his face.

Brennan realizes that each victim was only shot 11 times; one bullet separated in each body. It’s a simpler pattern than they thought. Sweets thinks that the surrogate might be someone who was family of one of the fallen agents. One of the agents killed at Crystal Creek, Harris Samuels, was killed the same way during the siege. He had a kid: Anna, who he taught to shoot, and who was institutionalized for complex grief disorder a few years after the siege. At the Pelantcave, we see that he’s using technology to make videos replacing his face with Harris Samuels’. Anna Samuels is our surrogate and she’s the same girl who was the witness at the first scene (going by Allison Taylor). She calls Agent Booth, asking to see him right away.

Brennan calls Caroline to tell her about finding the surrogate. Booth and Sweets have both gone to meet the witness, who Walter recognizes as Anna. Brennan can’t get through to Booth and neither can the FBI. Walter goes to Anna’s house and, following Angela’s instructions, gets Angela into her computer. Pelant is messing with stop lights to try and keep Sweets from getting to where Booth is. Angela finds the videos. Hodgins realizes that isn’t really her father because of some bird outside the window. Angela finds encrypted instructions: BOOTH DECOY TARGET SWEETS. Booth finds a pay phone and calls in, which allows Brennan to update him. Booth decides he’s close enough to try and go after Sweets. He runs along the stopped cars, trying to find Sweets. Brennan’s out there trying, too. Anna spots Sweets and heads for him, but Booth sees her and shoots at her shoulder to stop her. Brennan yells for Booth and they have a running reconciliation.

Everyone seems remarkable well adjusted for Sweets’ having almost been killed. Booth, Brennan, and Christine go for a playdate in the park. Booth gets a call from Pelant: “You won’t marry her, Agent Booth.” He says that he’ll kill five innocent people if Booth doesn’t leave Brennan and Booth can’t tell her why. He says he’s read everything Sweets has written about them and knows that Booth would never trade five innocent lives for his own happiness. Booth promises Pelant that he will kill him eventually.

That night, as Brennan is looking through a bridal magazine from Angela. Booth says they need to talk. He doesn’t think they should do it. Brennan doesn’t understand. He blames Brennan’s proposal on the pressure they were under, reminding her it’s just a piece of paper. Brennan agrees with tears in her eyes. Booth asks if they’re okay, and Brennan says “of course,” but goes around the corner and starts crying.

The Verdict

For a season finale, this was actually possibly the lamest thing that Pelant’s done. I think even the Jeffersonian team agrees, judging by how non-plussed Sweets was about the fact that Pelant was targeting him. I mean, seriously, his big ending move was to keep Brennan and Booth from getting married? I’m speechless in a completely unimpressed way.

What did you think?

Tonight, Bones is preempted by Outbreak! Only with less Dustin Hoffman. 

The body of the week is brought straight to the Jeffersonian team after being discovered in a biohazard facility on a random CDC spot check. The team gets suited up to prepare for the unknown infection, which seems to be working super fast. Booth and Sweets are working the case from outside the lab. Ivan Jacobs, the CDC representative, hopes that an ID on the victim will help them determine what the virus is and where she contracted it. Someone doesn’t want the body IDed, though, because all the teeth have been smashed in and there isn’t enough flesh to get prints. Brennan suspects that the killer covered their tracks to prevent anyone knowing how to stop them. Booth translates for us viewers: she’s talking about bioterrorism.

Angela’s having a rough time IDing the victim because her software can only ID a part of the face. Brennan steps in and figures out which of the possibilites it is: Mia Garrett. Sweets brings in her fiancé, who says she was working on a story; she wrote about medical research. He didn’t know what specific piece she was working on this time, though.

The bloodwork comes back to rule out airborne pathogens, so the tents and suits are done away with. Brennan takes a bone marrow sample and Dr. Jacobs says they need to bag up the remains until… well, there’s not really an explanation, but he and squintern Arastoo Vaziri move the body, causing Arastoo to get stabbed by something on the body. Jacobs rushes him to a saline rinse. Brennan finds the tip of a microneedle on the body (so small, she wouldn’t have felt it), which caused Arastoo’s wound. Arastoo says that they need to just wait and see if he gets sick and study his symptoms to help break the case. Cam is, of course, not on board with this at first, but is talked into it.

The bone marrow comes back and it’s not good. Jacobs thinks it might be Chikungunya (CHIKV), but mutated (a disease with symptoms similar to dengue fever). Arastoo’s already showing signs of fever and illness. Brennan points out that the killer would logically have an antidote, so they need to concentrate on solving the case.

Jacobs orders the normal CHIKV antidote and gets it to Arastoo, but his heart rate goes crazy and he starts seizing. So that didn’t work. Hodgins starts working up some folk remedies and Brennan is eager to help. As Cam knocks Arastoo out so they can try a painful treatment, she asks Jacobs how long he has. Jacobs estimates four hours. Brennan comes in with Hodgins and the herbal remedies but Jacobs says it’s not CDC protocol. Cam basically tells him to shove protocol up his ass and goes ahead with the herbal injection. He gets more stable and Jacobs apologizes to Brennan.

The suspects:

-Ben, Mia’s fiancé. They were bloggers together, but she was very secretive about her work. The case gets worse for him when it’s found that she cheated on him for a story and accidentally sent one of her sexy emails to him instead. He swears he forgave her, though. He was in the Indian rainforest, where he could have bought a black market virus (because those are so easy to find) and has easy access to needles for his diabetes. He’s cleared when Hodgins says his needles are a different gauge.

-Bryan Fuller, a horse owner, who Mia was investigating on a possible horse doping scandal. And also the guy she was cheating on her fiancé with. His lab doesn’t show signs of making anything infectious, though.

-Tessa Burke, who was being interviewed by Mia about mutations of viruses like SARS. Dr. Burke was helping Mia because she thought that Mia’s work could bring exposure to those pathogens. She insists her lab is clean, but her work history shows that she was fired from a higher level facility two years before. Booth talks to Lemon Thorne, her former employer, who intimates that Burke was fired for circumventing the rules; in fact, she stole cultures of the CHIKV virus.

Brennan finds a new break on the victim, made from inward pressure, after death. Brennan says there was something tumor-like added to that injection. They’re bacteria, botulism, added as a booster. That bacteria is regulated through the CDC, so they work on tracing it. Booth promises to get the antidote from Burke. She denies stealing the cultures and says that Thorne fired and accused her of theft to steal all her notes. She pointed Mia to him as being a company that was working on unauthorized mutations and suggests that Lemon Thorne was the one that killed Mia. That seems to fit as the botulism bacteria was registered to his company only this year (meaning Burke couldn’t have stolen it).

Booth goes back to Thorne and arrests him. Thorne wants to lawyer up rather than give the antidote, so Booth takes him on a little walk. He brings Thorne into the lab and shoves his face close to Mia’s remains, and then takes him to look at Arastoo. Cam pleads with Thorne not to let Arastoo die. He just replies that he wants his lawyer. Brennan shows Thorne a needle saying that they were able to cultivate the virus. She stabs him with it, saying that perhaps he’ll tell them now and he, of course, agrees. Booth smiles a little, even though he knows he shouldn’t.

Angela lets Hodgins know that Arastoo is recovering and points out that he and Brennan saved Arastoo by extending the time he had. Dr. Jacobs comes to thank Brennan and her team and hopes that next time they’ll meet under less stressful circumstances. Of course, Brennan didn’t have the real virus, she assures Booth. But, if she did have it, she totally would have used it since she likes Arastoo and Cam.

The Verdict

While I liked the case in general, I feel like the whole Arastoo bit was unnecessary. Especially since we didn’t really think they were going to make a habit of killing off squinterns just before the finale.

Next Week

Pelant is back and killing FBI agents for the season finale. I’m on the edge of my seat.

Today’s biting LI/HI is about a subject we know was an important part of many of your childhoods.

Selena: Walt Disney, the dude, was an interesting and resourceful fella. I have respect for the man behind the mouse. I also have tons of respect for the digital artists and computer whizzes who make Disney’s visually breathtaking animated movies. Having known a few, I even respect those poor saps that have to spend their summers wearing giant costume heads at the Disney branded theme park experience. The rest of Disney, however, can get bent. Here are my reasons why Disney is terrible.

• Disney, second only to marketing genius George “Screw You, Fans” Lucas, is a certifiable master at separating parents and guardians from their money. Disney will merchandise anything, and charge three times as much for it as any other retailer. Children, not yet being gifted with the simple beauty of a cynical streak, eat that shit right up.
• Name five strong female Disney characters. How many of them are human? How many of them existed before 2000? How many of them are in movies that pass the Bechdel test?
• While they have shown some improvement, Disney has a terrible history of alienating LGBT individuals.

Crystal: When I was in second grade, I finally learned how to swim. Why? Because I was a redhead and since I was a redhead, I could be a mermaid like Ariel (the logic made sense to my eight-year-old self). Ariel was my idol at the time. I can hear the feminist gasps. Don’t worry, I didn’t grow up thinking it was okay to give up your life for a man. Nor did I grow up waiting for some prince to wake me with a kiss or thinking that every beast had a charming man inside him, if only I could love him enough. While the Princess culture that Disney admittedly perpetuates is concerning to many, I think that as part of comprehensive childhood media consumption (that also includes superheros, dinosaurs, and every other awesome thing out there), it’s not harmful. Other reasons I just love Disney:

• The Walt Disney World resort in Buena Vista Florida created the tourism industry in Florida. Before Walt bought all those orange groves, Central Florida was just the swamp that snowbirds flew past on the way to Miami. Today, Florida is the number one tourist destination in the world, with a $67 billion impact on the state (source). Do you really want to put all those people out of work just because you hate Princesses? For shame! (Just kidding.) The Disney Parks ethos is also one of the most well-regarded customer service training programs in the world.
• The 1990s golden age of Disney Animation brought life back into the movie musical, a genre that hadn’t been in vogue for nearly two decades. With talented Broadway composers like Tim Rice, Howard Ashman, Alan Menken, and Stephen Schwartz, not to mention pop legends like Elton John and Phil Collins, I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that their films inspired a whole generation of singers and musicians.
• Without Disney, we wouldn’t have Miramax (which formerly existed under the Disney umbrella) or Pixar. No Up or Finding Nemo or Toy Story 3 or  Brave. Nor would we have the movie of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? which is a damned national treasure.

Best. Title. Ever. Strippers and stockbrokers and Booth’s mom… oh my!

A construction worker is teaching her nephew to use an excavator (thanks to my nephew for being obssessed with trucks so that I knew what it was) and uncovers a body, which he then drops on his aunt. Thanks to my nephew for not dropping a body on me.

The uniform on the body indicates the man was a firefighter until Hodgins notices that the pants are pull-away. This means he was a stripper. And he was killed before the building was demolished. Thanks to a calf implant’s serial number, the victim is ID-ed as Jack Spindler, who was a stockbroker by day. Hodgins realizes that if they fingerprint the bills on the body and find the matching prints, they can ID some of the people at the last party that Spindler worked. Some body abnormalities lead Brennan to deduce that he was overweight as a child.

The suspects are:

-Spindler’s boss, who reported him missing. He claims not to know about the stripping on the side. Booth thinks that his boss would have been ashamed if upper management found out he hired a stripper.

-Kristy Mineta, a trust fund baby who was dating a stripper to get back at her daddy. Jack’s friend Storm warned her about him being manipulative. Storm got Jack into stripping and then stole all his clients.

-Storm, the stripper and bartender (who’s played by Johnny from General Hospital!). Jack and Storm had gotten into a fight about the client issue, but Storm said that they’d patched things up. Evidence on the body shows that Jack had sex the night he died and Storm said that he’d warned Jack against that, fearing retaliation from jealous partners.

-Cynthia White, a former client who matches the vaginal fluid found on Jack and skin cells found on a rolled up bill. She also had an altercation with her fiance, Jason, after that party, so he’s a suspect, too. She admitted to cheating, he flipped out, but the stripper was long gone before that happened.

Angela finds evidence that Jack and Seth Harrison, his boss’ boss, were playing illegal games with stocks. Jack started having second thoughts three days before he was killed. Seth is brought in for questioning and says that he wasn’t questioning the morality, he just wanted to know how to fully hook his girlfriend’s dad in the scheme. The girlfriend got a couple hundred thousand. They can’t touch her without evidence, though, since she’s lawyered up.

The evidence presents itself in the way that the skull fractures occurred… a pistol whipping by a toy pistol. The murder location is traced to the Kingsford Hotel, thanks to its bedbugs. That evidence leads to Storm, though. Jack lost all his money, too. He didn’t mean to kill Jack; just wanted to give him a beating.

The B Plot

Booth’s mom reappears in his life after 24 years and he actually seems happy to see her. She wants to apologize and he says there’s no need  because he understands what she went through. She worried that he hated her, but he just missed her. He  insists that she stay at their house, rather than a hotel. He’s taking this all very well, I think. Brennan’s a little skeptical at his uncomplicated happiness and so is Cam. So am I, frankly.

At home, Booth catches up with his mom and as they reminisce, they can’t escape the past darkness. The conversation mentions Booth’s dad and Brennan brings up her limp (still lingering from being thrown down the stairs by Booth’s dad).

Sweets wonders why Booth never tracked his mom down before now. Booth says he wanted to wait until the time was right. Apparently, the timing is because Booth’s mom is getting married… and getting two stepchildren. Booth is less than ecstatic about his mom raising two other kids when she ran out on him and Jared. Just as Booth was over-happy to see his mom again, he’s over-upset with her at this revelation.

Before leaving town, Booth’s mom comes to see him one last time to let him know that she’s not perfect. She admits that she could have handled this better, but she says that she’s going to let herself be happy. She wanted to share that happiness with Booth, rather than the misery she’d shared in the past. Booth looks more sad puppy dog than he’s ever looked before as she leaves. Booth talks it out with Brennan, claiming he was too angry to say anything. He feels like his dad, blaming her for everything and just staring at her when she apologized. Brennan assures him that he’s not his father. She points out how long it took her to forgive her dad and how she still gets angry with him. Brennan brings up Booth’s faith and reminds him that forgiveness is kind of a thing that Jesus was a fan of.

After working through some issues, Booth has flowers sent to his mom’s wedding. He finds that she had given Christine one of his old toys and his change of mind is done. Booth and Brennan arrive at the church to see Marianne Booth get married. She happily introduces him to Reggie, her new husband, and Booth’s new step-siblings and Booth is able to walk her down the aisle. At the end of the reception, Marianne tosses the bouquet and guess who catches it without even trying?

The Verdict

The episode was a little awkward and the case a little convoluted. Also, I just don’t have words for how I feel about the implication that a wedding is in Booth and Brennan’s future. I’m just going to go back to the picture of Booth being stripped and pretend it’s my happy place.

What did you think?

In a seemingly abandoned building, a couple searches through a mushroom mound, looking for a treasure hunt clue. They definitely find something, but it’s not treasure, it’s a human skull.

At the scene, Hodgins is super excited about the mushrooms. Brennan does a quick ID of the victim as female, Caucasian, mid-20s, and Hodgins says that the mushrooms indicate she’s been there 20-30 days. Due to the area, Booth guesses that it was maybe a homeless woman, but the pristine teeth, manicure, and expensive shoes say otherwise.

Facial reconstruction IDs the victim as Rebecca Pierce, a producer on Citizen’s Court. Booth and Brennan interrupt a taping and inform Judge Trudy (who reported Rebecca missing) about the murder. The suspects include:

-Baliff Griff, Rebecca’s ex-boyfriend. Judge Trudy says they had a good relationship, though, and Griff says that he was getting palimony from Rebecca for their dog, Iris, so now that she’s gone, the checks will stop, too.

-An unnamed angry litigant who blamed Rebecca for losing her case and lived two blocks from where Rebecca was found. She has a rap sheet with a first degree murder charge, but her alibi clears.

-Gordie Rand, a guy that Rebecca met on a dating service who stalked her and sent her creepy bound Barbie pictures. He alibis out, too.

On further examination of raw footage from the show, Judge Trudy becomes a suspect herself. Trudy kept showing up drunk and Rebecca banned alcohol from the set (after getting an accidental gavel to the face, ouch). She lawyers up and alibis out.

Suspicion goes to interim assistant producer Jill Roberts, who was sneaking booze into the set for Trudy. Booth implies that Rebecca treated Jill like crap and they find a scarf in her apartment that possibly matches some fibers under Rebecca’s nails.

When the cause of death is narrowed to hanging and dander from a dog is found, they find indentations on Rebecca’s jaw that match spikes from a dog collar and Griff is brought in again. Iris’ collar matches and it turns out that Iris the dog is dead. Griff went to pick her up one day and Rebecca had left her chained up on the porch. He found her hanging by her collar from the railing, guessing the dog must have gone after a squirrel. He couldn’t let Rebecca get away with that, so lured her to the location and killed her the same way Iris had died.

The B-Plot

Booth brings a sleeping Christine home from daycare and tells Brennan that the director wants to speak with them about Christine biting another kid. Brennan doesn’t think that’s possible and wants to know what kid. When Booth says it was Emma C, Brennan jumps into victim blaming, pointing out that Emma always cries during “Itsy, Bitsy Spider” and questions whether Emma has a history of false reporting. When someone dares to say that biting is normal, average, childhood behavior, she rebuts that Christine couldn’t have done it because she isn’t average. She even goes so far as to have Angela hack into the daycare’s system to compare a picture of Emma’s bite to a mold she made of Christine’s teeth. Angela can only give Brennan odds, and they’re not in Christine’s favor, but Brennan is totally in denial land.

She finally lets it go and doesn’t lose her cool with the director and Emma’s mom. Booth spots a mark on her neck and realizes that Brennan only chilled on it because Christine bit her, too.

The C-Plot

Hodgins, with a new haircut, jokes about selling gourmet, body-grown mushrooms as a side business and Angela explains that they had to mortgage the house to pay some final debts from the whole Pelant situation. Later on, Finn approaches him, angry that Hodgins used the last of Finn’s hot sauce. Hodgins says it’s no big deal, he’ll buy some more, but Finn says that was the last bottle of his dead granny’s sauce. Oh, Hodgins, you dun goofed.

Trying to make up for his mistake, Hodgins runs the sauce through the mass spec, but one compound is stumping him. Finn says to just let it go, the secret ingredient is love, and Hodgins can’t replicate that. Later, though, Hodgins calls Finn in to enjoy some fried catfish and the completed sauce. Hey Mikey, Finn likes it! It tastes just like his granny’s! Hodgins discovered that the secret ingredient was actually an herb known as guinea grass, common to swamplands in western Africa. Finn says that his granny used to trade with an herbalist in the woods.

Hodgins and Finn agree that this hot sauce is too good to keep secret and scam their way into a southern food restaurant to get the chef to taste it. She’s hesitant, but Finn assures her it’s worth it, men have fought for this sauce, his cousin lost a hand. She tries it and likes it. She offers a 60/40 split to her with her name and branding. Hodgins rebuts with 80/20 their favor and it’s called Opie and Thurston’s Hot Sauce. She agrees because she is a terrible negotiator.

The Verdict

The case was just too sad and made me need to take a break and cuddle with my puppy. Brennan was just insufferable this episode with the victim blaming of a toddler and insistence that Christine is a special snowflake. But the Hodgins/Finn plot definitely was the highlight of the episode, especially Angela’s insistence that the secret ingredient really was love, the love that made Hodgins spend so much time and effort to make it up to Finn.

After a wonderful night at the ballet last week, on the way home, I had a disheartening realization: I didn’t have my phone. And I was pretty sure I left it in the bathroom in the War Memorial Opera House…an hour away.

Yep, while changing into nicer clothes for the ballet, at the end of a rushed and harried day, I set my iPhone 3GS on the paper dispenser in the bathroom stall and forgot to take it with me. Like many smartphone users, my phone stores my entire life: my contacts, music, social networks, email, texts, pictures, calendar. Not to mention the navigation apps that save me when I’m trying to find my way around new cities on my own. Being without that phone has sucked, but not as much as it could have. This story has a happy ending (the phone is currently waiting in the Lost and Found for me to retrieve and I’ve already replaced it with a newer model anyway), but some ways I’d set up my data definitely helped this become a less terrible situation, even if it had been stolen. Here are some tips on how to set up your smartphone to minimize damage should yours become misplaced.

Things You Can’t Plan For

Getting a couple of things out of the way first, there are two big aspects to this that you can’t plan for: privilege and luck.

Privilege - Just the ability to have a smartphone, which can be tracked, wiped, etc., is an investment many people can’t indulge in. Older, non-Internet connected phones won’t have a lot of these features. For older phones, you’re best to skip straight to contacting your mobile carrier to have them turn off service, lest you get wracked with the bill for international phone calls you didn’t make. Being able to easily replace it when it is irretrievable is another side of privilege, as is having another iDevice to use until I got my phone back.

