It’s A Family Affair on Bones

Of course there’s another murder to solve, but this week for Booth and Brennan, the main source of conflict comes from the arrival of Booth’s grandfather Hank, out on the lam from the nursing home and complicating our favorite FBI agent Booth’s—and therefore Brennan’s—already packed lives. Hank is played by Ralph Waite, who will be remembered for being in The Waltons, but truth be told, my only previous exposure to him was watching him play father figures to Kevin Costner and Sylvester Stallone in The Bodyguard (1992) and Cliffhanger (1993), respectively. He did a very nice job in those movies and he does a very nice job here.

It’s a treat to have Hank on the show because it provides a stellar opportunity to learn more about Booth’s past and childhood and how he became the guy he is on the show today. Plus, Hank provides considerable comic relief and does his best to start pushing Booth and Brennan together, so he definitely gets a lot of points. A couple of moments with him are a little goofy and a little overdone, but all in all I think it was a good idea to bring the character on and David Boreanaz—who personally picked Waite for the part—made a strong choice.

As for the case: a body is found (actually the team discovers rather late that it was two bodies) burned to ashes in a bed by a seedy (is there any other kind?) realtor during a showing. It’s almost as disastrous as Joe Pesci trying to sell Danny Glover’s house in Lethal Weapon 3 (1992) after telling his prospective buyers that the house has been completely remodeled due to a drug dealer driving his car through it (that would be Lethal Weapon 1) and evil South African smugglers blowing up the upstairs bathroom (that would be Lethal Weapon 2). Booth thinks (or at least hopes with a juvenile grin) that the cause of death was spontaneous combustion, but Brennan thinks that’s absurd and raises her eyebrows and makes that face that only she can make.

At the lab, Clark, this week’s intern (again, why can’t they just pick one intern and make him or her permanent damn it! This is pointless!) discovers that the victim was a morbidly obese but relatively young woman, based on the indicators on her foot, the only part of the body not in ashes. So it would seem that the fat lady did not leave the building and now never will. They don’t have much to go on, but eventually Angela works her cyber artist voodoo magic dealio and determines that the victim was wearing a polyester vest that they then trace to a wholesale club. From there they can identify her, which they do, and that leads them into a weird and grotesque underground club/fetish/movement kind of thing involving skinny guys with a thing for feeding elephant girls. The victim was one of the aforementioned elephant girls, but then she lost a whole bunch of weight and switched sides to become one of the skinny people trying to feed fat guys. Where do they come up with this stuff? Don’t ask me.

But again, Hank is the real focus of the episode. He’s a handful and can’t take care of himself, and Booth can’t realistically take care of him either given his crazy job and busy life. But Booth doesn’t have the heart to not take him in because, after all, Hank is his grandfather. He’s also the guy who pretty much raised Booth and Jared after their alcoholic, abusive father walked out on them. Hank tells Brennan a little secret about why Booth’s father left and charges her with telling Booth eventually and being prepared to be there for him in the aftermath.

There are some very sweet, nicely done scenes in this episode. The only thing I was disappointed by was that Hank mentions that he used to be an MP—a military policeman. You know, like Jack Reacher. That makes sense given that Booth became both a military man and a policeman (FBI agent being a glorified policeman). So I thought that Hank would tag along on the case a little more and help them crack it and maybe kick some ass. But Waite just played him as this mild-mannered and requisitely crotchety old guy, and the writers didn’t give him anything cool to do. I guess I’m still in Gran Torino mode, but I guess it’s not fair to want every old guy to be as badass as Clint Eastwood (or Michael Caine in the upcoming Harry Brown, which I can’t wait to see). Performances are strong all around and I would welcome another visit from Hank down the line.

Season 5, Episode 8: The Foot in the Foreclosure (originally aired November 19, 2009)

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