Bones, Bombs, Santa Claus and Excessive Christmas Cheer

That’s pretty much the combination that makes up this week’s episode of Bones, which is the obligatory Christmas episode. I get it. It’s Christmas time and all the major networks want to exploit the holiday for ratings. This is not news, and in theory I have no problem with it. But I have to say…I don’t know if I’m just getting old and weary or what, but I’ve really overdosed on Christmas already this year. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas trees and snow and eggnog and rum drinks and presents and certain Christmas-themed movies. It’s the ridiculously sappy and maudlin crap that comes with it that wears me down…the nonstop jewelry commercials, the toasting, the public displays of affection, the caroling, the children, the crying, the hugging…it all makes me sorta feel like demolishing a house with a tractor and then running away into the desert with a tent and a big bottle of Jameson.

But as far as Christmas episodes go, Bones usually does pretty good. They had a really nice Christmas episode in the first season and they had a good one in season three with a dead Santa and Brennan celebrating the holiday with her father Max (Ryan O’Neal) in the slammer. It also marked the faux Booth/Brennan kiss that had the fanboys and girls with too much time on their hands (you know, the ones that go onto Youtube and post those incessantly cloying Booth/Brennan romance music video mash-ups from hell) tinkling down their pants. And while this most recent Bones Christmas episode was a huge improvement over the disgrace that was last week’s and featured a couple of really solid and fun scenes, overall it was fairly forgettable.

The opening was strong: Santa Claus walks into a bank and presents a teller with a note telling her to give him all of the money. Then he rips open his Santa suit to reveal a homemade bomb strapped to his chest. Alright, this is nice and Bones perverse, I’m on board. Booth is nearby and gets the call on his FBI radio. He races to the scene and draws down on Santa as he exits the bank. Before he can disarm the suspect, the bomb explodes and the passersby fly into the air. Booth and another woman are so close to the explosion that Santa’s blood and guts and bones and body parts fly onto them and stick like flies in a sand trap. Because Booth and this other woman now have particulates all over them, they become big human pieces of evidence and have to be bagged and sent off to the Jeffersonian.

This gives Brennan the task (and opportunity) to remove all of Booth’s clothing for analysis. Booth is obviously very uncomfortable in this situation and trying not to get too…um…excited. Brennan is the consummate professional, though, a mask of steel. I’d expect nothing less from her. It of course doesn’t help that Cam bursts into the room right as Brennan is on her knees taking off Booth’s pants. Awkward. Booth then has to be wheeled out into the main lab dressed only in his skivvies and proceed to interview the other woman with all of the Santa goop all over her. There’s also a cab driver there who shares the same current affliction. It’s a highly amusing scene and Emily and Boreanaz play it just right. This kind of playfulness is what Bones does so well…when the writers actually focus on it instead of other inanities with the supporting characters.

Hodgins announces that the bomb was triggered via a two-way radio, meaning that Santa might have had a partner. Using a computer chip found at the crime scene, Booth traces a broadcast of some zealous nutso ranting about capitalism and banks…and, you know, the usual the-government-is-evil-we-gotta-fight-the-powers-that-be-bla-bla-bla. Brennan accompanies her partner as they hightail it to the suspect’s suburban home. Booth secures his weapon and jumps out of the van with a reel of cable. His plan is to use the cable to pull down the transmitting antenna, just in case the guy is waiting to set off any more bombs. Brennan implores him not to go inside in case there really is another bomb. Booth just gives her his gun and tells her to cover him as he takes down the antenna.

I love seeing Booth when he’s in action because Boreanaz projects an urgency that is radically different from the collected and sly and sedentary Booth we usually see. And it’s a nice bit of writing that he willingly gives Brennan his gun, because in earlier seasons he was always trying to take guns away from her. The gesture speaks volumes to how much they trust each other now and how far their relationship has progressed. Booth collars the guy and brings him back to be interrogated. Turns out the guy was trained in explosives in the military. Perfect culprit then right? Well it’s actually more complicated than that (thank God). Eventually Booth and Brennan discover that the Santa was really just an exterminator and was being coerced; he was a patsy. They have to figure out who was pulling the strings and why.

But gee, being that it’s the Christmas episode, don’t you think that the real emphasis is going to be on everyone’s Christmas plans and on everyone trying to learn the true meaning of Christmas? Where’s Jimmy Stewart when you need him? Booth’s son Parker is spending Christmas away with his ex-wife Rebecca (this has happened before), while Brennan plans to escape the whole Christmas thing by going to a dig in El Salvador (this has also happened before). Cam goes hog wild buying all kinds of Christmas decorations—being that this is to be her first Christmas with her adopted teenage daughter—but is crushed when the bratty daughter tells her she is going to Hawaii for Christmas with her snotty rich friends. Cam, I got the perfect solution for you: drown the little wench and give me her ticket.

Sweets and Daisy (who is back this week as the dumbass revolving intern) plan to avoid the whole thing for some reason I don’t care to remember, while Brennan’s now-free ex-con father Max tries to convince her not to leave him all alone on Christmas. His ploy involves bringing down Brennan’s second cousin Margaret, who she has never met. This Margaret does nothing but spout quotations from Benjamin Franklin and is played by Emily Deschanel’s sister Zooey. Fans have been clamoring for a Zooey guest spot for years (why I don’t know, Emily has the looks and talent of the family as far as I’m concerned), and now it’s finally here. But it is nothing more than stunt casting. Zooey is barely in the episode and has nothing to do. It’s a throwaway role provided solely to throw the aforementioned fanboys and girls a bone (no pun intended) and to allow every other character on the show to remark that Brennan and Margaret look just like sisters. Ha ha ha ha ha! It’s an inside joke, get it?! It gets funnier every time they do it.

The murder mystery was a lot better this time and Booth and Brennan had some nice moments, so overall I’m happy. But the Zooey guest spot was really underwhelming. I mean she’s an actress too, why didn’t the writers give her something to play with, a real role? I know that the issue has always been Zooey’s schedule availability, but this really felt half-assed and slapped together at the last minute for me. If they were going to do it at all, they should have done it right. I don’t like it when shows think they can get by on stunt casting and lazy writing. Viewers deserve more.

Season 5, Episode 10: The Goop on the Girl (originally aired December 10, 2009)

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