Luck - Of all the places to leave a phone in San Francisco, the War Memorial Opera House on a ballet night is probably one of the best, with a good chance of getting it turned in. I also had an older model, making it less desirable. Added to that was good timing; having just lined up two new jobs, I was going to treat myself to a newer model in a couple of weeks (when paychecks came in) anyway. While work meant that I couldn’t replace it for a few days, it’s still better than being without a phone indefinitely.

Precautions You Can Control

Insurance - If you are a frequent traveler or are prone to leaving your phone or other belongings places, springing for loss/theft coverage is a good idea. Check with your home or renter’s insurance to see if you can add coverage for your phone, as well as with your coverage provider to see if they offer the coverage at an additional cost. Be sure to read the fine print; many policies won’t outright replace the phone, but allow you to upgrade to a newer phone before your contract is up without the added (unsubsidized) cost. There are also third party companies that provide additional insurance. The only one I have personal experience with is SquareTrade. While they don’t offer loss/theft coverage, if you are prone to damaging expensive devices (I’ve cracked the screens on two iPhones and one iPad), it’s well worth the additional cost. When repairing my iPad, their service was quick and easy to deal with, and I’ve already invested in it for my new phone.

Tracking Apps - Apple’s Find My iPhone allows you to track your device from any other phone or computer. If this isn’t the first thing you set up when you get your phone, it should be. Not only can you track, you can also send alerts to it (saying “Reward if Returned, Please call 555-555-5555″ for example), remotely lock the phone, and, if you have sensitive data, remotely wipe it, as well. Seriously, it has solved crimes. For other smartphones, check this list to find a tracking app you like and set that up now.

Backups - Your smartphone holds your entire life; probably more than your computer. So why would you back up your computer but not your phone? (Side note: If you don’t backup your computer, START BACKING UP YOUR COMPUTER!!!) Backing up your phone weekly (or monthly at least) will ensure that you lose the least amount of important data if something happens.

Embrace the Cloud

Another way to backup your phone is by relying on the cloud. The iPhone makes this super easy, and some of these tips will be specific to that, but some will apply to almost all smartphones. Check with your mobile carrier or phone’s user guide to see what cloud services are available to you.

iCloud (Apple) - With iCloud backups, you never need to plug your phone into your computer again. Backing up to the cloud allows you to restore your phone from anywhere, anytime. Included in this is Photostream, which automatically sends your iPhone pictures to your computer, iPad, and/or AppleTV, ensuring that you don’t lose those important on-the-fly moments. I, admittedly, never got around to setting this up, so luckily, I didn’t take many photos on my iPhone that I didn’t post on social networks anyway.

Google Voice - Since I recently relocated, I wanted to have a local phone number to put on resumes and business cards. I used the Google Voice service to get one. The calls are automatically transferred to my original cell phone number, but I get notifications of missed calls and emails of voicemail transcripts right to my Gmail inbox. Since anyone who would be contacting me with professional inquiries has this number, I can still get their messages and could even transfer their calls to a temporary number if I needed to do so.

Notes, Contacts, and Calendar - While many tech enthusiasts prefer cloud services like Evernote, I still use Apple’s default Notes app. However, I make sure that my notes (and contacts) sync with my Gmail account. So all the important numbers and information that I jot down on the fly are safely backed up and accessible from anywhere. I also live out of my Google Calendar (rather than iCal), so thanks to that, my work schedule and other appointments were still accessible, too.

iTunes - In the past year, Apple introduced the ability to restore all purchases from the iTunes and App Stores. Even without a recent backup, I won’t lose the money invested in those apps and music. I may lose some in-app data, but most important data was also centralized to the cloud or associated with a login.

iMessage - With Apple’s free messaging service between iDevices, I don’t have to miss out on texts from friends who also have iPhones; they go straight to my iPad. It’s a hassle to have to go down the block to Starbucks and use their WiFi while I’m at work, but it’s better than being completely out of communication.

Okay, I Think I Lost My Phone… What Now?

• Did you install that tracking app? Fire it up now. See if your phone is where you think you left it or if it’s on the move. If it seems stagnant, trying sending a message through to see if someone will contact you. If your phone was already dead when you lost it (as was the case for me), you may want to skip straight to the next tip, unless you’re very trusting. Many lost and found offices will actually charge up phones and see if they can contact a frequently used number.
• Is it on the move? Call your mobile provider as soon as possible. When I called AT&T to report mine lost, the process was very simple, going through an automated phone menu. They even allow you to differentiate between stolen and lost. Stolen will completely shut down the phone while lost will allow for easier reactivation when it’s found. Cutting the phone off through your provider will also cut off any tracking apps/messages you send through, though, so try tracking before you call your provider unless you know it was stolen and/or want to protect your data ASAP.

In the end, while it really sucked to be without my phone for a few days, the entire experience was much less stressful and worrying than it could have been, had I not had some of the precautions and cloud systems in place. I lost some photos and some text messages, but that’s much better than losing everything and getting huge bills from stolen usage.

Have you had a lost or stolen phone and have a tip to add? Share it in the comments.

We go straight to the body of the week with a meaty body left in a car for 5 days. The remains have decayed in two different ways due to microclimates. Booth checks out the trunk and finds a sawed-off shotgun with no serial number. Brennan finds some gun shot wounds that did not come from the shot gun. Back at the lab, Hodgins is super excited about the cohabitating bugs thanks to the microclimate. Cam introduces Andrew Jursick, a documentarian, who’s filming a fund-raising film for the Jeffersonian. Brennan just doesn’t want him to get in the way, which I’m guessing he will as he straps a GoPro to his head. As Cam slices open the stomach, a balloon becomes apparent and Jursick calls drug mule. Even more interesting: inside the balloon are diamonds, not drugs.

Angela can’t really work with the distorted face, but Cam is trying something to sort it out. It works out and they find an ID: Quentin Coles, who was a security guard at a diamond wholesaler with a criminal record. Hodgins finds that the diamonds are all stolen and worth about $200K. Which meshes with the fact that the wholesaler, Oscar Schultz, was accused of replacing client diamonds with glass. When Booth and Brennan go to question Schultz, it gets awkward for a moment because of the whole Booth not being allowed to ask Brennan to marry him thing. Schultz doesn’t want to talk about Coles. When presented with the diamonds, Schultz gets really nervous and says he needs to call a police office, while digging for a card. Turns out, the victim was an undercover cop.

Commander Dinko identifies Coles as officer Rueben Martin. He wants DC Metro to handle the case, but the body was found on federal land, so Caroline Julian says the FBI has to handle it. He was investigating an ATM theft money laundering scheme. Dinko assures them that Rueben wouldn’t have stolen the diamonds. Rueben’s wife thinks it was Dinko’s fault because he kept promising Rueben a raise and that this case would be his last.

The team determines that the bullet wounds were made from two different bullets and that one ricocheted. They find traces of falcon feces and that leads them to a nest where they find a bullet mark and a gnawed up foot. Brennan says it was from a caucasian female in her mid-20′s and that it has been 6 days since the foot was amputated. Cam finds buckshot in the foot, positing that it’s from the shotgun in Rueben’s trunk. Brennan says that losing her foot wouldn’t have killed the woman, so she’s limping around somewhere out there. Angela traces the ATM theft case footage to a couple of local college kids living together: Marcos Herrera and Paula Byrne, cyber-criminology majors.

Booth and Brennan head to the house and Brennan smells death. Booth busts in the door and they find Paula barely alive on her bed, leg gangrened due to a badly improvised tourniquet. It’s a grisly scene. Booth calls an ambulance, but stops the EMTs from taking her out until she answers his questions. She says that Marcos shot back when the fence pulled out the shotgun. Marcos was with her afterwards, stopping the bleeding, but she passes out before she can tell him where Marcos is. Dinko asks Booth what the girl said, and Dinko reiterates that Rueben wasn’t dirty. Booth says it all looks really shady. He implies that Dinko knows more than he’s saying. Both DC Metro and the FBI are looking for Marcos.

Brennan says that Rueben was shot at close range by someone sitting right next to him. The caliber matches what DC cops are issued with. Booth gets a call that Marcos’ car was found and Booth rushes to beat Dinko to the scene, but Dinko’s already there roughing up the kid. Booth catches Dinko telling Marcos to, “Keep his mouth shut,” as Dinko breaks the kid’s nose.

Dinko, Caroline, and Booth sit in the interrogation room, with Dinko pulled in for excessive force. Dinko lawyers up without saying anything. Clark finds some marks on Rueben’s ribs that indicate residue from the gunshots. Marcos is pulled into interrogation. Booth asks him where the money is and Marcos says that a man with a shotgun took all the money. He IDs Rueben as the man with the shotgun. He admits to the ATM theft and the diamond exchanging, but knew nothing about him being a cop. He says, “We’re thiefs… not cop-killers.”

Hodgins finds some particulates of leather and alcohol. Rueben’s wife is brought in for questioning again. The leather is from her purse and the alcohol is from her perfume. What’s more, the gun she shot Rueben with was in their house. He stole the diamonds for her, but she didn’t want him anymore.

B Plot

The Jeffersonian asks Clark Edison to step in on this case for the film, which Brennan is none too happy about. Jursick encourages Brennan to be more “likeable” for the footage and she’s not great at that, either.

Jursick catches Caroline Julian’s eye and the attraction is mutual. He even speaks Creole for her and she’s thinking about all the uses for that camera on his head. Get it, girl. Jursick later approaches Cam to ask for advice about Caroline. It is so awkward for Cam. Jursick gets Edison to call Caroline in… you know, to show how the Jeffersonian works with the justice department. It’s quickly clear that he just wants to see more of Caroline.

After the case is over, Jursick and Caroline meet for drinks at the Royal Diner and she invites him over for a nightcap.

Booth catches Brennan watching the footage from the documentary. She doesn’t like how she comes off in it. Booth assures her that she’s not a mean person.

The Verdict

For some reason, the case in this episode was a little hard for me to follow, but I just loved the little Jursick/Caroline subplot. What did you think?

First auction hunters, now doomsday preppers? Is the Bones writing staff watching too much TLC?

Water drips in a creepy looking house as a woman wakes up with a start. She’s bleeding from the back of her neck and when she opens a door to investigate a sound, the backdraft of a fire gets her. Interesting that we actually see our victim of the week pre-death.

The team investigates the crispy crime scene, and the female, mid thirties victim is missing her head. She was decapitated by a shelf, and her head ended up in the toilet. Well that’s just undignified. Back at the lab, Daisy finds a bullet in the body and Brennan points out that there are actually two, in an illegal bolo-type bullet that severed the vena cava giving a possible cause of death. A lot of the bones are calcified from the heat, but thanks to the flame retardant vest she was wearing, they’ve got some good bones and even flesh. Cam has an ID: Deanna Barbieri, owner of the cabin, single, ex-military. Signs of syphillis and un-prescribed sedatives are found in Deanna’s bones and system. Deanna had a pattern of misconduct after an altercation with one of her partners and was placed on administrative leave. Booth and Sweets bring in Carlene, the colleague she had a confrontation with. Carlene says that Deanna started talking about the world ending and it upset her, leading to the fight. They were both placed on leave and she had called Deanna a lot recently, worried because Deanna fell off the grid.

Hodgins tests out a bullet made with special materials that would create a large fire along with it. It works and they realize that the bullet that killed her also started the fire. Daisy finds a year-old injury on the victim’s leg. Brennan recognizes it as being hit with something dense at a high speed. From a cannonball. Hodgins finds a cannonball press in the shack and suggests that the victim made the cannonball herself. Angela finds that a Dr. Fred Dumaski was picking up large amounts of lead from junkyards. He even has a website: Dr. Apocalypse, with a video on his website on how to make your own cannonballs. He hasn’t been back to his house since Deanna’s death, and recently bought ten acres of land and military bunkers. Booth takes an FBI team to the land to find the bunkers. The tac team blows the bunker open and brace for what will come out. First, a goat, a chicken, then a very old man and two other people, followed by Dr. Apocalypse.

Dr. Apoc says that Deanna was a great addition to the group. The break was an accident while he was loading the cannon. Brought the group together, showing that they could take care of their own medical care. Booth notices a bad rash on Doc’s arm and he explains that he gave himself a shot for VD. Says his wife knew everything about him and Deanna.

Sweets and Booth go over the other people in the bunker: Dolores Dumaski, in charge of food prep; Dennis Bukovac, emotional and spiritual health; and Milo Mills, engineer who fixes everything. It’s a moot point, though, because Hodgins finds that (due to what was and wasn’t destroyed), the temperature of the fire would have destroyed the body, meaning that the fire started later than they thought, when all bunker people were in the bunker. Sweets doesn’t understand, though, no one else knew where Deanna lived. Daisy spots a new wound, a syringe puncture in her neck, large grade like vets use. The drug that knocked Deanna out was found in the bunker. Sweets suggests that someone snuck out of the bunker somehow, and Angela looks over the schematics to find an escape hatch. But soil would have come in when opened.

Booth has an idea, though, and comes to the lab to show Hodgins, door hinge booby trap. Killer drugged her, set up booby trap, then left, knowing she’d kill herself when she opened the door. Hodgins says they need proof, let’s try it. It works and Booth brings in Milo who says that Dolores would also know how to set up the booby trap. They were backup buddies, he trained her in engineering, and she trained him in animal husbandry. Milo says it’s Dolores, she doesn’t clean and would have residue on her hands from trap still. There’s none on her hands, but Brennan wants to check her fingernails. Brennan sets a spark and her nails go up, showing that she had contact with phosphorus. She admits that she didn’t think Deanna should be part of their new world.

In the cabin, Angela found a letter to Carlene that she was able to reconstruct and she bring Carlene in to give her resolution.

The B-Plot

Booth and Sweets are enjoying a martial arts film and Brennan is trying to harsh their buzz with facts. Sweets gets a call letting him know that he’s getting one of the apartments in Georgetown. Brennan wants his blueberry muffin recipe, and Booth warns him not to get his hopes up. Apparently, a few places have already fallen through. Booth gets the call about the body and he and Brennan are off, handing Christine to Sweets. As they leave, Brennan whispers that she’ll miss the free child care and Booth will miss the extra DVD selection. Ha!

Of course Daisy is the Squintern this week (since Sweets is relevant to the plot), and she digs for information about Sweets moving out. Brennan agrees that it’ll be nice to have some privacy back, but Sweets is “the only person in the world that Booth, Christine, and I like the same amount.” Aww, that’s adorable.

Booth tells Brennan that they need to team up and push Sweets out of the nest. At least that’s what Booth says, but his incessant questioning of Sweets to make sure that the place is right tells a different story.

Daisy and Sweets share a moment where she tells him that he’s wonderful and thoughtful and she admires the way that he took time and settled in a safe place while he found a new place to live.

After the case is over, Brennan raises a toast to Sweets as he’s getting ready to move out. Brennan gets emotional in her toast. Sweets can’t thank them enough, and Booth cuts off the emotion fest before it gets too much. The other tenants come to help Sweets with his stuff. They’re two pretty girls named Janet and Chrissy, really? They say hello to “Mr. and Mrs. Sweets.” One of the girls comments to Sweets, “Your dad is hot.”

The Verdict

For some reason, it felt like this case took a while to get going. Maybe it was the fact that all the preview gave away the preppers aspect, but it took more than half the episode for that to be introduced.

I’m worried that we’re going to be going down Daisy and Sweets lane again, but I’m sad to see his time at Casa B&B ending, they were such a delightful pseudo-family.

Your thoughts?

Women startup founders were representing during last week’s Launch Festival 2013, held in San Francisco. 

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Launch Festival 2013. Startups from around the world apply to give five minute pitches before a panel of prominent technology and venture capital names. Companies that don’t make the cut can join the Demo Pit, showing their wares to the 5,000+ attendees and hoping to catch the eye of one of the Grand Jury members for a chance at a two-minute pitch at the end of each of the three days. Breaking up the pitch sessions are fireside chats with startup notables (Evan Williams of Twitter was the chat on day two) and, this year, a fantastic Diversity in Tech panel on day one (that’ll be a topic for another post, though).

Jason Calacanis, the founder of Launch Festival, made a big effort this year to entreat more women to participate and that was definitely evident. While the first day was disappointingly void of female founders (other than the women on the Diversity in Tech panel), the second and third day saw more women on stage, both pitching and judging. In the audience, the representation was also stepped up a notch from a typical tech conference. I was supremely inspired, not only by the women on stage and in the Demo Pit, but also by the fellow attendees that I shared great conversations with during my three days there. Here are my picks for the best Launch 2013 startups from female founders.

(Notes: many of the companies mentioned may still be in a limited beta or in limited location availability. Check the individual websites for availability or to sign up for notification on their release. All companies are listed in alphabetical order.)

Launched On Stage:

Addicaid - You could literally hear a pin drop in the room as the audience sat at attention when founder Sam Frons began her presentation with, “Hi, my name is Sam and I’m an alcoholic.” A mobile app designed to help recovering addicts find the right support meeting for them and connect with other recovering addicts got unanimous support from the judging panel and considerable buzz in the audience. The promise of Addicaid was rewarded with the Diamond in the Rough Award

Trendalytics - Co-founder Karen Moon presented the pitch for Trendalytics, a service focused on the fashion industry. They provide analysis of past and future trends in the apparel industry, as well as buzz around individual designers, to assist merchandise buyers in purchasing decisions. While the look of the site needs work, the idea and the data they are gathering show promise.

TripTease – While co-founder Sarah Miller wasn’t present, the pitch for TripTease was still impressive. Promising a more attractive way to write and view reviews for travel, TripTease certainly delivered on the beautiful promise, securing the award for Best Design 1.0. As soon as I catch up on all the writing I’m backlogged on, I’ll be digging out my vacation pictures and reviewing everything I can.

uBooly - A stuffed animal cover and software for your old iPhone or iPad that turns the old device into a learning buddy for your kids, uBooly was originally launched last year. This year, co-founder Carly Gloge presented uBooly Labs, a way of keeping tabs on your child’s progress and suggesting additional packs that your child might enjoy based on their interactions. Seriously, if I didn’t think that my in-laws wouldn’t appreciate it teaching their English daughter in an American accent, I would have snapped one up for my niece right then and there.

Demo Pit:

Better Donate Button from Social Good Network – I got to speak with Chief Innovator & co-founder Antonia Chappell and see her demonstrate the Social Good Network’s Better Donate Button. Designed for non-profits, the button lives in a bar at the top of the organization’s website. On hovering over it, your visitor sees an appeal video and has the option to enter into a very simple, quick donation process, sealing the emotional commitment with a video thank you post-donation. The button is already helping organizations see increased donation rates.

Froomz - Do you have a group that meets every so often and trouble finding a place to do it in? Froomz, from cofounder and CEO Yan Heim, seeks to solve that problem. An AirBnB for meeting spaces, Froomz is great for meeting organizers, but also for building managers with event spaces. It’s a great way to fill up those rooms on dark nights if you don’t have an established rental procedure already. I’m thinking theatres can really use this to generate extra money on dark nights.

Good Night Lamp - Founder Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino brings us the Good Night Lamp, interconnected lamps that look like tiny houses. A kickstarted project, when one person comes home and turns the big lamp on, the little lamp turns on wherever in the world it is, letting the loved one know that the other is home, safe, and thinking of them. It’s an adorable (if somewhat niche) idea and the product looks excellent.

Nomiku - Co-founder & CEO Lisa Q. Fetterman was on hand in the Demo Pit giving demonstrations of the Nomiku, a Kickstarted product that makes sous vide cooking easy and accessible.

Pigeon.ly - Founded by Sabaina Bukhari, Pigeon.ly was on hand to promote two of their products focused on the institutional market: Telepigeon, lowering the often high long distance cost of institutional phone calls, and Infopigeon, providing inmates with real time answers to questions through email correspondence. A niche market, for sure, but it provides an interesting service.

Playtell - CEO and cofounder Semira Rahemtulla brings us one of the products I was most excited about at Launch2013. Playtell is an iPad app which allows you to read along and play games with your young relatives through video chat. Boxes at the top show both sides of the video, pages move on both devices at the same time, and games are interactive. Knowing how much my niece loves the recordable books we make for her, this seems the next logical step for that technology and I can’t wait to use it.

Rock Your Block - Want a safe and easy way to get your teenager out of the house and making some money around the neighborhood? Rock Your Block, from founder Sarah Young, is the answer. Imagine if every teen had the organizational abilities and tenacity of Kristy from The Babysitter’s Club series and you’ve got Rock Your Block.

Spill - Founders Heidi Allstop and Michelle Lee developed Spill, bringing advice into the 21st Century by creating an anonymous, peer-to-peer advice network. The look of the site is great and so far the content is top notch.

Timbuktu - Creating iPad magazines for children and interactive ebooks (currently available in iTunes), founder and CEO Elena Favilli and co-founder and Creative Director Francesca Cavallo have made a clever, beautifully designed, engaging set of apps for kids from around ages 5 and up (or younger with grown-up assistance).

uGrokIt - uGrokIt was back for a second year at Launch with a pivot. Last year, they introduced personal, portable RFID technology. This year, their focus was on selling to distributors, who they found were wanting this technology and willing to buy it now. Cofounder and CEO Carrie Requist made it to the stage from the Demo Pit both years, giving a polished 2-minute quick pitch, and receiving great feedback from the judges. Launch Founder Jason Calacanis personally expressed his admiration for her tenacity and his feeling that she will keep coming back, year after year, until she’s got a smash hit product.

Not yet launched/Awesome women I happened to meet

As a startup conference, Launch attracts many founders and potential founders other than the ones participating onstage or in the Demo Pit. While I’m sure there are another article’s worth of people I didn’t get around to meeting during the three days, here are some picks for not-quite-yet launched companies to keep an eye on. Also, all of these women are just great people and I can’t wait to see them succeed.

Kiinzel – Founder & CEO Marlina Kinnersley wants to solve the problem of finding reputable, local people to buy and sell with. Craigslist is so impersonal and spammy. With Kiinzel, you snap a photo, add a description and selling details, and wait for the responses to come in. Kiinzel is starting in Toronto and will branch out from there, but you can sign up on their website to request early access.

StyleShack – Rachel Prinstein is working on StyleShack, which brings fashion recommendations to the next level. I don’t want to give too much away, but from what Rachel tells me, this is going to be something that every stylish woman and local boutique shop wants to get in on. StyleShack looks at launching in Detroit first, but is interested to hear from potential local fashion correspondents for when it expands.

BeMoRe – One thing that’s inspired me above all at Launch is the amount of women who see a need, have and idea, and just go for it. It’s incredibly brave and amazing and Renee Berry of BeMoRe is the consumate example of that. Rather than just creating another social media agency, Renee and the BeMoRe team focus on helping companies build social competencies from within. Full Disclosure: I had a meeting with them to discuss possibly joining the team, but I’d be telling you about their amazingness even if I hadn’t.

Dear Martini – Chefs Mia Chambers and Terri Dien are developing something amazing to turn home cooks into super chefs. Until then, you can follow their advice and adventures on their blog. And come on, their latest post (as I write this) is for Drunken Grapefruit. You know you want to check that out.

Full Disclosure: I received a free conference pass thanks to a sponsorship from The Founders Club.

I’m not one for resolutions, for a variety of reasons (mostly because it’s just setting myself up to fail). Last year, I finished up “The Happiness Project” just before New Year’s and chose to carry that spirit forward with my 2012 Positivity Challenge. Being in a place (both mentally and physically) of so much transition at the moment, I knew I wanted to do something this year, but what? The other day, it came to me: 13 Words. Thirteen words to carry with me through the year as mantras, as intentions, as meditations, as guiding principles, as things to ground me. Thirteen Words. A baker’s dozen. One for each month, and an extra for the year. And as soon as I started thinking about it, the words started coming to me in a flood. Here they are, in no particular order:

Create – I’m at my happiest when I’m creating. When I’ve just started a project and I’m full of ideas and they’re flying out of my brain at a million miles an hour. I get my best work done in those initial flourishes of creativity, so I need to give myself to them and let myself go with the ideas. Create is this post, right here, writing these words. It’s also the banners and iPad and iPhone wallpapers I decided to make myself (and share with you) to remind me of these intentions.

Focus – But sometimes I get overwhelmed; there are too many ideas, I don’t know where to start, I shut down and just don’t do anything. And so all of these ideas I had — all of these things I could have created — they go nowhere. I need to remind myself to focus, to finish things I’ve started and see them through until the very end. Or to revisit the project and say, nope, that’s not going to work, and officially scrap it. To make lists and actually adhere to them. To make plans and actually do them.

Selectivity – Part of my creativity and focus problem has been a lack of selectivity. I say yes to everything, every idea and don’t have the time to do them all. Going forward, I need to be more selective about the projects and people I give my time to — learn when to say no so that I can properly focus on other things.

Aplomb – I’m really terrible at promoting myself, at having the self-confidence enough to think that what I have to say or do is worth the time of others. No more. This year, it’s all about living with aplomb. About celebrating the good things I can do and making sure others know about them, too. About making the opportunities for myself that I want to be there. And it’s just a fantastic word, isn’t it?

Reconnect – Despite my theatre background, I’m pretty definitely an introvert. So often, I don’t reach out, I don’t keep connections, I don’t try to make plans because… well, there’s never a real reason. This year, I’m determined to reconnect. Reconnect with others, reconnect with things that I’ve left behind that made me happy. So many things on this list really come down to reconnecting, at the heart of them. Reconnecting with what makes me happiest, with what makes me live at my best.

Care – Reminding myself to not only continue to care for the friends and family around me, but for myself. My friend Meghan has been posting daily Self-Care Inspirations and many of them have really been hitting a nerve with me. I need to remember to set aside some self-care time now and then. It’s like the airplane safety talk when they tell you to affix your own oxygen before assisting others: you have to take care of yourself first, if you’re going to take care of those around you.

Strive – I want to remember what I have a passion for and that I will get there, that I deserve to get there. That I have a reason to get there and I will excel when I’m there.

Articulate – I’ve always thought that I present easier in writing than in person. While my writing can still sometimes be disorganized and winding, at least I have a chance to go through, edit, and move my thoughts into a better flow. In speaking, sometimes, I can go off on tangents all over the place. I want to try and articulate my thoughts better verbally; take a second, think things through, edit in my head, and then speak.

Ridiculous – And sometimes, when I’m done being focused and done articulating, I need to allow myself to get a little ridiculous. Because I like being ridiculous. I like laughing and sharing silly moments with my family. And I need that ridiculousness in my life.

Breathe – Before we moved, I’d finally found a yoga studio that I loved — the teachers were great, it was conveniently located, a friend went with me, the level was perfect. I was going really regularly and I loved it. I loved taking that time to myself, to destress, decompress, let the day slip away. I was so excited at the prospect of living in one of the prime yoga areas and even got myself this awesome card than gets me a free class at almost 50 studios… Oh, the options! How many have I tried? Three. I look at the schedules and I say, “Oh, I should go to this one or that one,” but I don’t go. By reminding myself to breathe, I remind myself to get back to that place that I love.

Resilience - Too often, I fall too easily into the pit of self-pity. And it’s kind of ridiculous because when I objectively look at the things I’ve overcome, it’s kind of amazing I’m doing as well as I am. Not knowing my birth parents, an emotionally abusive upbringing, being left homeless by my only “relative,” and the decision to quit college to support myself — I’ve fared pretty darn well. Partly due to luck and finding some amazing people who’ve taken me in as their own family, and partly due to, well, I don’t know exactly what, but something deep inside me that’s kept me going. When I’m down at the bottom of the pit, I have to remember what’s inside me and live up to it.

Lethologica – The word for when you can’t remember the word. A reminder that I won’t succeed at all of these words at all times, and that’s okay. Letting myself be comfortable with my faults, with my failings, with my mistakes.

Be – Sometimes, I feel like I’m trying to be so many things: a writer, a sewer, an excellent cook, a social media maven, an awesome auntie, and sister-in-law, and wife, and daughter, and daughter-in-law, a fitness girl, a yoga girl, a funny girl… I’ve spent a large part of my life adapting to my environments. Being what I needed to be or was expected to be. This year, I just want to be. To be Crystal, full-stop, no qualifiers. And the other dozen words are going to get me there.

(all definitions courtesy dictionary.com)

(This post originally appeared at That Girl Crystal. Text and Graphics used with permission.)

An ex-Wall Street guy plows a field of kale (of course it’s kale. Does kale even grow near DC?) and finds something not so green. He doesn’t know how to stop his tractor, so the body is brought up on the wheel’s spikes. Brennan is not going to like that.

Yep, it’s the first thing Brennan comments on. Hodgins says the remains have been there five days and that they’ve been scavenged by coyotes who maybe have the head. Even without the head, Brennan can tell it’s a Hispanic male.

New intern Dr. Wells says that he’s deduced (induced, actually) that the head was removed by coyotes and finds no evidence to the contrary. Some glowing substance in the nostrils leads to an ID: Benjamin (Benji) Garcia. Booth and Sweets head to the victim’s brother’s body shop (which used glow-in-the-dark paint on cars). According to the brother, Benji was in college, finals were coming, so his brother gave him the week off to study. Benji was the first one in the family to go to college. A surly guy in the shop asks about Benji’s truck, a tricked-out ’59 El Camino, and thinks that’s why he was killed. Courtney, his ex-girlfriend, hated that truck. They broke up a week ago.

Courtney claims that Benji was the love of her life. But she’s the one that dumped him because he loved the truck more than her. The kid apparently saw a picture of his dad with an El Camino and needed a truck just like it. Other than the truck, Benji spent his time doing scientific experiments, like time travel. Courtney last talked to him Saturday night, when they argued about the truck. That was the night he was killed.

The squints note a contusion on the skull around time of death, but find no fatal wound. Wells also notices scoliosis, leg fractures, and some microfracturing to the ribs, which created fatal damage to the liver. Angela checks out Benji’s hard drive and finds lots of time travel theories. Hodgins thinks it’s interesting that he was trying to go back in time. Benji was also spending a lot of time on the Collingdale University server (which he didn’t attend), logged in as Professor Scott Hunter. Booth checks his background: Professor Hunter was fired for electrocuting a student two years ago. He was supposed to meet Benji the night he was killed. And hey, those microfractures could have been caused by electrocution.

B&B head to Hunter’s house. He and Benji were working together for about a year. They check out the lab, which has lots of exposed wiring. Hodgins and Wells check out the electrocution theory in the lab, but it doesn’t check out. Wells suggests hydrostatic shock, and another experiment. Cam gets to use a gun for this one, testing out a shot just below the ribcage. It matches, which means the victim was shot.

It turns out that a burner cell called Benji while he was at Hunter’s. Then, Benji got cash as he was leaving town, but the body was found far, far away from where the timeline suggests. From the soil on his shoes, he was killed elsewhere and then moved. B&B head to the strawberry farm that matches the soil and it appears abandoned, but there’s a light in the barn and Benji’s truck. Brennan finds another body. It’s another Hispanic male with the same wounds and same everything as Benji, but this guy is 20 years older. Wells totally thinks it’s a Looper kind of thing. Well, he doesn’t really, but he is open to the possibility. Wells found remodeling of a fracture that victim two was walking around on for days. DNA confirms that the second victim is Benji’s father. Which is, you know, the simplest explanation.

Sweets brings the brother back in. The brother wasn’t aware that Benji was in contact with their dad. Benji thought their dad was dead because it was just easier to tell him that. The brother thinks the dad must have been in trouble with one of his dealers and that he was looking for a bail out. The trajectory of the bullet matches the trajectory that would happen if the victims had been one in front of the other when shot. Booth gets a call with the name of Felix’s dealer and, surprise, it’s the shady guy that worked at the body shop that was all concerned about the truck. His name is Sidney. He says he hasn’t dealt since 2009. Booth reveals a tactical baton they found in Sidney’s truck that matches knee wounds. The baton doesn’t match Benji’s wounds, though. They’re looking for something at a 45 degree angle.

Sweets wants to question Alex Garcia again, thinks he’s hiding something about his dad. Alex knew that Sidney used to deal drugs. Booth notices that doors on a car in the shop come down at about a 45 degree angle and it all comes out. Benji was going to give their dad his college money. Alex didn’t want to let him. He didn’t mean to kill him.

The B-Plot

A disheveled guy comes into the Royal Diner looking for Brennan and says he’s “got something” for her. As he reaches into his coat, Booth pulls a gun on him, and for once, I’m not going to say that Booth was overreacting. Especially after all the Pelant crap. Booth tells him to roll whatever he’s got over and it’s the victim’s skull. “I’m your new intern. Hi.” That’s how Wells introduces himself. Apparently, Brennan doesn’t read her emails. Cam thinks she’ll like him though. And Hodgins wants to keep him because he makes a rational explanation for ghosts.

Angela calls out Wells for being a douche and tells him to tone down his arrogance. Brennan gives him a little ego smack-down later, too.

The C-Plot

Booth wants Brennan to invest in asteroid mining. Brennan is suspicious, but Hodgins thinks it’s a great idea and “the only way the species will survive.” Brennan is not happy with the encouragement. Wells provides rational reasoning that makes Brennan think about it. So she invests $10K.

The D-Plot

All this talk of time travel makes Hodgins think about what he’d go back to: the moment he met Angela. Angela unenthusiastically agrees that yep, same for her. Later, she asks Cam what she would go back to do and Cam sheepishly admits she’d want to bang Angela’s hot ex-husband again. Angela admits that was her first thought too, and wonders if she should tell Hodgins. That’s a no.

Booth would go back to Ford’s Theater and stop Lincoln from being shot. Aww, nice reference to his dirty ancestor secret. Brennan says she’s already at the place she’d want to go back to. Everything she wants or needs is here, now.

The Verdict

We’ll have to see how this new squintern grows on me. I’m kind of disappointed that they didn’t use the opportunity to bring on another female squintern, though.

“You should totally do a Vine for that.”

“Did you see what Adam Goldberg is doing with Vine?”

“Taco Bell just announced a new taco on Vine… how cool!?!”

Vine is the newest word in the social media arena, but what the heck is it? 

So, what’s Vine?

Vine is the newest product from Twitter. As Twitter provides a limitation on text (140 characters), Vine is doing the same for video, allowing you to film asynchronous, six-second looping videos from your phone. In its introductory post, Dom Hofmann, co-founder and GM, describes it like this:

Posts on Vine are about abbreviation — the shortened form of something larger. They’re little windows into the people, settings, ideas and objects that make up your life. They’re quirky, and we think that’s part of what makes them so special.

In just over a month since its release, Vine has become the most talked about social media and iPhone app this year. A lot of the initial talk was about the unfortunate opening weekend mistake of porn being featured in the Editor’s Pick section. At a meeting a couple weeks ago, I was discussing Vine with the presenter and another attendee immediately chimed in to ask, “But doesn’t that have porn? I don’t want to recommend it to my clients if they’ll be mixed up in that?” While this was, in my opinion, an overblown situation that Twitter and Vine quickly took steps to avoid happening again, porn is an attention-getter and will scare some small businesses away from the service. Their loss, because quick, easy, buzz-worthy videos are the best things that can happen to many small businesses and with a little bit of thought and creativity, Vine is the perfect app for such a thing.

That’s Great, But What Can I Use It For?

Anything your heart desires (and fits in six seconds). Here are some areas where Vine users are already creating something great:

Animation and Art – six seconds of start/stop looping video is the perfect venue for artists and animators to lead innovation. Favorite picks: A different way to color, Pac-Man comes to life, Dying for a coffee, Let’s play a love game.

Non-Profits – Non-profits are generally on shoe-string budgets but any employee with an iPhone can make a quick, easily shareable promo video for your organization. The New York Humane Society used Vine to feature an adoptable cat and found him a new forever home.

Parker, from our first post, got adopted! Thanks Vine!!!! #happytail #adopted #hsny #pets #socialgood #vineo… vine.co/v/b6xgtOvirDQ

- Humane Society NY (@HumaneSocietyNY) February 21, 2013

Job Hunters – Dawn Siff beat everyone to the punch by creating the first Vine Resume. If you’re in a creative or social media field, this can definitely be a tactic to help you stand out and get companies to check out the rest of your credentials and experience.

How-To Videos – A vine can be a great addition to a How-To post, adding another type of visual or showing detail for a particularly complicated step. I made one this weekend as I prepared my French Toast Strata for a brunch and even included a link to the recipe in my video description. Another pick: #howto paint a tropical sunset.

Filmmakers – Adam Goldberg (or as my husband calls him, “Crazy Eddie from Friends“) has been using Vine to make a series of mini, Lynchian horror films about him, his girlfriend, her roommate…and a blonde wig.

What’s the Downside?

Vine is a new app, so, by design, it’s simple and feature-lite at the moment. Future features are just speculation at the moment, but here are some limitations that are making Vine less than ideal right now.

Hardware – Right now, Vine is only available for iPhone and iPod Touch (although, you can run the app on your iPad, too). Android or Windows Phone? Sorry, you’ve got to wait.

Editing – You can’t. If you film for five seconds instead of four and miss that key moment, you can’t go back and cut a second or two out. This is one aspect that’s making it less useful for journalism than initially hoped.

Limited Searchability – Vine exists almost entirely within its app at the moment. Each video creates a web link, but when you go to the video page, you can’t click on the user to see their other vines or click on hashtags to find other related videos.

The Verdict

While Vine isn’t a perfect product right now (what first version ever is?), if you can think up a clever, creative reason to make a vine for your organization or business, go for it. The fact that it’s not a stand alone social media service actually works in your favor right now; you don’t have to spend time developing a community there… just film and post, then share on the communities you’ve (hopefully) built elsewhere.

More information

Mashable provides a good video on how to create stunning Vine videos (with a bonus slideshow on creating for beginners).

MediaBistro talks about possible business uses for Vine.

Jeff Bullas provides 6 tips for using Vine in marketing.

A homeless guy comes into a pawn shop with a mud-caked suitcase. He wants at least four dollars for it, but the shop owner won’t give him anything. He cracks it open and there’s a gooey, disgusting corpse. He lowers his request to fifty cents.

Side note: homeless people seem to find a lot of bodies on this show. At least once a season. I wonder how that correlates to reality. I would imagine that most homeless people wouldn’t report finding a dead body for fear of being suspected themselves. But I could be totally wrong. Moving on.

At the lab, Brennan says the body is a male and Squintern Finn Abernathy says that the jaw makes him at about 15. Hodgins, going only on this information, suggests that this was a Jackass-style stunt gone wrong. Dental records ID the victim as Martin Manicone and Sweets and Booth go to inform his mother, Mary. At her place are her neighbor, Dolores, and her daughter Cat, who was good friends with Manny, as everyone called Martin. The mom is distraught and insists that her son didn’t do any silly stunt type things. Cat says he didn’t have problems with anyone in school. The last she saw him was two weeks ago at a party; she talked him into going. Cam interrupts the questioning with a phone call to let Booth know there was ketamine in Manny’s tissue — the party drug known as Special K. In Manny’s room, Booth and Sweets find a load of cell phones and computer parts. Cat comes in and explains that he would “fix” people’s phones. Sweets asks about drugs and Cat says he didn’t do anything like that. The stack of cash Booth finds behind his headboard seems to say something different, though.

There’s no data on any of the phones, but Angela finds some info in Manny’s personal phone. All his calls were to and from his mom. Most of his texts were between him and Cat, with some coded ones to a Nick Pavonetti. Booth goes to question Nick at his dad’s moving company, where he also works. Nick says that he doesn’t know anything about any drugs; he was helping Manny sell hacked smartphones and that they’d made a couple of grand so far. He says he was trying to help Manny make more friends. He last saw the kid at the party, too, which Nick describes as the “best party I was ever at.” Now, usually I don’t comment on the end of a case in the middle of the recap, but knowing how this all turns out: wow, what a douche.

Cause of death is determined to be asphixiation from a cervical cord being severed. There are some more fractures that don’t make sense, though, so Finn keeps checking out the bones.

Angela finds that Manny’s most frequented website was porn. No, not really, we’re just going to assume he was smart enough to clear his browser after doing that because a computer-smart 15-year-old without a girlfriend who doesn’t view online porn is just unbelievable. Anyway. The real most visited site is Hipstashot, where he was viewing photos from the awesome party the night before. Angela uses facial recognition to stitch together his journey from that night. Cat was dancing with another guy, Manny appeared to be following her around, confronted the guy, then left.

Booth brings the other guy, Stanton, in. He says that he doesn’t even know Manny. Stanton’s a senior, Cat’s a sophomore, she asked him to dance, Manny shoved him off and yelled at him. Stanton went to go get a drink while Cat yelled at him that she hated him and wished he was dead. Meanwhile, Cat has asked to meet with Sweets. When she arrives, Sweets starts recording the conversation. She wants to know that he can’t tell anyone what she says to him and he says that he won’t tell anyone anything they don’t need to know. Cat reveals that she was raped at the party. She blacked out, and woke up at home, but she knew she’d been raped. She was a virgin and in the morning, there was blood. All she remembers is one green eye that she has nightmares about. Her mom told her not to call the police; since she didn’t know who did it, they’d say it was her fault (wow, way to be a bitch, mom). Sweets asks if she took anything and Cat says she didn’t, but thinks she was roofied. Sweets asks if it might have been Manny, but Cat says he wouldn’t do that, even though he’d been weird to her lately. After a moment, Sweets asks he to wait a sec. He heads to see B&B, who just found out that the ketamine was in the suitcase with Manny, not in his liver — he didn’t take it. Sweets tells them about Cat’s admission and Booth freaks out that Sweets was questioning her without a guardian present. Sweets tells him that he recorded it and made sure not to ask case questions. Booth is sure that Manny was the rapist.

Sweets has to tell the authorities and Cat is upset with him. She approaches him later outside the building. He tells her that she has to deal with this or it’ll stay with her forever. She asks what he knows about it and he reveals his past history of being beaten in his foster home. He promises that he’ll find someone who can help her and find her rapist.

Dolores (Cat’s mom) reveals to Booth that she’d told Manny to stay away from Cat because she’d seen the way he was looking at her. She confronted Manny about the rape; Manny said nothing, just paled and ran off. Dolores defends not telling the cops because she wanted to protect her daughter’s reputation. Sweets doesn’t think Manny fits as the rapist, though; he was protective, not aggressive. Angela uses the pictures to follow Cat around instead. After the fight, they see her go into the backyard, get offered a drink from someone who’s not Manny, get sloppy and slumping eight minutes later. This, combined with the discovery of the other wounds being from three ratcheting straps compressing the body in the suitcase point to Nick. In the interrogation, Booth plays Nick by making it seem like if he admits to the rape, he won’t get charged for the murder. Nick falls for it. Sweets gets to let Cat and her mom know that they found Manny’s murderer and her rapist. He kept his promise.

The end of the episode features a PSA about the National Sexual Assault Hotline.

The B Plot

Michelle’s coming home from college soon and both Cam and Finn are excited. Brennan posits that Finn is excited about the impending sex and, clearly, neither he nor Cam want that to be a topic of discussion. As Finn picks up some cash at an ATM, he’s surprised by Michelle, who he wasn’t expecting until next weekend. She didn’t say anything because she wanted to stay with Finn for the weekend, rather than with Cam. Finn is uncomfortable with lying, but the prospect of booty clearly wins him over.

While talking with Angela about Manny’s potential double life, Cam is sure that she would just know if Michelle were lying to her. Mom instincts. Um, Cam, you’ve been a mom for, what, three years? How about you tone down the smugness?

All the deception is too much for Finn and he blurts out that Michelle’s in town to Cam. Cam says he’s in big trouble — with Michelle: “You owe her your trust.” He’s very confused. Cam says that he’ll arrange to meet Michelle, let her know where, Cam will happen upon them. She gets to be mad at her daughter, and Michelle will think it’s a coincidence. As Finn and Michelle wait outside a club that night, Cam happens by, very casually. Michelle says it was all her idea and Cam plays the martyr. After she leaves, Michelle confesses to Finn “I hate it when she’s right. I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”

Michelle apologizes to Cam later and Cam comes clean about Finn revealing the secret. Michelle’s pissed, but Cam thinks they should let him off the hook. Michelle says that secrets are too complicated and they should just be honest with each other. Cam cagely admits that she’s seeing someone, and reveals that it’s Arastoo. “I suppose you want me to keep this a secret from Finn?” Michelle suggests. Cam didn’t even think about that.

The C Plot

There’s some little side plot about Brennan being a backseat crossword puzzler and Booth telling her she’s not always the smartest because she doesn’t know about Gilligan’s Island.

The Verdict

There were a lot of little infuriations about this episode. The assumption that the victim died of stupidity, the leap to him being a rapist, Cat’s mom’s victim-blaming, Cam’s ploy with Michelle. So I’m not really sure how I felt about it. Something doesn’t sit right. How do you feel?

(Screencap via http://bones-daily.com)

A lot of tumblr last week was preoccupied with Nor’easter Nemo, but the tumblr world moves so fast that, by Friday, it had moved on to the normal preoccupations of tumblr: fandoms, food, gifs, beautiful things, funny things, and Miley Cyrus. This is what I crown the Best of Tumblr: Nothing Nemo Edition.

Timely

The fandoms on tumblr are out in full force this Valentine’s Day. Want some Comic Sans Avengers Valentines? What about Pastel West Wing Valentines? Some Glee? Golden Girls? Historical Figures and High School Lit? Various fandoms, including Star Wars, LoTR, Harry Potter, King Kong, and Doctor Who? Teen Wolf? As tempting as that CJ Cregg one is, I think this one’s stolen my heart:

Tasty

Like Italian Soda? FuckingRecipes has a hilarious, informative, and NSFW profanity filled tutorial on how to make your own. You better bet the next time I head to the supermarket, I’m picking up the necessary supplies. (Adapted from Sugar and Charm if you want a less funny and more SFW read.)

Butterbeer Cupcakes. Using schnapps. I want to go to there.

Beautiful

Street art tells a story in a beautiful way.

A Dutch couple takes pictures of their English Sheepdogs every day. And my heart explodes from the cute.

Delightful fan art for The Fault In Our Stars by AndiRee.

Sad

We mourn the cancellation of Don’t Trust the B- in APT 23 with this gif set of the B’s best moments. Goodbye, Chloe… we hardly knew ye.

Surprising

This (I think oldish, going by Miley’s hair) video of Miley Cyrus covering Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” is making the rounds, surprising people with her voice. As one tumblee pointed out, Parton is her godmother, so one would think Miley wouldn’t even try a cover unless she could knock it out of the park.

Funny

Four Non Blondes’ “What’s Up” + Les Miserables = GOLD. Just go look. One image will not do it justice.

Calming Manatee features a guest image from Amanda Chronister, detailing the cuteness that manatees are made of.

MRAs were all up on twitter last week, using the hashtag #INeedMasculismBecause. A bunch of guys invaded the hashtag with the best weapon ever: satire. SKTagg23 compiles some of the best tweets.

Just Because

Make this your mantra this week, Persephoneers! Have a great one!

This week on Bones: Angela goes undercover, Booth gets shady, and a Squintern has a birthday.

Two rookie cops get a call to check out an old slaughter house for a possible B&E. One thinks they’re being screwed around with and the other goes down a dark hallway to check something out. He trips and falls into something. You guessed it: a body. When they arrive at the scene, Brennan says that the killer chose a good place for a body dump. The body was a female, doused in some kind of corrosive liquid, which removed the skin from her hands. Cam needs the corrosive off the body so she can work with as much tissue as is left, and Hodgins suggests a pressure hose, but Brennan worries that will wreck the bones. Cam, as her boss, overrides her.

Squintern Wendell Bray is on this case and he finds a lot of marks of blunt force trauma all over the body, as well as three missing teeth, all indicative of domestic abuse. Cam pulls out the bridge of fake teeth and sends it off to have the serial number tracked. The ID comes back as Melinda Perkins, recently separated from her husband Dr. Bradley Perkins. Sweets brings him in for questioning. They’d been separated for a year after seven years of marriage. Bradley says that his wife was exciting but difficult, and that she was the one who wanted a divorce. He gives his alibi of being at the hospital until 2 a.m. the night of the murder.

Fortunately, Melinda was wearing a fancy GPS and heart rate watch, so Angela is able to discover that her heart rate was elevated for two minutes prior to her death. Which happened, according to GPS, 100m east of where she was found. B&B go check it out and find a roller derby practice in session. Nick Bennett introduces himself as the team owner and a player (Susan Carrol: derby name Emily Chickenson) speaks up and says no one “owns” the team. B&B ask about Melinda, whose derby name was Pummel-ya Anderson, and reveal that she was murdered there last night. They had a match last night against the Virginia Slims. Emily says she remembers Melinda not feeling well and skipping the after bout drinks. Someone points out that another player, Ivana Kick-Ass, didn’t show up today either. Booth brings Ivana in for questioning and she’s very defensive. She says that Melinda was her friend, but she lived a wild life. Ivana warned her she could get in trouble. She couldn’t get enough of guys, and even had sex with one on the lawn in front of her ex’s house.

Hodgins finds the cause of death: Melinda was beaten with a skate. And stabbed. Also in her system: hydrocodone, ecstasy, weed, and meth. Unfortunately, none of that really helps them get closer to a suspect. They need to get in the rink. Angela ends up offering to go undercover as Smackie Kennedy, kick ass derby girl. She’s excited to get out from behind the computer and get back in touch with her wild side. She does pretty good at the tryouts, despite getting crashed out a couple of times. After the practice, Angela waits until the room is clear and then gets her kit to check the skates, which all have blood on them. No help. Emily comes in and warns Angela not to leave her valuables in the locker room because things have gone missing. Angela invites Emily out for a drink and proceeds to get super drunk, then calls Booth to come get her. But really so that he can arrest Nick, who she tricked into coming out. She found out from Emily that Nick was skimming from the team and Melinda confronted him about it. Also (because wouldn’t you?), she makes out with Booth. You know, for cover purposes.

Nick says that Melinda was one of the best players, a main attraction, so he definitely wouldn’t kill her. Nick says that he thought that Melinda was the one who was skimming money from the door, but didn’t confront her about it. He admits to sleeping with her, and that he met her ex once, a few months ago at a bar. Wendell finds that there are signs of CPR after death, suggesting an accident at first, but then Brennan notices that the CPR was done to pump the blood out of the body to prevent spray during dismemberment, something only a medical professional would know. Booth calls in the ex again, upon finding that the night nurse said he was MIA between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. He says he was napping and contends that he would never hurt Melinda, but lawyers up when Booth tells him about the bleeding out.

Meanwhile, on the victim’s blood-spattered shirt, Hodgins finds black light visible orange stains: vitreous humor from an eyeball. Sure enough, they find fragments in an eye socket… of a key. This clears the husband who doesn’t actually have any keys. B&B head back to the rink where a key on Ivana’s ring matches, but has no blood on it. It’s to the team van, and Brennan checks that, finding blood in the key chamber. Ivana was studying to be a physical therapist, so she had the requisite knowledge. She defends herself saying that nothing’s been stolen since.

The B-Plot

While on the way to the crime scene, Brennan asks Booth about taking Christine to baby group, but he reminds her that he has “his thing” at the hospital. Sweets questions where he’s been going on Fridays, guessing that it’s confession, but Booth points out that he’s “living in sin” so he’s been avoiding confession for a while. When Angela overhears Brennan says “hospital” in a conversation with Booth, she wants to know what that’s about, too. Brennan says she’s not free to discuss that. Angela’s affronted and reminds her that she’s just asking because she cares.

Angela finds Cam and asks if she knows if there’s anything wrong with Booth. Cam hasn’t heard anything either and agrees that she hates it when Booth gets all stoic. Cam asks Brennan, who assures her that there’s nothing wrong with Seeley (aw, I love it when they get all concerned and use his first name), but says she’s not allowed to talk about it. Cam just can’t let it go, so she goes to see Dr. Crawford, who Booth’s been meeting with. Dr. Crawford says that she’s promised Booth she wouldn’t discuss it. It’s not what she would recommend, but she has to respect his wishes. Seriously, Cam, you’re a doctor. You know HIPAA, you know that she can’t tell you a damn thing. Anyway, Cam has some other questions and asks what Dr. Crawford treats. See, even confirming that Booth is seeing her and knowing her specialty is a HIPAA violation. Which, I guess doesn’t really apply given what we learn at the end, but I wish she had just said “Well, it’s not medical, so I’m not violating HIPAA, just Booth’s trust” or something. Anyway. Dr. Crawford specializes in neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition where tumors grow on nerves, affecting many children, and more common than muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, and Huntington’s combined. Cam asks if Christine is sick, but Dr. Crawford says she’ll have to talk to Booth. Cam thanks her and Dr. Crawford suggests that she can thank her by making a donation to the Children’s Tumor Foundation.

That evening, Brennan takes Cam to observe a carnival near the hospital for the NF kids. Booth made it happen. Brennan’s not sure why, maybe because Parker’s in England or Christine’s so healthy, but Booth wanted to give these kids a carnival. Cam asks why he didn’t want anyone to know and Brennan replies with 1 Corinithians 13:4 — ”Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.” He feels that real charity is anonymous. He didn’t even want Brennan to know, and she asks Cam to please not tell anyone. She just figured that Cam would keep asking questions until she found the truth. They end, agreeing that Booth is a very good man.

The C-Plot

It’s Wendell Bray’s birthday! He’s 29 and Hodgins thinks he’s much less excited about it than he should be. Hodgins asks if Wendell has a pre-30 bucket list, but everything Hodgins can think to put on one, Bray’s already done. Like posing naked for a student. Bray’s done that, but not a student. After saying that, he doesn’t want to discuss more and Hodgins realizes that he posed for Angela. Eventually, he comes clean to Hodgins: his brother bet him that by 29, he’d still be a loser. Hodgins doesn’t understand; he’s not a loser. Wendell says it’s not fair; he doesn’t want to ask for the $200 that he won because his brother barely scrapes by, but he can’t get the satisfaction of winning. Hodgins tells him to ask for it; he earned it.

After the case is done, Wendell, Hodgins, and Angela go out for birthday drinks (but Angela’s off the booze). They want to pay, but Wendell says that since they just lost their fortune, drinks are on him, especially since he got a little windfall. Hodgins smiles at him. He’s got a present for Hodgins, too: the picture Angela drew of him, with an addition of boxers over the private areas.

The Verdict

While I didn’t like the misdirection involving Booth and the hospital visit, I thought that overall, this was a solid episode. And I demand more drunk Angela. What did you think?

Daisy’s back and death is on the mind of the Jeffersonian crew, even more than normal. I didn’t intend for those two to sound related, but we’ll go with it.

A couple are on a Segway tour through one of DC’s national parks when the wife hits a bump and gets thrown. She gets up, complaining of a tingling face. Because it has huge bugs all over it. You guessed it, she landed on a body. You know, people discover bodies on this show by falling on them quite often. Does this really happen that often in real life? Instead of helping his wife, the husband films this because the kids will find it “cool.” Jerk.

At the scene, Brennan IDs the body as female, Caucasian, early 30s. As she brushes dirt from the surrounding area, another set of teeth shows up: we’ve got two bodies! The first body shows crushing fractures to the chest, as well as defensive wounds to the arms. The second body seems less murdery; it had been anointed with herbs and arranged for burial, which is the product of eco-burial company Green Passages. The body matches the burial location of Monica Craig, who died of cancer and was buried by Green Passages.

Sweets brings in Monica’s husband, who is shocked to hear about the desecration. He agrees to give them a list of everyone who knew Monica’s burial location. Before he leaves, Sweets asks if he recognizes the facial reconstruction of the murder victim and surprisingly, he does: Rachel Knox, Monica’s “death doula” at Green Passages.

B&B head to Green Passages, where they interrupt a burial rehearsal to question Akshay Mirza, the Director. He’s shocked to hear about Rachel; they’d been business partners for two years. He didn’t report her missing because she disappeared all the time. Everyone loved Rachel and he can’t think who would want to hurt her. Court records show differently; she’d been named in multiple lawsuits by a competing burial company. The owner, Mr. Warren, says that they were going to go into business together (his name, her land), but she went back on her deal and partnered with Mirza instead, in more ways than one.

Daisy’s found that about six months before her death, Rachel sustained a blow to the face. When B&B question Mirza about this, he says that yes, they were in a relationship, and the blow to the face was from him getting tired during tantric sex and falling on her. Brennan finds it plausible. Mirza brushes off their relationship as being irrelevant: it was almost a year ago, and he knew her rule: three months and then she moved on.

Daisy also finds that, though Monica Craig had lung cancer, it doesn’t seem to have killed her; she had weeks or months left. We’ve got another murder! Angela and Hodgins find that Rachel’s lethal wound had the shape and particles of an ancient weapon, or the burial markers used by Green Passages and made by Mirza. B&B visit him again, finding it funny that everything comes back to him. He’s getting super annoyed at this point and lawyers up.

Hodgins finds it odd that some of the beetles have gotten fat and finds methylone in them, otherwise known as bath salts. Which Dr. Craig used to treat depression in patients before it was banned. He admits to providing Monica with the bath salts because she was begging him to her her end her pain. He didn’t help her, but he didn’t stop her. He asks what happens now and Sweets says he goes home; they’re looking for a murder. Sweets presents his findings on Craig to Booth and says that it’s consistent with grief and guilt. Booth spots a pattern in Craig’s phone calls to Rachel. They increased for a three month period ending two days before Monica’s suicide. They were sleeping together.

Craig is brought in again, to a scarier interrogation room. Booth points out that only a guilty husband would put the grave marker back after killing Rachel. He says that Rachel showed up when he was placing the stone and spouted out some “yoga babble” about their time being past, “Like I wasn’t a person anymore.” He couldn’t stand losing someone else right after Monica.

The B-Plot

Over coffee (which Sweets apparently makes the best of), Booth asks Sweets if he’s okay with Daisy back in the lab. He says he’s fine. He’s over it, but Brennan questions whether he’s moved on physically. Sweets points out that Parker’s room isn’t exactly conducive to bringing ladies back for some sexing.

Daisy, for her part, is cool as a cucumber in the lab. And, ironically, at her least annoying. I think I’m going to like this Sweets-less Daisy. Everyone is, understandably, unnerved by her coolness.

When Sweets is at the lab, he hovers by the door to where she’s working before she asks him if she can help him with anything. Sweets is awkward, Daisy is all business. She doesn’t see a need for a conversation about how they’re doing, but Sweets doesn’t think they need to stop talking all out. She’s still in the apartment, and working on a paper. He got published, too, and she knew about it. He credited her, which was nice.

Later, Daisy and Sweets meet at the diner for coffee. Sweets admits to missing her and she admits to waking up the other night and reaching out for him. She hasn’t been alone, though, she’s been seeing a pathologist. Sweets lies and says he’s been seeing someone too. Sweets has been questioning if the breakup was a mistake, that’s why he wanted to see her again. Daisy agrees, but says that she realizes now that they don’t belong together.

After the case is over, Cam sees Daisy sitting alone, looking sad. Cam comes over and says she can pretend she doesn’t see the smeared mascara. Daisy says she’s fine; actually, she’s really sad. Cam points out that she’s grieving. She had something alive and now it’s gone. Daisy suggests bringing it back to life. Cam asks her, as a scientist, if she’s ever seen that turn out well. “So feel sad. Cry. You lost something wonderful, but keep moving forward. It’ll get better, I promise.” Aw, Cam, that was great advice.

The C-Plot

All this talk of burials gets the team talking about how they want to be sent off to the afterlife. Hodgins wants to be launched into the sun (since that’s where all life comes from). All Cam knows is she doesn’t want to go into the ground. A case she worked on in NYC, Eleanor Marx, the hospital pronounced her dead, but when they went to bury her, there was scratching on the coffin: she had been in a coma.

Booth just wants a coffin and a priest and doesn’t even have a will. Or he does, but it’s on a Post-It reading “Give it all to Bones.” Brennan asks about Parker and Booth says he knows she’ll be good to Parker. Seriously, Booth? First of all, you and Brennan aren’t married, so without a real will, it won’t go to her. Also, you were in the military, and you work in a very dangerous field. AND YOU’VE HAD TO HAVE BRAIN SURGERY!!! Did you not have a will then? Do you not think about your son at all? Damn, man. On the flip side of the coin, Brennan’s will is 312 pages (she has a lot of money, complicated family, and revenue streams that will continue after her death). Booth gets some of it, but most is set aside for Christine.

Brennan asks Booth to redo his will, pointing out to him that it’s his last message to the world. Brennan reveals her burial plans: she wants a celestial burial, to be taken up on a hill, dismembered, and her bones pulverized so they go into the air. Booth is horrified. “That’s your last message to the world, to Christine, to me?”

At home, Booth makes a video to Christine. Brennan spies on him in the background. It’s a touching little monologue, especially when he says “I’m the luckiest man in the world because I got to spend time with your mother and with you. And that’s true. Whether I die today or 50 years from now. Help your mom to be happy. If she’s alone, she’s gonna forget.” Brennan, tears in her eyes, runs up and wraps a hug around him. She tells him that she changed her will, too. Only 306 pages and she wants to be thrown into a volcano now. Booth’s always wanted to visit an active volcano, so if she’s dead, they can at least have  a nice trip together. Awww, adorable.

Overall, I really liked this episode. I think it was one of the cutest Booth and Brennan episodes and Daisy’s growing on me. What did you think?

Pelant is back and targeting Angela and Hodgins this time.

We get a “previously on” reminding us of the other Pelant-centric stories (“The Crack in the Code,” The Past in the Present,” and “The Future in the Past“) and that Pelant got off the last time by changing his identity to Bassam Alfayat and being handed over to the Egyptian authorities.

A baby is crying in Hodgins and Angela’s house and Hodgins wakes up, hazily. Something wet starts dripping on him: blood from the body caught in the canopy over their bed. Angela wakes up, screams, and runs to check on Michael Vincent, who is in his crib, surrounded with bloody flower petals. Booth and Brennan are on their way over; Hodgins found a hole in the air vent, confirming they were drugged. Brennan checks out the body, but since the skin, jaw, and genitalia have been removed, all she can tell is that it’s male. When Angela points out the petals were from an Egyptian crocus, they’re all sure it was Pelant. Hodgins thinks it’s because he almost killed Pelant and doesn’t want the crime teams out there. Angela agrees, wanting to get rid of Pelant. Brennan has no moral problem with that, but says that Booth is the only one with the skill to do it. Booth says they stay in the system, do it the right way. But in lockdown.

At the lab, the non-essential Jeffersonian staff are being given time off and fancy plates (which Caroline Julian describes as a high-tech tin foil hat) are being put up. Booth reminds the team that all conversations are on burner cells from now on out. Cam pulls some blood from Hodgins to see what gas was used. Brennan gets a better look at the body: Caucasian male, dead less than 24 hours, some small lesions and fragments (not related to Pelant). Brennan thinks she needs to figure out the logic of the cuts.

In his hideout, Pelant scans his own eye, adjusting a key card for Seberus Security… full access.

Sweets, Booth, and Caroline are going over the case in Booth’s office. Pelant’s Egyptian alias has disappeared off the grid. Agent Flynn pokes his head in, guessing that it’s something to do with Pelant, but the team clams up. “If I were you, I would want all the help that I could get. But I’m not you,” Flynn remarks before leaving. Now is a good time to remind you that he gave an awfully strange look at the end of the last Pelant episode. When the Squints team finds that the lesions and fragments point to a Special Forces vet, Flynn helps them out by hooking Booth up with the classified Pentagon file of the only guy who matches: Xavier Freeman. Booth and Sweets go to check out his very spartan place and find his gun locker left open with loads of proprietary weapons. Booth says he must have been employed by Serberus, which specializes in ex-military high security.

Cam gives Hodgins the bad news that her hematologist couldn’t find anything in the blood sample. He tells her to put more resources on it, he’ll fund it, but she doesn’t know what to do next. Later, he has an idea and Angela finds him snorting lidocaine so that he can biopsy his lung. Angela tries to stop him and he admits the odds of finding something are slim. She suggests they double them and says he can biopsy hers, too. When the results are done, Hodgins finds a few stray molecules of a rare gas. The only two suppliers of it are both divisons of Cantilever, which is owned by Hodgins.

Cam and Brennan find that there were no poisons in Freeman’s system, but high levels of something suggesting he’d been tortured. Brennan finds needle marks leading to the conclusion that he was in intense pain for days until his heart gave out. Flynn and Booth go to Serberus, but the CEO won’t give them any info and Caroline Julian says she needs an actual reason to get them a warrant for Serberus.

Brennan gets a call from Pelant on her burner; he’s disappointed that she hasn’t read the body yet. He says she’ll be getting a hint soon. In the mailroon, a poor clerk opens a letter and finds a hairy finger. Booth is upset that Pelant’s unscrambled their signal and Hodgins gets out his enigma machines that Pelant can’t crack. Cam and Brennan find that the finger is from a barbary ape, leading them to a scientist that made human anatomy drawings, one of which resembled the corpse. There’s some errors in the cuts, though, leaving holes that line up with letters in the original illustration: MELYCU. The only scramble that makes sense is LYCEUM, but what does it mean?

Hodgins finds Pelant’s new alias (through the Cantilever purchase records): Justin Trimple. They know they can’t search for him, though, because he’ll surely have that flagged. Angela thinks they can blast him with Nigerian 409 scam emails… when she does, Pelant gets flooded with emails and blocks them all, but from that, Angela knows what server he’s using. Booth and Flynn bring that info to Caroline and she can get a warrant with that. The FBI tactical team shows up at Serberus, Booth’s had gatlings hidden behind gates for places they can’t station someone. Sweets wants to go in, but Booth says that he’s the only other person who understands Pelant, so if Booth doesn’t make it out, Sweets has to finish it. Inside, Pelant sees the building being surrounded on monitors. He goes into a server room and something changes to “remote systems armed.” He pulls out of the machine and leaves just as the FBI enters the room.

Downstairs, Flynn and Booth scan the monitors, but Pelant seems to be on all cameras at once. Booth asks the CEO where the off map escape route is and the CEO says it’s not in the blueprints, he wouldn’t know about it. Booth and Flynn run after Pelant into a boiler room. Pelant flicks some switches and opens a door. Booth and Flynn follow him in and the gatling guns go off, taking down Flynn. Booth pulls him out of the room, then gets a couple of shots off at Pelant (one splattering blood across the windshield), but the car keeps going.

Booth is regrouping and Flynn is being taken out on a stretcher, as the CEO informs him that every workstation on the 8th floor just went on, streaming numbers. Angela gets patched in, but the team at the Jeffersonian sees no logic. Booth recognizes them as quadrants for a target… a MQ-9 Predator drone is on target for a girls’ school in Afghanistan and they’re locked out of it. The code LYCEUM gets them a video feed, but also starts more data being streamed. Hodgins recognizes the new data: it’s the passwords for all his accounts. Pelant is draining all of his money. If they shut it down, they lose the connection with the drone. Pelant is forcing him to choose: save his money or the girls. It’s not even a decision. Angela gets the drone to self-destruct just as all of Hodgins’ money is gone.

After it’s all over, Hodgins sits in the lab, eating a muffin. It was free, he wasn’t about to turn it down. Angela says they’ll be all right and jokingly says she saw a bag of frozen bagels that’s been downstairs for a week. Hodgins replies, “That’s breakfast!”

Brennan is at home with Christine as Booth returns. He says that Flynn is stabilized. Booth is uneasy with waiting for Pelant to make the next move, but he’s sure that he at least wounded him.

In what appears to be a vet’s office, Pelant sutures his badly damaged face up. Cue menacing music. Where will Pelant go from here?

Before we start on this recap, a bit of news: Bones has been renewed for a NINTH season! And all the current cast are signed on to stay on board (with no contract drama, aren’t they the best?).

A skydiver calls his wife to assure her he’s fine, while he’s stuck in a tree. Some branches break, shifting him farther down, where he finds himself next to something big in a net of webbing. Yeah, it’s a body. Yeah, he freaks out. As would we all.

At the scene, Cam investigates a Jeep and discovers blood that’s been wiped clean from the passenger seat. She slices into the cushion and finds it’s soaked with blood. The car was left in neutral so that it ran into the boulder, catapulting the body into the tree. Up in the tree, Hodgins really wants it to be a Mothman, but Brennan talks him into being serious. It’s a Caucasian male. As she slices into the cocoon to try to get to the body, worms fall on her face. She is much calmer, cooler, and collected about that than I would be. [AAAAH! ~ed.]

Thanks to its unique sinus cavities, the body is identified as James Sutton, an archaeologist who wrote a series of Indiana Jones-esque books. In each of his books, he features an artifact from one of his expeditions and goes on to sell that artifact for a great profit after.

Sutton’s pregnant widow, Marina, and her brother are brought in. She thought he died in a car accident. (Wait, how does she know that if he was only just found?) She and James met in Chechnya and married, and Marina only moved over a month ago. Her brother came over to support her when James disappeared. The last time Marina saw him was when he last came back from Russia, he was very excited about his discovery. She hands them a key and says (through her translating brother) that she’s very sad that he’ll never know his child.

The key is to a space at DC Art and Wine Storage, temperature controlled for special storage items. They enter Sutton’s space and Brennan licks one of the bones on the table. Since it’s porous and sticks to her tongue, it’s human. Booth jumps to serial killer, but Brennan says that there’s documentation that says they’re paleolithic. When they get back to the lab, Brennan is upset to find that those remains have been turned over to Clark Edison, since ancient remains are his territory. Brennan is upset, but Clark takes the bones away.

Hodgins, with the assistance of some worm-eating crows, has cleared off the body, and finds some particles in a wound on the back of the ribs. B&B visit Sutton’s publisher (hi there, Amy Yasbeck!), who last heard from him last week. Sutton was excited at a great find, which meant he could publish something of real merit. She doesn’t deal with the artifact sales, though, so she didn’t know who they were sold to. She just knew some guy in Texas bought most of them. Sweets finds the guy, a Mr. Wilson, a creationist with a museum. Sweets doesn’t understand why he would buy artifacts that contradicted what he believed. Wilson funded Sutton’s last trip and was getting angry that Sutton wouldn’t deliver the remains. Sweets brings him in and questions him about his beliefs and what he did with the artifacts he bought (none made it into his museum). Wilson says that Sutton stole the bones from him by refusing to sell them to him.

Brennan suspects that the particles in the wounds on Sutton’s back were the result of a flogging, about two months ago. Sweets brings Marina in again, she admits that her family is traditional. They didn’t want her to marry a foreigner, so her father had Sutton whipped. When he got better, she followed him to the U.S., so now she can’t go home; she’s dishonored her family by leaving. Brennan finds some more wounds, indicating that Sutton received a blow to the shoulder, then turned to defend himself, and got cut down into the armpit area, severing an artery, killing him in under a minute. Booth brings in Marina’s brother, who was Russian special forces trained. He was broke two weeks ago then got a transfer for $20K. Booth thinks that he asked daddy for a bailout and daddy told him to take out Sutton to honor the family. Brother lawyers up.

It’s okay, though, because Hodgins finds some book binder’s linen in a wound and Brennan knows where to look. B&B visit the publisher again and finds blood spatter on the floor and a book end missing. Publisher felt betrayed by Sutton publishing in a journal for no pay. Well, that’s convenient for the brother, who gets money without having to murder someone.

The B-Plot

Brennan doesn’t think Clark can handle the ancient remains and Clark asks Hodgins to help him with some vegetation for a recreation of the scene where the bodies were found. Hodgins doesn’t want to be in the middle of this. Angela is helping Clark out. She’s excited to put faces on the ancient remains. When Brennan snoops around, she’s there for the discovery that not all the remains are homo sapiens, one male is a neanderthal. Brennan thinks the mixed tribe cohabitation is unprecedented and she finds reason to take over —  the neanderthal male was murdered with a sharp object to the head. Since it’s a crime, it’s hers. They fight about publications and jurisdiction and Cam intercedes, saying Clark keeps the bones, but Brennan can have access, and if either of them complain, the other gets the bodies.

Back at the scene, Clark is sad that the happy mixed tribe theory is shot. Angela gives him a drawing and he says that the child is wrong — too short — unless… He realizes that the child is half neanderthal. Brennan is stunned at the revelation, too, and congratulates Clark, right before she takes credit for his training. After the case is solved, Clark, Brennan, and Angela show a recreation of their case for the gathered employees of the Jeffersonian. The family, a homo sapiens mom, neanderthal dad, and mixed child, were outcasts from their tribe. Another homo sapiens male threw a spear at the dad. Mom attacked the interloper, getting hit in the face. Dad picked up a stone hatchet to strike the interloper. The Dad bled out in less than three minutes, Mom suffocated to death. The child was only three. With no one to take her in, she starved to death. Angela’s dismayed that they found the world’s first hate crime that ended with the starvation of the little girl. Clark points out that the parents crawled over the the child before they died. When she died, her last action was to curl up with her parents. That’s how the bones were found, together. Sweet, but yeah, still depressing.

The C-Plot

Brennan is worried that Christine isn’t grasping peekaboo yet, when she’s been so advanced at other skills. Booth tells her not to worry and “Uncle Sweets” (aww, he’s so part of the family now) takes Christine to daycare. Later, Booth is concerned about something and Sweets infers that what he’s really worried about is the competitive pressure that Brennan is putting on Christine. With her competitiveness with Clark, Booth can see what Sweets means.

At home, Brennan is pleased with herself for letting Clark have the moment. She even told Clark to replace her authorship credit with James Sutton’s, so his son would one day see the discovery his dad made. Brennan decides she doesn’t want to pass her failings (competitiveness, social awkwardness) on to Christine.

I really like the episodes where we get to explore forensics more than just for current crime, so I loved the B-Plot in this one. What did you think?

Dancing phalanges in the air for the fact that Bones is back! And with two new episodes, both of which I felt pretty darn good about. 

Sweets is in his PJs at Casa B&B, watching a show called Paranormal Abnormalities hosted by Palmer Haston. He’s snarkily invested in the program as an “apparition” catches Palmer’s eye. Palmer comes up on it and finds that it’s a glowing, encrusted skeleton with blood coming from its mouth. Sweets gives the only appropriate reaction: “What is that?!?”

Back at the lab, Palmer’s dropped off the encrusted body at the Jeffersonian. Brennan IDs the body as a Caucasian female, dead for only six days. Hodgins says the gems are just crystals consistent with the minerals around the quarry she was found it, and they formed in only three days. Shorts displaced to her ankles suggest sexual assault. The only bones they can actually get to are her feet (which were covered by her shoes) and they are some messed up feet. Every single bone has been broken at one point, from an up/down repetitive movement. Like a gymnast or dancer. Angela quickly finds a dancer, Katerina, reported missing (who’s played in photos and video footage by Eliana from SYTYCD!!!). She had moved from Germany just to dance with her partner, Kendrick, and they were the top ballroom couple in the country. They bring Kendrick in for questioning and find out he’s already replaced Katerina with Blossom; he had to move quickly, auditions for Dance to the Top are in three days. Sweets suggests later to Booth that maybe Kendrick made a move on Katerina and was shot down, leading to assault and murder. Booth shares that he put himself through college teaching dance lessons. Sweets can’t picture it.

Hodgins tested a theory on a spam body and determines that they’re wrong about sexual assault: maggots moved the clothes, slowly, over three days. Sweets, with his new knowledge of Booth’s skill, suggests B&B go undercover at the auditions. Brennan is totally excited: she learned tennis from watching Wimbledon, so she can learn dancing super easily. They talk Booth into it and Buck and Wanda (previously seen in “The Change in the Game“) show up to audition for Dance to the Top. Wanda and Buck practice the rumba as they scope out the contestants. They see Kendrick, and his new partner Blossom (who are very good), but their attention is taken by a Mama Rose (who’s never given a name, so that’s what she’ll be referred to as) freaking out about getting the wrong smoothie. She’s the mother of a dancer named Laila (paired with Chehon from STYCYD… Anya and Dimitry can also be spotted in this episode). Buck tries to cozy up to Blossom, who’s not talking to competition. Wanda chats with Laila, freaking the poor nervous girl out, and Mama Rose comes in, warning Wanda that unless she wants to end up like Katerina, she’ll back off. Laila insists that Katerina was her friend. Buck talks to Kendrick next, getting hints on getting rid of a bad partner. Kendrick replies super suspiciously.

Back at the lab, Squintern Wendell Bray keeps breaking parts of the body as he tries to get the crystals off, so he asks for Hodgins’ help. Hodgins thinks of setting up the skeleton in a tank with ammonia and detergent to dislodge the crystals. Good thing they try it on a fake skeleton first, because it overflows and destroys the intact skeleton. After some recalculations, they try it with the real remains and it works. They can finally start examining the bones. Wendell finds that her teeth were eroded, possibly by stomach acid, so they check to see if there are other signs of bulimia.  The cause of death is clear, though: her neck was twisted until it broke. Wendell finds that the erosion wasn’t bulimia; she was lead poisoned over the course of a year with lead acetate, commonly used in fabric dye.

Katerina had made an appointment with a neurologist for the day after she died, so the lead poisoning was possibly affecting her balance, but she was still winning. Brennan tests some of the costumes that Mama Rose made for Laila and finds, yes, lead acetate. B&B wait until after Laila’s audition to approach Mama Rose (Tyce and Mary from SYTYCD are judging). Laila admits to poisoning Katerina, but she just wanted to make her sick, not kill her. She has a boyfriend now, she doesn’t want to ruin her life. They reveal that the lead didn’t kill her and Booth finds Laila’s boyfriend, the smoothie guy, who admits to killing Katerina so that Mama Rose would get off Laila’s back.

When Brennan’s sad that the case is solved before they got to audition, Booth says they can do it anyway, since all the Jeffersonian team are on their way. Apparently, they’re waltzing, not rumba, though, and Brennan won’t follow Booth’s lead, so it’s hilariously terrible. As they finally get into step, Brennan asks if they do anything special when they end. Booth replies, “No, it’s never going to end, it’s always going to be just like this.” Awww.

The B-Plot

Brennan and Angela are at the diner talking shop and Angela seems almost annoyed at how much Brennan loves her work. Angela admits that she isn’t feeling fulfilled. She doesn’t feel like an artist anymore. Brennan tries to be a supportive friend (likening dancers getting broken feet to every career having drawbacks), and Angela appreciates it, but it’s not helping.

When Angela X-rays the bones, she can’t get over how beautiful it is, and how she doesn’t want to turn it ugly. Cam asks what it’s about and Angela says it’s not about stress or results; she’s losing herself. Cam promises that after this case, they’ll work something out. Later, Cam finds Angela leaving early for the day. She’s going to take her son to the museum and look at beautiful paintings. She talks about the way John Singer Sargent drew arms, like prayer, or dancing, or both. She gets called back in and Hodgins finds her later with their son. Angela’s cranky and frustrated. She’s tired of all the ugliness she’s surrounded by. Hodgins says they’ll fix that. He goes to find Cam.

As the crew leaves to watch B&B dance, Cam pulls Angela aside and gives her the bad news: budget cuts, they’ll have to cut some of Angela’s hours. Angela can tell this is Hodgins’ scheme and Cam tells her to just go along with it because everyone gets what they want: Angela gets time, Hodgins feels like the hero, Cam gets Angela. And a little bit of her is better than a lot of anyone else.

Maybe it’s because I’m a huge So You Think You Can Dance fan, or maybe it’s just hitting all my “aww” buttons, but I really liked this episode. I think this was a great way to come back from the holiday hiatus. What did you think?

Bones tries something new for its 150th episode and, well, it doesn’t quite work, in my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Instead of the usual body discovery scene, we’re treated to a different perspective: we see everything through the eyes of the victim. Wasps crawl over his face, and Hodgins dusts some dirt off, announcing that he’s found the skull. Brennan appears in view, but she’s hesitant to make a gender estimate in front of Hodgins (what? when has she ever been afraid of being wrong before?). He goes away and she gives her estimate to Booth: male, prepubescent, 13 or 14. Booth and Hodgins are both gutted, thinking of their sons. Brennan feels a strong desire to hold Christine and tells Booth to call Parker. Brennan puts the skull in a box and Booth assures him that they’ll find out what happened to him.

Why this conceit of alternate perspective? Cyndi Lauper as psychic Avalon returns to let us know that she still feels this boy’s presence in the world; he has some unfinished business. So Angela decides that they all need to act like the boy, who has been identified as a boy named Colin, is watching. And apparently, this means that everyone needs to talk to the skull. Hodgins tells him that his life was just about to get interesting after discovering that the wasps that were found around his body indicate that it was moved from its original location after almost a year.

Colin’s parents have asked to see his bones (which is convenient, and Booth and Brennan assure them that their son’s injuries would have killed him instantly. Colin’s parents say he was a great kid: good at sports, mostly solo stuff. Everyone liked him. And then they leave super abruptly. His wounds are matched to a 1987 Chevy, which Booth gets a warrant for, and brings into the lab. Seriously? I’m sorry, this is kind of where I lost it with the contrived elements of this episode. And it only goes down from here. The car is registered to Colin’s dad. He’s questioned off screen, where Booth describes him falling apart emotionally. They’d been working on the car as a project; he hadn’t taken the cover off since Colin went missing.

Thanks to some discolored patches on the skull, Brennan realizes that the skull was originally in a place where it was exposed to light. Using that, and the wasp information, they find a small pumphouse and find the missing hood ornament from Colin’s dad’s car. Angela does a recreation of the accident and can’t find an explanation for the injuries until Brennan suggests placing Colin standing on the car. Hitting a bump and knocking him off matches perfectly. Brennan looks at the skull and tell him that adolescents suffer diminished judgment: “You made a foolish decision, I just wish it hadn’t killed you.”

They bring Colin’s friends in for questioning and eventually, they admit to what happened. A girl that Colin had liked and made a mix tape for, Miranda, knew nothing about it, though. One of the boys was having nightmares about Colin and decided to move the body so he was found, so his parents could have closure.

Colin’s presence is still there, though, until Angela finds a file at the end of Colin’s mixtape. It’s a video, a love song he wrote for Miranda. They bring the girl in and play it for her. She’s touched. We stop seeing from his perspective and Avalon sees him outside the room. Miranda wishes that she could tell Colin she got his message. Avalon assures her he knows.

We close at Casa de B&B as always. Brennan is showing Christine her dancing phalanges (YAY! I always loved the dancing phalanges!) and wonders if it’s too early to teach her the periodic table. Booth presents Brennan with an old school romantic mix tape, starting with their song, “Hot Blooded.” The family dances together.

Other than the end scene of the B&B family, I just couldn’t get beyond how contrived this episode was. The car in the lab, Brennan bringing the skull home, bringing the skull to the crime scene and so conveniently putting it in front of a mirror. I get what they were going for, it just didn’t work for me. What do you think? Do you completely disagree?

A clumsy street artist spills his bucket of glue while vandalizing a billboard and then manages to fall off the billboard himself. Fortunately for him, landing on a dead body seems to break his fall. Unfortunately, he’s now stuck to it with industrial strength adhesive.

Hodgins uses the old peanut butter trick to unstick the bodies and the team uses the victim’s fused vetebrae to identify him as Morgan Donnelly, a telemarketer by day and comedian by night. Morgan’s boss Denny Bennett points them to Morgan’s girlfriend, Alexa, who stormed into the office yelling about him cheating on her the day he died. When Booth and Brennan inform Alexa (and her brother Eliott, who lives with her) about Morgan’s death, they both crack up. Not because they’re psychopaths; they thought it was a practical joke. When she realizes that it’s not a prank, she’s very upset. The fight was because a fan walked up to him and kissed him and in Alexa’s opinion, he “didn’t need to enjoy it that much.” She says that Morgan came over for dinner that night, then she went to work and when she came home, he wasn’t there.

Sweets goes through tapes of Morgan’s act (videoed by Eliott) and finds one repeat heckler, Larry Barren (played by Clarissa’s dad Marshall Darling!). When they question Larry, he explains that the heckling was all part of the act; Larry got laughs and Morgan got the audience’s good will. They question another comic, Rex (who stands to inherit the Friday night slot now), and he says that Morgan stole jokes from other comics. Since an open mic night would have been the best place to steal, Booth goes onstage to tell some of Morgan’s jokes that Sweets determined weren’t written by Morgan. A female comic, Annie Pinkus, stands up claiming the jokes as stolen and they take her in for questioning. Annie works at the telemarketing job, too, and she explains that she’s good at writing, but terrible at delivering the jokes, so she sells them to Morgan. His death actually hurt her career; Morgan was about to move to NYC with show bookings and everything.

Angela’s magic software leads them to the murder weapon: his face was smashed in by a toilet seat, most likely while he was over it puking. Hodgins gets the unenviable task of checking all the toilets Morgan would have frequented and the one that matches is in Alexa and Eliott’s apartment. After Morgan’s last dinner, Alexa left and Morgan and Eliott were going to stay in and write jokes. Eliott comes in with a lawyer and confesses. Morgan was drinking a lot, trying to work up the courage to tell Alexa he was leaving and breaking up with her. He had promised that he would help Eliott start an act, too, but was bailing on that. And so Eliott killed him. Damn.

The B Plot

As Hodgins comes to raid Angela’s peanut butter stash, she laments that she got a ticket for right turn on red at Broadway and Nash that morning. Hodgins thinks they should fight it, but Angela just wants to pay it and be done with it. Hodgins wonders where the spark plug that he married went and Angela points out that said spark plug had an indiscriminate sex life and didn’t stay in one place. Not exactly conducive to being married with a baby.

While the artist stuck to the body refuses to give the team his name, Angela recognizes his work immediately. He’s Zed, an anonymous underground artist who no one knows (shades of Banksy). He finally gives up his name as Seth Zalinsky, but won’t cop to being Zed. Eventually, he admits to Angela that Zed is his alter ego (and gets a kiss from her in the process).

As Zed is recovering from the body removal (and sedatives used to make it easier on him), he’s sleeping it off on Angela’s couch. He admires some of her work, but points out a newer painting of a unicorn and a rainbow, asking “What the hell is that supposed to be?” Hey now, don’t rag on unicorns and rainbows. He tells her that she’s the only person who knows his secret identity and if she keeps the secret, he’ll take care of Broadway and Nash for her. He leaves her saying, “You have excellent… technique.” Angela is gutted.

Hodgins finds out about the kiss and is a little worried, explaining to Angela, “Zed is cool and I’m not. If you ever leave me, it’s gonna be for someone who’s cool.” Angela explains that there was nothing in the kiss; she kissed him because she was in awe of his talent. I totally get that, Ange.

That night, Angela and Hodgins wait around at Broadway and Nash, where Angela has done a bit of social vandalism herself. Angela’s worried that Zed will hate it. Zed shows up, looks at it, then leaves. Hodgins goes after him to ask why he didn’t paint anything. “Someone beat me to it,” Zed replies, “I got nothing better to say.” Angela asks if he likes it, then, and Zed replies “I love it, but your technique blows.” Best compliment ever.

There’s so much B-Plot this episode that we skip the body discovery altogether. The FBI is already at the scene of a hurricane-capsized garbage barge that littered a beach with debris, including a strange plastic pod filled with jellied human remains. It reminds Hodgins of aliens. It reminds Brennan of a ship in a bottle. There doesn’t seem to be any seam or any way in. All Brennan can tell is that it’s a man. Off to the lab…

After using a laser to cut out a hole in the pod (and passing out from the fermented body fumes), Hodgins finds some wood scraps in the goop that lead the team to a lumber shop. Renee, an employee there, recognizes the facial reconstruction as Charles “Lucky” Milner, a crime scene clean-up specialist. Who she happened to be having an affair with. Booth and Brennan bring in Lucky’s wife Lisa, but she’s unfazed by news that Lucky was cheating on her: she was his fourth wife and they met while he was still dating his second. She knew what kind of man he was but he was great to her son, Davey, and that’s all that mattered. Lucky was getting Davey into his business, and she’s heartbroken that he’s lost another father.

The cause of death looks to be a claw hammer, which is one of the tools used in crime scene clean-up. They question Davey, who stood to inherit the business, but he points them toward Melvin Carville, who owned a competing business. Sweets likes Davey and Lisa for the murder, but after reading a couple of his psychology books, Brennan has a gut feeling that it’s Carville. Carville claims that he and Lucky realized that their out-bidding of each other kept driving prices down, so they had decided to go into business together. Plus, Lucky’s plastic sheeting was used to make the pod that he was trashed in, and Davey’s tools were wiped clean, making the step-son look super suspicious. When Carville practically dares Brennan to find any evidence, her gut feeling is kicked into overdrive. They find the last house that Lucky worked on and tear it apart, but to no avail; there is not a trace of blood anywhere.

In the middle of the night, Brennan has a hunch. She remembered a shaman who would have women dance around a fire in a purification ritual and blood would appear from the ground. It wasn’t magic but just the heat from the fire causing the blood to ooze back up. Brennan takes a hair dryer to the floor and lo and behold, blood appears. Some denser spots indicate where the killer knelt to clean it up, and one perfectly round spot says the killer had a prosthetic knee. Matching the side of the tibia to Carville and the fact that he had a knee reconstruction enables them to arrest him and for Brennan to say, “Gotcha” to his horrible face.

The B-Plot

Cam has broken it off with the OB/GYN boyfriend and Squintern Arastoo Vaziri is writing love poems in Farsi. They’re obviously dating and hoping no one will notice. But since they’re being super-obvious about it all of a sudden, Hodgins walks in on them. Vaziri pleads with him not to say anything and he doesn’t, even to Angela. But Angela finds out as she and Hodgins are hanging out on the Jeffersonian roof and she looks down to see Cam and Vaziri making out by a pond. Real subtle, guys, real subtle. Cam wonders whether Angela will keep their secret from Brennan, but Vaziri thinks that at least it’ll stop with her. She won’t tell Booth unless he asks and why would he? Cam doesn’t really want to keep it a secret, except from the other interns and everyone who works with them. Vaziri offers to quit, but of course Cam declines. He sums up: “You want to tell everyone, but you don’t want anyone to know?” “Crazy, right?” Cam asks. He thinks its poetic.

The C-Plot

Sweets is still staying with B&B. And apparently doing the dishes and middle of the night sitting when Brennan thinks about murder theories at 3am. It’s pretty adorable.

This was an okay episode, I thought. The case felt a little rushed to me. And as much as I actually like Cam and Arastoo together (especially when he speaks sexy Farsi), I really wish they would stop pairing the spares (caution, link goes to TV Tropes). Plus, you know, it’s totally against Jeffersonian policy I’m sure and they’re not even being very surreptitious about it. What do you think?

[Trigger Warning: 9/11.]

For Veteran’s Day, the Bones crew gives us a touching episode about an unidentified body that turns out to be a homeless veteran and becomes a personal case for the team. Booth has gotten Brennan into basketball and she’s especially a fan of Phil Jackson. So much so that she’s using his coaching philosophies to try an experiment with her Squintern team. She gathers her five best interns (Misters Abernathy, Bray, Fisher, Vaziri, and Dr. Edison… either Daisy has quit or even Brennan agrees that she sucks) and tasks them with using the missing persons database to ID as many of the unidentified remains in the Jeffersonian basement as possible. They, being guys, turn it into a competition, trying to ID the oldest, or the most, except for Vaziri. He drew a homeless man who was found beaten in a parking garage. Very little to go on. Grasping for something, he points out some particulates to Hodgins and brings out the magic word: conspiracy. Hodgins gets the mass spectrometer going.

In just a few days, the “squint squad” has IDed eighteen sets of remains, all except for Vaziri, who is called in by Brennan. He doesn’t want to write this man off like the police did, especially noticing an old bullet wound. “How can I walk away and leave this man forgotten for a second time?” he asks. Hodgins arrives with results from the mass spec: the particulates were from jet fuel, and a lot of it. Cam looks into the original police report and finds that the time of death is listed as the same as when they found him; the police probably didn’t care. They discern that he actually died four days earlier than he was found on September 21, 2001. Vaziri gets the rest of the squints interested, too, and when Edison finds a metal fragment, they have Fisher (who’s the best at estimating remodeling fractures) give an estimate for when the victim’s rib was broken. Fisher says ten days before death. Vaziri suggests that given the date and the presence of jet fuel, he could have been at the Pentagon on 9/11. Edison says that all the Pentagon victims were identified. “Maybe just the ones who had homes,” Abernathy adds.

Brennan’s invested and wants to find out as much about the victim as possible. Sweets is cynical, thinking maybe the victim stayed anonymous for a reason (insinuating that he was a conspirator). There are no DNA matches, but Brennan’s found that the victim had exposure to high levels of uranium about 20 years ago. Booth says that uranium was used to make some casings during the Gulf War. Since there was no DNA database until the late ’90s, Booth has a hunch that the victim was a Gulf Vet. He has his friend Ben Fordham at the Pentagon show the victim’s picture around to see if anyone recognizes him.

Cam shares her 9/11 experience: she was still in New York then, working as a coroner. She signed more than 900 death certificates, spoke to the wives, husbands, children. She warns Hodgins that now isn’t the time for his conspiracy theories and Hodgins agrees. He says that he’s looked into all of the 9/11 theories and none of them hold water; it was an extremist act of people who hated what the U.S. stood for. Bray finds some dislocation marks, leading to a suggestion that the victim was dragged, too, and Edison wonders who could have beaten someone so brutally just days after the attacks. Abernathy asks Vaziri if this is too difficult for him because he shares a religion with the attackers. Vaziri asks him back if it’s difficult for him to work with Edison, since they share a religion that thought it was okay to enslave Africans, not to mention the crusades. Edison tells him to let Abernathy off, he’s just a kid, but Vaziri basically says that if he’s old enough to have opinions, he better have facts to back them up. Vaziri says that day wasn’t the work of religion, but of hate: “They hijacked my religion, too. It’s a privilege to show this victim the love that was so absent that day.” Abernathy apologizes and thanks Vaziri for taking the time to set him straight. Bray is quite short and testy about the case, too, so the next day, Fisher calls out the elephant in the room: “9/11 was a trauma to us all. And we act like it doesn’t matter.” He says they need to get it all out and shares his story: he was a senior in high school, stealing a test from his science teacher, who walked in crying. They talked and cried together. Edison was working before school, in a coffee shop. Everyone just stared at the TV, silent. Abernathy was 9, and had just gotten cut with scissors protecting his mom. She wanted to take him to the hospital, but his wound didn’t seem so bad in comparison. Vaziri was at morning prayers; “I didn’t believe in anything that day.” Bray goes last. He was with his aunt that day and a few days after; his uncle was a firefighter in New York. He never came home.

Booth has gotten an ID on the victim: Tim Murphy. Booth checked around the homeless shelters and found a box of his personal items that the woman who ran it kept (hoping that the guys would come back and have a normal life). He had a wife and a son. They bring his wife, Linda, in to tell her about what happened and ask he if she knew who might want to kill her husband. She hadn’t seen him in 17 years. He wasn’t the same after he came back, she explains. He was trapped in a munitions dump that got hit, so he was afraid to be inside. He didn’t seek help because he didn’t trust anyone. “They don’t give a purple heart for PTSD,” she explains. One day, he just vanished. She figured they were dead to him, but Booth shows her the picture that Tim still had.

Hodgins realizes that the metal fragment in the victim’s rib places him at the west side of the building (it was from one of the lampposts), putting him about 500 feet from the plane as it passed over. This is the moment I realized what happened, for reference. Brennan says the bones clues are becoming more difficult to decipher. Ben Fordham visits Booth with some new info. Tim was outside the west side of the Pentagon every day for over a year, yelling at everyone in uniform: “Walk in Moore Park.” But there is no Moore Park. People complained about him, security had to remove him once a week and sometimes he fought. Once, he tried to disarm a guard. Booth and Fordham think maybe that guard wanted revenge, but they can’t even get the records sealed to find out who was working that day.

Booth tries to figure out what “Walk in Moore Park” means when he has a realization and pulls a photo from Tim’s belongings. It shows Tim with four other guys in uniform: Walken, Moore, and Park. They were with him in the munitions dump and he was the only survivor. He petitioned 56 times to get his friends silver stars and when that didn’t work, he parked himself in front of the Pentagon. The squints realize that they need to go back to the beginning and they pull the clothes the victim was found in, finding much blood on them. While the blood IDing is processing, they go back to the wounds. Not all the fractures were traumatic: the dislocated shoulder, weightlifter type fractures in his patella. Nothing makes sense. Three IDs come back on the blood: Warren Kirk, James Donzig, and Diane Rollins, all of whom were working in the Pentagon that day. Booth and Brennan speak to Rollins, who tells her story: she was pinned under a beam and couldn’t move. When Brennan shows her the picture of Tim, she recognizes him. “That’s the man who rescued me. Do you know where he is? Can I thank him?” She relates that after he lifted the concrete beam off her, he saved two other guys. Brennan comes around to thinking that Tim wasn’t murdered.

She (assisted by Angela’s graphics) explains that because of their preconceptions, they assumed that this was just a homeless man who was assaulted and that without her exceptional team, they never would have discovered the truth. Tim was outside when the plane crashed, sending debris into his chest, fracturing his rib. When he went in to save people, lifting over 400lbs of debris, he received a dislocated shoulder and the compression fractures in his patella. The exertion broke his rib completely, causing a shard to puncture his lung. It took him ten days to bleed out before he died. The team is in sad awe at how much pain he must have been in and that he died with no one knowing what he did.

Tim is buried in a military funeral. The Jeffersonian team is in attendance, as are the three Pentagon workers he saved, and his wife and son. Booth speaks and ends letting his son, Sean, know that his “dad did not die a broken man living in the streets… he was as brave and noble as the rest of us. We lay him to rest today, a hero.”

At home, Brennan wonders if his fellow soldiers will get their silver stars. Booth says he and Fordham are on it. Standing there in the kitchen, Brennan starts crying. She tells Booth how she spent two weeks digging out and identifying remains from the towers. She was methodical, did her job well, never shed a tear. She never let herself feel it. She could avoid all of it before she met Booth. “Now,” she explains through tears, “I think of those people and I think of you. Any one of them, it could have been you.” She cries as Booth hugs her.

Overall, I thought this was a really great episode that veered just to the right side of getting a little overwrought (really, the only thing that seemed too speechy to me was Hodgins’ little bit, but your mileage may vary). And all the performances were great, but Tamara Taylor really gets the gold star this time. The episode ended with David Boreanaz speaking for the Veteran’s Crisis Line, which can be reached at 1-800-273-8255.

A garbage collector with an operatic bent is annoying his coworker, who wants him to try some Jay-Z or Cee-Lo. Opera Guy says that if Hip Hop Guy sings some opera, he’ll sing some Kanye. The wonderful singing turns into screaming, though, as Hip Hop Guy spots some human body stuck inside one of the emptying garbage cans. At least your day didn’t start out like that, hmm?

The victim is female, early- to mid-20s, and has been dead about 36 hours. Lots of tissue, muscle, and viscera were ripped from the bones, which Hodgins finds in another bag that proceeds to split, spilling all over the ground. Ew. There’s lots of incisions on the body, the face was scratched off… it’s the perfect case for creepy squintern Colin Fisher. Angela thinks it’s awful and just wants to know that the victim was dead first. Cam and Hodgins assure her that she was. Brennan remarks to Fisher that they don’t know yet and they’re just lying to make Angela feel better. Cam says that actually, they have ascertained that… the victim was alive. And the cuts were very deep, suggesting a large, strong killer. Fisher brings up Ed Gein, which leads to talk of Aztecs and nipple belts. There’s too much chipping on the bone to get a facial reconstruction (really? she’s worked with less), but Cam suggests using the pieces of face skin they can find. Angela actually works some pretty neat computer magic, matching up pieces with freckles and such, and makes a face… just like one on the applesauce they buy for their son, Them Apples applesauce, owned by Jessica Pierson and Brooke Gaminski. Jessica is the unfortunate victim.

Booth and Brennan go to the artisinal community Them Apples is located in to question Brooke, who is shocked. She last saw Jessica Saturday afternoon, when she dropped her off at the free clinic after the farmer’s market. Jessica went in monthly for lupus blood testing. Brooke points B&B to Adam, a butcher down the road, who was getting stalker-y. When B&B arrive to question him, he’s got a surly attitude and a huge cleaver in hand. He claims innocence, saying that Jessica could barely afford to eat, so the meat drop-offs were just to help her out. A big angry guy came and threatened to crush his skull anyway if he didn’t leave Jessica alone.

Back at the lab, Hodgins has found money in Jessica’s clothes… twenty, sequential $100 bills, to be precise. A lot of money for a girl who can’t afford to eat. Cam comes in with the news that Jessica didn’t have lupus… she was completely healthy. And lying about her monthly doctor’s visits. When her doctor, Cole Reese, is questioned, he tries to hide behind HIPAA, but is informed that doesn’t apply when the patient has been murdered. He confirms that she was healthy and that she had her blood checked monthly for STDs. Suggesting she was moonlighting as a prostitute.

Fisher buys some pig parts from the butcher to compare the cuts to the victim (quicker than getting a warrant), and they do appear to be similar. However, the cuts indicate that her throat was slit by a right handed person… the butcher’s a lefty. Add on some micro-fracturing in the wrists suggesting she was restrained and everyone’s sure there’s a serial killer. Fisher’s doubly excited because he thinks they’re mimicking Jack the Ripper. Booth shuts it down by pointing out that serial killers don’t dump their bodies in the garbage. Cam finds a super rare type of gin in the victim’s stomach (drunk with her last meal), and they find that one of the local artisans makes it in their micro-distillery… that happens to be owned by Dr. Reese. They bring up his record and find that he was arrested for solicitation in 2003. When they arrive at the distillery to question him, he’s in the backroom, dressed like Jack the Ripper, with a girl tied up on his bed.

Dr. Reese claims it was harmless roleplay. He admits to giving Jessica a drink to loosen her up, as she’d never been handcuffed before. Sweets suggests that since Reese likes bondage, he liked seeing in pain at the handcuffs (adding Bones to the list of pop culture that misrepresents BDSM), but Reese says that he hated seeing her struggle and let her out. Then, a huge guy burst into the room and stuffed him in a closet. No words, just action. They take all of Reese’s surgical equipment (including his antique stash) for examination, but none matches the wounds. Brennan and Fisher notice that all the wounds are at a 45-degree angle… incredibly precise. Seems like a machine to me, but there’s still 20 minutes to go, so they won’t come to that conclusion yet.

Sweets decides that he doesn’t like the doctor for the crime anymore… he’s thinking about the big guy who they think is a pimp. What if he was a client? And the jealous type. Cam and Angela look through security footage, but there aren’t a lot of cameras in the area. Cam mentions that the Son of Sam was caught by a traffic ticket and Angela gets the idea to look at red light camera footage. She finds a big guy at the right time, standing in front of Reese’s building.

And it’s good old Hey It’s That Guy Abraham Benrubi! Aw, Jerry from ER could NOT have killed anyone! He says they have it all wrong. Jessica was his niece, kind of… he was best friends with her dad, who died ten years ago. He promised he would take care of her, but as she got older, she didn’t need him. She called him recently about a guy who was scaring her (the butcher) and he took care of that. He figured out that she was a prostitute, too, and so when he heard her screaming, he went for the guy. “You got anybody you’re responsible for who needs help even though they feel like they need to be out in the world?” he asks Booth. He offered to find her investors so that she didn’t have to do that anymore. She said she’d think about it and that’s the last he saw her.

When the team looks at the overall spacing of the wounds, they find her arms were up protecting herself, so why were the wounds so precise? Did she just lie there? Was she paralyzed? Nope, they finally come to the machine conclusion. Sweets suggests that Brooke could have been upset at the idea of selling out and when B&B go to question her, they find a big, scary, ribbon blender. Brennan says that’s the murder weapon… Jessica was wedged to the side and continuously sliced. Brooke starts crying. It was an accident. She slapped Jess and she fell in. Brooke turned the machine off but it was too late and she didn’t know what to do.

I really like that Bones has cases that are just accidents gone wrong, but man is it unsatisfying sometimes.

The B-Plot

Sweets has been sleeping in his office since giving Daisy the apartment in the breakup. Booth stops by with some apartment listings for him and invites Sweets to stay at Casa B&B for a night or two… give him a chance to clear his mind, regroup, find a new place. At the crime scene, Booth apologizes to Brennan got not asking her first, but she shrugs it off. “It takes a village,” she wisely states, finishing “I learned that living in a village.” Oh, Brennan. Hodgins starts a pool betting on how long the arrangement will last.

Despite Booth’s misgivings about Brennan and Sweets butting heads, Sweets turns out to be a great houseguest for Brennan. He’s vacuuming, he’s cleaning up, he’s helping her fold the laundry… including Booth’s Captain America boxers, which Booth isn’t too happy about. He’s especially not happy to later walk in to his bathroom to find Sweets using their tub (it has jets). Sweets apologizes for not locking the door and Brennan tells Booth that because of his history playing on sports teams, she thought he was okay with male nudity.

Sweets apologizes for the tub stuff and says he’s leaving and finding a place. Brennan is surprised when he’s leaving, but Booth make a 180 and says that he should stay a while longer. Sweets asks if this is because of the pool. Booth confesses that he has two weeks in the pool. Brennan (tipsy on wine and the glee of Christine being in bed) makes Sweets dance in celebration of his freedom. I will leave you with screencaps of that because it’s glorious.

If you know any geeks, then you’ve probably heard how the WORST THING TO EVER HAPPEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD happened this week.

Disney bought Lucasfilm for a staggering $4.5 billion. And is already planning their first move: Star Wars Episode VII, to be released in 2015. And apparently this means that the following things are going to happen:

• All kinds of wrong product placement! Cinderella will pilot the Millenium Falcon! Goofy and Jar Jar are revealed to be long lost cousins, Yoda becomes the 8th Dwarf.
• Disney is going to obsessively merchandise Star Wars and desecrate its name.
• Indiana Jones will be teaming up with the National Treasure crew.
• LOCUSTS, PLAGUES, FOUR HORSEMEN! MAYAN APOCOLYPSE!

In short, Disney will ruin everything you love. Especially Star Wars.

I call shenanigans.

Here are seven reasons why this deal won’t ruin the Star Wars you know and love.

1. It’s already been ruined.

Seriously, is there any Star Wars fan that doesn’t have an issue with the prequels? With Jar-Jar and midichlorians and lovey-dovey Anakin and the worst “NOOOOO!!!!” in the history of film? Even if you give the prequels a pass, you probably hate what Lucas has done with his endless retooling of the original trilogy. I admit that I’m one of the resolute who won’t buy the blu-rays because they don’t have the original cuts and you can pry my 1995 VHS THX Edition Black Boxes out of my cold dead hands (even though I no longer have a VCR). I just carted those tapes on a cross-country move. As far as your average Star Wars fan over the age of 25 is concerned, it’s been ruined multiple times over already.

So, shouldn’t we be happy to get our beloved trilogy out of Lucas’ well-meaning but CGI-obsessed hands? Part of what makes the original trilogy great is that Lucas stepped back from the typewriter and Director’s chair for Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. He handed those duties over to more talented and experienced artists and facilitated one of the best film sequels in history. Where he went wrong with the prequels was when he didn’t do the same: he wrote and directed them himself. A better screenwriter may have suggested not spending a whole film on nine-year-old Anakin (resulting in the filler material that created the dreaded Jar Jar). A better director wouldn’t have given Hayden Christensen direction to “act unemotionally.” With this deal, Disney will have the ability to create new Star Wars universe material without being constrained by George Lucas’ 35-year old vision. Besides, it’s not like this relationship is new…

2. The Disney/Lucasfilm relationship goes way back and it’s already been merchandised all to hell.

George Lucas is the reason that every major kid-centric movie has a multi-million dollar toy, game, Happy Meal, commercial, merchandising extravaganza surrounding it. In an amazingly farsighted deal, George Lucas let Fox Pictures cut half a million dollars from his salary… in exchange for licensing and merchandising rights. $20 billion later, no studio has ever let that kind of a deal pass again. That merchandising and licensing has included a tiny Darth Vader selling cars, an entire universe of action figures (collectible and for every day play), Lego video games, and, of course, the classic kid’s bedsheet sets. You’re worried that Star Wars characters are going to run around Disney World? Guess what… they already do. For multiple weekends every May, Walt Disney World Resort hosts Star Wars Weekends, drawing fans from all over the world. Minnie has a special Princess Leia costume, Mickey is a Jedi Master, Goofy is Darth Vader, and hundreds of costumed storm troopers and Jedi Knights parade through the park daily. Cast members make appearances. Frankly, it’s awesome. During SWW 2012, George Lucas was on hand for the reopening of the Star Tours ride (which was originally opened at Disneyland in 1987). Walt Disney World has been featuring another Lucasfilm property since 1989, too, in the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, pioneering the live stunt show genre. Without the Lucasfilm inspired thrill rides at Disney, there wouldn’t be a Universal studios. And speaking of Universal Studios…

3. Did Disney Ruin Marvel? Ask the $1.5 Billion The Avengers made this summer.

When the Disney/Marvel deal was announced, there was a similar amount of upset in the geekosphere. What would this mean for Walt Disney World competitor Universal Islands of Adventure, home to Marvel Island? What would happen to the films in production? Will Cap be doing commercials with Mickey? Fans were worried that Disney ownership would tone down the Marvel-owned properties: Diminish Tony Stark’s demons, make skilled assassins Hawkeye and Black Widow light and fluffy, indulge a cartoonish Thor. The Avengers assuaged all those fears and the trailer for Iron Man 3 looks to go to the dark side of Stark. There wasn’t a Disney-esque touch to it. Compare this to the dismal state of the Spiderman and X-Men franchises… both had tanked so badly they had to be rebooted within five years of the previous films. This is largely because…

4. Disney is pretty hands off with its subsidiary film studios.

What do Pulp Fiction, Dogma, The English Patient, ConAir, Cradle Will Rock, The Royal Tennenbaums, O Brother Where Art Thou?, and countless other films have in common? They were made by Disney subsidiaries Miramax and Touchstone. None of these films fit into the typical Disney mold, but it didn’t matter. They weren’t Disney films. They were Miramax or Touchstone films. And Lucasfilm films will still be Lucasfilm films. Kathleen Kennedy, a longtime collaborator with both Lucas and Lucasfilm’s other auteur Steven Spielberg, has been promoted to President of Lucasfilm. And she doesn’t take her role lightly. From a video conversation released November 1st, she reinforces “the main thing is to protect these characters. Make sure that they still continue to live in the way [Lucas] created them.” Disney also knows when one of their subsidiaries does something better than them After failing miserably at 3D animation, they went crawling back to Pixar, wanting them back so badly that the stock thrown at Pixar made its CEO the largest Disney shareholder (with more of a stake that former Disney heads) and bringing its creative head, John Lasseter, on board as Chief Creative Officer for Pixar and Disney Animation, breathing new life into the stagnant department. A new life that Star Wars is ready to receive because…

5. Fans have been drooling over the Expanded Universe for years.

And now we actually have a chance to see it happen. Even if you’ve never read a Star Wars novel, you’ve probably heard of Mara Jade. Introduced in the first of the Expanded Universe novels, Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, Mara Jade consistently rates high in polls of fans favorite characters. In the expanded universe, the original trio has had children that are all grown up and having their own adventures (and tragedies). Luke’s started up a Jedi Academy, bringing the decimated faith back to life. Hell, we’re not even fighting the Empire anymore… that’s all done. And even though, there are reports (take them with a grain of salt of course) that Episode VII will be entirely original, using none of the EU storylines, there’s still the plethora of amazing characters that can be drawn from, which brings me to something I know resonates with Persephone readers…

6. More female characters and more for them to do.

Other than the aforementioned Mara Jade, there are a bunch of key female characters to be role models for generations to come. There’s Jaina Solo, daughter of Han and Leia, who starts out as a mechanically-minded tomboy and becomes the Sword of the Jedi. There’s Tenel-Ka, a princess who chooses to forgo her culture’s tradition and become a Jedi. There’s Admiral Daala, a baddie, but one that breaks some glass ceilings. And there’s Leia, who continues her Jedi training and juggles that with being a mom and continuing to be a bad ass working for the freedom of the universe. In fact, Slate proposes that it could be women (both on screen and in the audience) that save Star Wars.

And lastly, the biggest reason Disney can’t possibly ruinStar Wars (saved for spot number 7 in honor of Episode VII)…

7. We fans have already ruined it. And it’s up to us to bring back balance to the force franchise.

We’ve already ruined it with our expectations and our vitriol and our hatred for anything new in the series. With sweeping declarations that George Lucas has or isn’t going to rape your childhood even more (really, now?). With expecting an exact replica of the success of the originals but with new stories and excitement.  Yes, I know we were disappointed by The Phantom Menace (hey, man… kids LOVE Jar-Jar, even if you don’t), and that Attack of the Clones wasn’t a perfect sequel like Empire Strikes Back was. But you know what, Revenge of the Sith was pretty darn amazing. And don’t tell me that the inner kid in you was crazy excited to see Anakin don that black helmet for the first time. Besides, for trying to catch lightning in a bottle, 1 out of 3 ain’t bad. This new trilogy is an opportunity. An opportunity to wipe the bad taste of the prequels out of our mouths. An opportunity to go places that are new… places that we don’t know where they’re headed. The map of the future of Star Wars is an open road. Stop being so snarky and critical and give it a chance, will you?

Besides, it’s pretty awesome that this has now happened:

As a warning: if you’re triggered by depictions of violence against animals, don’t watch this episode. I obviously won’t be including the relevant screenshots, but tread carefully if you’re sensitive to such topics.

A bickering couple tries to get their car out of the mud and as the wife guns it, red mud splatters up against the husband. Oh, dear… I don’t think that’s mud. He starts choking, thinking a rock went down his throat, and when he stands up, there’s a disembodied face stuck to his chest. Y’all, I’ve been watching Bones for over seven years now. I’m pretty immune to the body discovery gross-outs. But this one… man, I was eating chips and salsa during it and it was thisclose to putting me off my salsa. Almost. That’s saying something.

At the site, Brennan does a quick estimate on the body to ID it as a male Caucasian, mid-twenties as Hodgins creates a “bug rapture” with a vacuum (yeah, I laughed at that). Brennan gives the poor husband who found the body some ipecac so that he regurgitates what he thought was a rock and ends up being a tooth. Nasty. Just nasty. From the victim’s neglected teeth and newspaper stuffed (too big) shoes, Brennan suggests that the man was from a lower caste. Squintern of the Week Daisy chimes in to tell her that “We don’t have castes in America,” to which Cam asks her, “Want to look me in the face and say that?” Angela is having trouble creating a face (since, you know, it was splattered onto that guy’s shirt) and Hodgins professes having trouble, too. Then he goes into a super long and complicated spiel that basically sums up as lots of teeny tiny details leading him to deducting that the victim was at a fairgrounds that had an antiques show last week. “This is you having trouble?” Angela deadpans.

At the fairground, Booth and Brennan find a grounds manager picking two out of twenty day laborers… that’s all he has work for that day. Brennan shows him a few of the reconstructions Angela made and one of them he recognizes as Jared Drew. Booth investigates Drew and finds that he used to own a hardware store until the crash, when he lost everything. No criminal history, but a restraining order has just been taken against him by his ex-wife Marcy. They bring her in for questioning, and her new husband seems really aggressive, but they’re cleared quickly.

One thing perplexing the team was the existence of two gun shot wounds: a 9mm to the hand and a .45 caliber through the head. Cam realized (way too late and thanks to her NYC coroner experience, which has been name checked twice this season) that the hand was a defensive wound and the difference in size is due to a hollow-point bullet. Some slash-type wounds on his hand, along with DNA from those wounds point Cam and Hodgins to the victim being attacked by a tiger pre-murder. Not just any tiger, a purebred Siberian Tiger. Drew was working a pet expo at the fairgrounds prior to his death, but Kneebly, the manager of the expo, claims that all his animals are on the up and up. No surprise that Kneebly’s lying; he didn’t want Drew to go to the hospital for his tiger wound because his illegal trafficking would be found out, so he shot him. And then had the buyer shoot the tiger to destroy the evidence. It’s a sad case, and one of the rare cases that gets to Brennan, as she breaks down after they discover the tiger’s corpse.  Caroline cuts Kneebly a deal, though, to get the names of his suppliers, which is a rare deal that everyone seems to approve of.

The B-Plot

Brennan is weighing the idea of running for president. Honestly, this whole side plot seemed so contrived to me that I don’t even want to discuss it. We’ve never seen Brennan show the slightest interest in politics and now she is coming up with economic policies and healthcare plans? I’m not down on the idea of a fictional character thinking about the concept, it just seems like it was shoe-horned in to be topical and it grated on me. So, moving on to the:

C-Plot

Daisy and Sweets are taking the big step of moving in together. Sweets doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but through the episode comes to realize that to Daisy, it’s the last step before marriage. In one of the coldest things that any characters ever done on this show, just as they’re getting ready to enter their new apartment for the first time, Sweets tells Daisy that he can’t do it. And he’s not just backing out of the living situation; he’s breaking up with her. Damn, Sweets… I didn’t like Daisy, but that was just wrong.

Oh, yeah, there was a D-Plot

There was also something about Angela feeling unfulfilled and unneeded at the Jeffersonian, but I’m not sure whether that’s going to grow into something of was just a way of showing Hodgins and Angela as a functional couple compared to Sweets and Daisy. Your guess is as good as mine.

I felt this was a kind of blah episode. The case seemed to go all over the place, we had a record number of sub-plots, and none of it seemed very connected. Maybe I’m just not feeling it this week. Anyone else feel the same way or did you love the episode?

A Big Gulp proves hazardous to the health of the man it blows up and Booth gets a taste of a desk job promotion while Sweets gets a new partner. Keen DVR-watchers may notice that this episode is numbered as 7.15 in some systems. The Bones crew filmed four extra episodes during season seven that were Brennan-lite (to allow for production to continue during her maternity leave). Since they weren’t afforded an opportunity to air them during the summer, it looks like they’re portioning them out during season eight. All in all, I thought that it fit pretty seamlessly; if I hadn’t seen the episode number before I started watching (and my husband hadn’t pointed out Emily Deschanel’s post-partum breast size increase), I wouldn’t have known this was filmed earlier. Anyway, on to the episode…

In a hotel parking garage, a man walks to his car as another person darts around in the dark. There’s a random drink cup on his car and when he goes to take it off… KABOOM! Body parts fly everywhere. When the team arrives, Hodgins spots that there’s no cratering on the ground, so it wasn’t your typical undercarriage car bomb. He’s super excited about the whole explosion aspect. Until a stomach and intestines fall on his face (oh, Bones, I’m so glad your gross-outs are back). Unfortunately, the fact that basically everything was incinerated is going to make it tricky to ID the victim.

Sweets and Agent Sparling (who’s assigned to the field work while Booth is on desk duty) speak with the hotel’s security manager, who is deeply upset by this tragedy, but says that their request for the security tapes will have to go through legal… protecting their guests’ confidentiality, after all. Sparling gets aggressive, asking who paid him off to hide the tapes, noting that a glorified rent-a-cop couldn’t afford a Breitling watch and Prada shoes. Once the hotel is informed the security guard is now a suspect, they hand over the tapes easily.

Angela, working from the skull pre-cleaning, puts together a facial reconstruction IDing the victim as Robert Carlson, who lived in Bethesda with his wife Gina. Sweets and Sparling go to notify Mrs. Carlson, and Sweets tells her that situations such as this need a little more finesse than she showed at the hotel. Sweets tells Mrs. Carlson that her husband has been found dead and she’s devestated. But then, her husband comes walking up the pathway. “Why would you put me through this?!!” the not-widow screams at a speechless Sweets as she kicks his shins.

Angela looks over her reconstruction again and she’s sure it’s accurate, unless the guy has a twin. Brennan spots remodeling fractures that Angela wouldn’t have seen before the skull was cleaned and Angela adjusts the reconstruction, but it’s still pretty much the same guy… Carlson must have a twin. Sure enough, Robert was adopted, so he never even knew he might have had a brother, but always had a feeling of being incomplete. Sweets questions Carlson, thinking that since separated twins sometimes have similar lives, they may find out who their victim is through finding out what Carlson is like. He agrees, but he’ll have to ask his wife; she has the final say in their marriage. Sparling is dubious of Sweets’ method. When Angela uses Sweets’ data to work her magic and narrow down all the men in the U.S. to 48 men and then just one that provides a visual match, Sparling is almost impressed. And they have their real victim: Jerry Langella.

Brennan finds lots more remodeling fractures and Cam quickly catches that they match being beaten by a baseball bat and having your thumbs slammed in a door… all that time as an NYC coroner coming out. She says it was most likely from a loan shark or bookie. Hodgins finds a deformed cockroach egg on some detonator wire and says that the explosives came from somewhere with large amounts of a toxic insecticide. Angela finds a production facility for the substance, right next to a demolition company. Brennan and Hodgins speak to the manager, who said there was a break in a few weeks ago and four explosive sausages were taken. Hodgins notes that there were only three used in making the bomb.

When Sparling and Sweets notify Mrs. Langella (who looks a lot like Gina Carlson) about her husband, her reaction is markedly different from Carlson’s: she asks who killed him. Sweets and Sparling are suspicious, but she replies “I’m not an idiot… you’re the FBI, it’s not like you cover accidents or suicides.” Fair point. I wonder why more people don’t react like that. They had a rough marriage (he owed a lot to bookies), but her alibi checks out: she was at community service for road rage. Sweets asks Booth for advice on where to go next and Booth suggests that if Carlson and Langella are so similar, maybe what brought Langella to the hotel brought Carlson there, too… check the tapes. Angela investigates and finds that both men were at the hotel attending a Self-Actualization conference.

Carlson admits to lying about being at the hotel… his wife hates him going to the conferences as he’s spent too much money on them. He was going to give them everything and move to their community in Colorado. Sweets thinks that’s a pretty good motive for his wife.

Cam finds hair samples from someone else mixed in with Langella’s remains and deduces that someone else was at the explosion and if they didn’t come forward, they’re probably the bomber. They get a warrant for Gina Carlson’s search history and guess who was looking for info on contract killers. She admits to hiring a hit man, but she never met him. She paid half up front but didn’t pay the other half as her “husband isn’t dead yet.” Yet? Turns out the guy was trying another hit today. Sweets tells Booth about it as they’re heading out and since the only team available is 20 minutes out, Booth feels he has to go with them to make sure the green agent and psychiatrist don’t mess it up.

Working with the team back at the Jeffersonian, Brennan advises that they’re looking for someone shaky and off balance (from being close to the previous explosion). Sure enough, Steve Knealy, foreman of the demolition company, is in line behind Carlson with a big gulp cup. Brennan calls Carlson and tells him to close himself in a nereby ATM. The agents pull their guns on him, but the bomb is already armed, so if he drops it, boom! Sweets wanders into the scene pretending to be an oblivious bystander, using the opportunity to get close enough to snatch it. Unfortunately, he’s shot by Agent Sparling in the process. He’ll be fine, though… case closed.

The B-Plot

Brennan wants to buy an $800 stroller and Booth balks at the price. He reminds her that they agreed to split everything 50/50. Brennan pouts and gives Booth “sad eyes,” leading to Booth’s response, “You were never able to do this look before the baby. What did the baby do to you?” Yeah, seriously, that doesn’t seem Brennan-like at all. After this talk of money, when Caroline dangles the prospect of a promotion (and raise) in front of him, Booth goes for it. Unfortunately, that means that he has to prepare justifications for a quarterly budget review, trying to get the accountants to keep his department’s inflated budget intact. If he gets the budget through, the promotion is his. Brennan is apprehensive of the promotion, thinking Booth would be miserable behind a desk all the time, but Booth says he has to think about Christine and Parker.

Booth cracks under the pressure of the waiting budget team and asks Cam for help with the presentation. When he feels he has to help make sure Carlson isn’t killed, he dumps it on her. Cam works some magic, though, and apparently gets an increase in the budget… but Booth misses out on his promotion. Caroline chides him for not doing it himself and tells him, “You’re gonna have to settle for running around shooting people until you grow up.”

At home, Brennan apologizes for him not getting the promotion, but admits that she didn’t want him to get it. No one else would take her into the field, after all. He admits he’s not ready to be cooped up behind a desk either. Brennan asks if she can start buying him stuff now, and he concedes that she can buy Christine stuff. “Like a new grill?” Brennan suggests. Booth brightens: “Christine would love a new grill.” Oh, boys… morals go out the window when grilled meat is involved.

The C-Plot

Daisy’s out of town for five days and Sweets wants to get her a present. Booth thinks he’s overcompensating. When Booth is sidelined, new agent Olivia Sparling is assigned to the field portion of the case. She is… less than enthused about working with a “shrink” and Sweets gets defensive. After Sweets’ questioning of Carlson helps ID Langella, Sparling apologizes for underestimating him and admits that it was pretty incredible.

Angela notices a bit of a spark between them, but Sweets replies that he’s “with Daisy.” Angela notes his phrasing: he’s “with Daisy,” not “I love Daisy.” After some flirting back and forth, post-shooting, Sweets admits that he likes her: “You shot me and I’m not even mad.” But he admits that he’s seeing someone and it’s serious. Sparling says she could tell he was taken, and says, “That’s why I’d never dream of doing this,” as she kisses him. Sweets smiles as she walks away.

So what do we think? Are we leading up to a new agent joining the roster and Sweets and Daisy finally breaking up? Bones, you’ve been so good this season, I hesitate to think you could make such an amazing thing happen! What do you think?

A high-powered divorce lawyer turns up dead, with a long list of enemies to check through. Meanwhile, Booth and Brennan have trouble adjusting to life back together.

As a couple of homeless guys discuss the risk of buying real estate in this economy and a longing to return to Keynesian policies, one smells something cooking. Unfortunately, it’s not chicken. It’s a person in a burning barrel. As a portion of the skull explodes, spraying brain all over, one of the homeless men remarks ruefully, “I thought we were gonna eat.” I just don’t have words to editorialize on this cold open, so… moving on.

Squintern of the week Finn Abernathy is apparently more a bones person than a blood and guts guy. And he really doesn’t like the burned ones. Cam takes it easy on him and puts him on X-ray duty until the skull is cleaned off. There are plenty of fractures around the skull (not all from the brain-splosion), numerous fractures all over his body like he’d been beaten and some kind of metal adhered to a vertebrae, which turns out to be a fountain pen nib. Cam sees sutures on his chest and pulls his heart out to find stints, which have serial numbers that provide an ID: Richard Bartlett, high-priced divorce lawyer. They bring his wife in and she guesses that she has a pretty good motive, being left pretty comfy in his will, but advises them that Richard was ruthless and would do anything to win his cases, so there were a lot of losers left in his wake that would hate him. She points them to Richard’s assistant, Margo Sandoval.

Margo’s in the process of shredding documents (something Richard instructed her to do if anything happened to him) and says that they need a warrant, but Brennan finding blood at the scene (and a missing pen) makes it a crime scene, so no warrant needed. After Booth and Sweets look through Barlett’s records, they find a couple of promising suspects. Gavin and Melanie Carmichael had a meeting with Bartlett the night he was murdered. She was particularly volatile during the divorce, leaving threatening messages for Bartlett (who was Gavin’s attorney). Booth and Brennan go to question them and find that they requested the meeting to undo their divorce. They’re going to have a baby, and Gavin, an architect, is going to design them a new place. They wanted to show Bartlett their new life.

Back in the lab, the team finds that the fractures around the head weren’t all from the brain-splosion; some were from a violent fall. Hodgins finds something interesting in the man’s last meal, too: a delicious gourmet burger… made with rat meat. Sweets questions the chef (his other ingredients were easily identifiable), who admits to hating Bartlett (who left him with a worse divorce bill than if he’d just given his ex-wife half). He’d served Bartlett that rat burger every Tuesday for two years, and would serve it for another three (the length of his marriage). Sweets thinks that Bartlett figured it out and threatened to sue, but chef said he loved that burger… raved about it. He’s just sad he doesn’t get the satisfaction of telling Bartlett he was eating rat. Ew.

Another lab discovery leads to their next suspect. Angela put together some of the shredded documents and found Bartlett’s personal pre-nup, with the infidelity section highlighted. Attached to it: a picture of Bartlett’s wife with Margo. Margo swears that Pamela was going to tell Bartlett… they don’t care about the money, they’re in love. But when Richard died, she shredded it so that Pamela wouldn’t lose everything. Pamela can’t stand up for her lover because she’s skipped town.

No clear suspect and Angela’s recreation of how the fractures occured looks like the death of Wile E Coyote (a reference Brennan comes up with — be proud of her!), but Brennan remembers something from Bartlett’s office (which was a construction zone) and she and Booth go to check out the cement chute. Which has blood all over it. After finding Melanie’s DNA in the fountain pen nib and a sealant often used by architects in Bartlett’s wounds, they pull the Carmichaels back in for questioning. Booth reveals the DNA find and that they discovered that Gavin’s bill was two months late. Bartlett used minor typos in their divorce papers to nullify it since he hadn’t been paid. Gavin wants to make a deal. He says Melanie killed Bartlett, he just helped get rid of the body. Brennan points out that Bartlett was alive when he was thrown down the chute. Now Melanie’s making the deal: “All I did was stab him with a pen; you killed the bastard.” Clearly, these two were not going to live happily ever after.

B-Plot: Booth and Brennan

As Brennan settles back into life not on the run, she shows off her pancake making skills to Booth by making breakfast. Booth clearly doesn’t like this infringement upon his territory. When they’re at the body discovery site, Brennan steps on his toes again by hypothesizing that the victim isn’t a random homeless person, but that this was a body dump… isolated, unreliable witnesses. Booth responds by expertly telling the techs how to clean up the scene to take the evidence back to the Jeffersonian and huffing off.

Booth takes to the shooting range with Sweets, emptying an entire magazine into a target. Sweets heard about the tension at the crime scene and asks how things are going. Booth just wants to get things back to normal. He suggests taking Christine to a carnival that weekend, but Brennan nixes that; they went to one in North Carolina and she hated it. Angela checks in with Brennan after the scene tension, too, and Brennan hides behind anthro-speak, but Angela, awesome friend as always, calls her on it. Brennan claims she’s the same person she always was, but Angela points out that she was on the run and a single mom for three months, and didn’t know if she’d ever see Booth again… that kind of thing changes a person. “Now that I’m home, I’ve changed back,” Brennan replies. She’s definitely reverted to old-school Bones.

As they head to check out the cement chute, Booth and Brennan get into an all-out fight. Booth thinks Christine will like the carousel since he’ll be there. Brennan thinks he’s doubting her abilities to care for their daughter. Booth shouts that it’s like she wishes she were still out there and asks her to see things from his point of view. Brennan disengages because he’s being irrational, but Booth keeps going and eventually Brennan shouts at him, “Don’t tell me how to live! We are not married, we’re both free agents and I’ve done fine on my own!” Ouch.

Booth goes to see Brennan later and smiles fondly as he sees her investigating her bones. They apologize to each other for the fight and for causing the other pain. They said goodbye politely and Finn points out that when his mom and step-dad (you know, the one he was suspected of murdering) used to get polite like that, “all hell was gonna break loose.”

After the case is wrapped up, Booth sits at home, drinking, as Brennan comes in late. She saw Sweets because she feels that something is wrong with her. She thought they were fine after the apologies, but Booth knew they weren’t… why didn’t she? Sweets thinks that she’s rebelling because her happiness is not contingent on Booth and Christine’s. Booth agrees that Sweets is good at psychology, “but we’re more than psychology. We’re gonna be okay.” Um… yeah, Booth… you both could still use some therapy. Seriously. Booth consents that he was mad at losing her and Christine for three months… time he won’t get back. Brennan says that she’ll try to fix it a little: they’re take Christine to the carousel, even though she knows the outcome. “I love you, so I’m willing to do irrational things to prove it.” Aww, Brennan, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said.

The episode ends with an onscreen memorium to Finder co-star (and Bones guest star) Michael Clarke Duncan.

Bones is back, but first we’ve got to get the team back together, clear Brennan’s name, and put Pelant behind bars once and for all. None of which is as easy as it seems…When we said goodbye last season, hacker-genius Christopher Pelant had won the chess game and Brennan was on the run for murder. Poor Booth was left behind, not knowing where his love and baby were going or when he’d next see them.

Three months later, Brennan is now blonde, but still on the move with Max and Christine. Brennan tells Max to watch the baby for a while so she can go out and do something that Max doesn’t agree with. Angela is still trying to crack the forged security tape of Brennan, but can’t figure out the code in the triangle that Ethan Sawyer left. She’s butting heads with former Squintern, now Resident Forensic Anthropologist Clark Edison, who’s set up in Brennan’s office. She won’t play along with Clark’s binder system but Cam reminds her that if she wants to stay at the Jeffersonian and use the facility to help bring Brennan home, she has to cooperate with Clark. Agent Flynn is still assuming Booth’s responsibilities and questioning Booth weekly to find out if he knows Brennan’s whereabouts, which he doesn’t. Booth suggests that Flynn keep investigating Pelant, but since Pelant removed himself from the security tapes of B&B’s house, there’s nothing to investigate him for. Booth leaves to go to “lunch,” but really ends up going to a homeless shelter where Pelant is teaching Excel classes just to stare at Pelant all crazy-like. Pelant makes a phone call.

Later, at a body discovery site, Flynn tells Cam about Booth’s visit to Pelant and that Pelant is threatening to file stalking charges. Cam, unsurprisingly, does not seem concerned. This body was called in via anonymous (and voice changed) tip and has already been uncovered with the precision of an archaeology dig. Hodgins suggests that it could be Pelant framing Brennan, to which Flynn suggests that it could be Brennan herself. Why would you suggest that? Jeez! Angela finds a snowdrop flower and she’s sure that Brennan left it. Back at the lab, she talks about the snowdrop as a symbol of hope. Clark wants to talk about the body, which he’s determined is a Caucasian female who has never given birth (clearing the idea of the body being Brennan). Cam instructs Clark to send all the info about the body to Booth via email, including about the flower. Hodgins questions this, as they’ve been making sure not to email anything related to the Pelant case. Cam says that there’s no indication that Pelant is involved, so email it.

Angela walks and talks with Booth and tells him that she got a message from Brennan saying “Have Hope.” He’s upset and wants to know how she’s been communicating with Brennan for three months. She won’t tell him… she hasn’t even told Hodgins. Booth gets the email about the new case and the body matches Carol Morrissey, a high school guidance counselor who went missing ten years ago. On TV that night, Brennan watches news coverage about the body discovery, happy to see her friends, but wishing to see Booth there. Pelant is watching news coverage, too. He rewinds and stops on Angela holding the flower. Pelant goes to his computer and hacks into the FBI database, finding the email about the case. He looks worried as he downloads the email. Booth calls Cam to tell her that he discovered that Morrissey was the guidance counselor at the high school that Pelant went to. Booth is absolutely not going to that town to investigate, he assures Cam… he’s going to Atlantic City, and anyone who’s listening in on that phone call can hear that’s where he’s going. Agent Flynn approaches Sweets the next day to find Booth, but Sweets can only express his sadness at hearing that Agent Booth “is still struggling with his gambling addiction.” Ha! Nice cover. Sweets insists that there’s no way Booth will call him… Booth doesn’t want anyone lying on his behalf.

At Booth’s motel, someone’s walking past his window. On guard, Booth grabs the person as they try to enter, but the person lays Booth out as a struggle ensues. Fortunately, Booth quickly realizes that it’s Brennan. “I knew you’d come.” As Booth cuddles his daughter, Brennan drops some exposition about what she’s been doing for three months. She and Max have been looking into Pelant’s history and found out about his guidance counselor disappearing. Since she was a runner, Brennan combed the area for weeks looking for discolored vegetation. Booth chimes in an explanation about decaying matter changing the composition of new plants and Brennan’s impressed. Booth explains that he missed her so he read some of her books… which are thick… really thick. Aww. Brennan got a lot of photos before she called in the body, but she still needs to examine it for clues. But first, they’ve got to get moving again, before someone finds them.

Back in DC, Angela (on Hodgins’ advice to look at everything from a fresh point), has figured out how the digital signatures that made it look like Brennan was bribing Caroline Julian were forged. And she can prove it. It can’t be tracked to Pelant, but it can clear Caroline and get her back on the case. And if Caroline’s back, so is Sweets, who gets the approval to go through Pelant’s school records. He was suspended for hacking into the computers to change his grade, yet somehow got a sparkling recommendation letter from — surprise! — Carol Morrissey. Which was the last letter she sent before going missing. Sweets compares the letter to Morrissey’s other letters and finds that the style is much closer to than of another writer: Pelant. Logical, factual, not many adjectives. He can hack, but he can’t change his style.

The wounds on Morrissey’s body are giving the team trouble, though. There’s fracturing on the skull from a rock, but going in a weird wound track and not fatal. There are cuts, but to be made by the slight figured teenage Pelant, would have had to have been from a heavy weapon and they can’t find one that matches. Angela asks Hodgins for a favor: to put flowers somewhere for her. He realizes this is how she’s been communicating with Brennan and asks for the code, but Angela insists that if she’s the only one who knows, everyone else is clean and it has to be that way. Hodgins, like the good husband he is, trusts his beautiful, caring, and intelligent wife. When he goes to make the flower drop, Pelant is there. Hodgins confronts Pelant, telling him that if he threatens or hurts anyone on the team, he’ll kill him. Pelant spits back that he’s read Hodgins file that claims he’s “no threat.” “People change,” Hodgins retorts as he wraps his hands around Pelant’s throat and begins describing exactly what the body’s reaction to choking is. As Pelant smiles, Hodgins comes to his senses and releases him.

Obviously, the jig is up on Angela’s communications now and Flynn interrogates her and the rest of the team. Angela admits she was passing messages, but mostly it was just Brennan letting her know that she was okay. Hodgins admits that Pelant was there, but claims that they didn’t speak. Privately, Hodgins confides to Sweets about his altercation with Pelant and admits that he only stopped because he remembered that Brennan needed to come home. Sweets thinks they need to talk about the fact that Hodgins is now capable of murder, but Hodgins insists that Pelant wanted Hodgins to kill him… he could see it in his face. Sweets concedes that as valuable info. Flynn tries to get the next drop location out of Angela, but admits that Brennan won’t show now that Pelant cracked the code. And he’s right… Max shows up instead, informing a hidden Pelant that he won’t be leading him back to Brennan, but “if you want to follow me, I hope you like Mexican food because we’re heading for the border.”

At the lab, Cam apologizes to Clark for not realizing sooner that what he’s working toward (along with everyone else) will lead to him losing his job. He had thought of that. “What didn’t occur to you…,” Cam replies, “…was to do a bad job. I’ll never forget that.”

When Max doesn’t come back, Brennan and Booth discuss when to leave. Brennan tries to apologize for leaving, but Booth’s focused on something else. Meanwhile, Pelant is searching through vehicle registrations and stops on Clark Edison’s. “Should have stolen a car, Agent Booth,” he remarks. Back in hiding, Max is back and taking the car Booth brought, telling him to take Max’s, which is stolen and harder to track. Max is going to lead Pelant away and then kill him. After Booth leaves, he calls the car in to Agent Flynn, saying that Brennan is in it. Flynn remarks that he’s the second person to call that car in stolen. Oh crap. Crunch time.

Hodgins goes to Cam’s office and tells her that she needs to leave. And take Clark. And all the security guards. And what will Hodgins be doing? Catching up on the white binders in his office and not seeing any fugitives that might be coming into the lab. Cam, somehow, makes it happen and Hodgins and Angela reunite with Booth and Brennan and it’s glorious and beautiful. Brennan gets to work and she likes Clark’s binder system. Angela gives a flashdrive with proof that Pelant hacked into FBI email to Booth. (Hodgins later realizes that Cam purposefully had them send that email to trap Pelant… nice one Cam!) Sweets arrives, happy to see Brennan, but super-uncomfortable. Booth wanted him there to protect Brennan while he was gone. Aww… that’s a huge step for them. Booth takes the evidence to Flynn, who wants answers from Booth first. Booth shoot back at him, “How will you feel when it’s one of your friends Pelant hurts?” Flynn calls it in.

Brennan determines that the body was hung upside down, then gutted and bled. It’s not a sufficient explanation, though. She calls on Hodgins about the trace materials on the skull (and chastises him for not putting it in the binder) when it clicks: the tracks were the wrong way because she was snared while running. She hit the rock when she fell, but was then pulled upwards. There are still two tricky things to work out, though: Ethan’s code and the murder weapon. Brennan doesn’t think they’ll work it out; Ethan was so illogical and mentally ill by that point. Sweets says that they have to look at it as a scientist’s effort to distill human motivation into a logical construct and points out that there are three sides to a triangle, and three sides to Pelant: the side he shows the world, the inner killer side, and the side that wants one of them to kill him and stop it all. Angela’s face goes blank and Sweets thinks that he’s wrong, but that’s Angela’s thinking face… she’s working on it. On the weapon problem, Brennan points out that they’ve been looking for a heavy weapon, but really, Pelant was overweight as a teen – all the photos they have were digitally manipulated. Brennan spotted lingering symptoms of osteoarthritis in him. The weapon would have been much lighter and match the Japanese steel fragments Hodgins found. Max had met with Pelant’s grandfather – a WWII vet who was stationed in the Pacific and had some souvenirs from the time. Cam says that Caroline will get a warrant and tells Brennan, “You got him.”

At the shelter, Flynn and Booth arrest Pelant and Booth gets the satisfaction of cuffing him. Pelant is smiling when Booth enters the interrogation room, but his smile fades as Booth shows him a sword they found. To top things off, Angela cracks the code and finds out how Pelant inserted Brennan in the security video… the last straw clearing her.

Back at Casa B&B, the whole gang, Flynn included, celebrates. Flynn speaks up and announces that he’s relinquished control to Seeley Booth and is going back to Homeland Security where there are fewer “prickly characters.” But he wants to keep Booth’s chair. Caroline has an announcement, too: Brennan is no longer a murder suspect and can resume her duties at the Jeffersonian. Everyone’s happy, except Clark. Cam has a surprise announcement, too: it’s been decided that the Jeffersonian needs two forensic anthropologists, one for crime and one for serious archaeological work. Clark perks up: “I hate crime and love serious archaeology!” Brennan chimes in “I love crime!” so I guess that’s decided. Booth apologizes to Angela for being upset with her and thanks her for getting his family back. Aww… oh, wait, we’re not done yet? Booth is doing some laundry as a back to brunette Brennan comes and asks if he’s still mad at her. He insists that he’s not and she did the right thing, but she apologizes for how he must have felt. Aw, Brennan, you’ve come so far. They start to do it on the machine and… episode over, right? Right? Nope… Booth gets a phone call. Not a happy one.

Back at FBI HQ, Caroline meets them and explains that Egyptian reps have come to take Pelant. Well… not-Pelant. Asam El-Fayat. Which is what all his fingerprints, DNA, work history… everything… identify him as. He wiped his ID and created a new one somehow and the Egyptians are taking him home. Flynn says there’s nothing he can do. As he passes Brennan, Pelant hands her a flower. She slaps him and he mentions pressing charges. Caroline says he’s welcome to stay in the country and do so. As Pelant leaves, Booth asks Brennan what the flower meant. “Pain and grief,” she replies. He throws it away and herds her out. Flynn picks the discarded marigold out of the trash ominously. COME ON!!! Now you’ve got me thinking Flynn is a bad guy!

Definitely a satisfying return. We all knew that Brennan was going to have to be cleared in the first episode, but I’m really happy with how non-easy they made it, especially with the end twist of Pelant still being on the loose. I’d love to know if the kinds of things Pelant’s hacking are actually possible, though, because he’s seeming like an impossible to beat supervillain now. Most of all, I’m happy with the characterizations in this episode. From Angela’s fervent passion for exonerating Brennan to Hodgins’ “people change,” (I mean, really… that profile was practically a LIFETIME ago for Hodgins, he’s come so far since season 1) to Booth understanding that Brennan made the right choice and Brennan’s empathy for the effect that choice had on Booth. So happy to have the team back together, but seriously dreading the next time Pelant pops up in their lives.

What did you think? Yay? Nay? Were you happy that Brennan’s terrible blonde wig isn’t here to stay?