Bones Review: This Comeback is No Myth

Bones is on a roll again, and it’s the good kind. We’re back to less than five uncomfortable relationship type moments per episode, and the writer’s have brought back gag-inducing interesting cases, fun moments with the ensemble cast, and are back on track with their weekly intern rotation. Add that to more Sweets (but where is Daisy) and we’ve got a winning formula.

This week the case begins with a mysterious death in the woods…okay fine, most week’s cases begin along similar lines. The body is discovered blanketed in butterflies, a spectacle which at first spurs an amorous first-date moment. The rotting corpse kind of kills the moment, as those things often do. Or so I’m told.

What makes the death mysterious is the body is drained of blood, its heart removed, and the bite patterns are unlike anything the squints have ever seen. They discover other incongruous data, such as both mammalian and reptilian DNA found on the body, leading Hodgins (T.J.Thyne) and this week’s intern extraordinaire Vincent Nigel-Murray (Ryan Cartwright) to suspect a mythical beast known as the chupacabra is to blame.

In other hilarious (non-case related news), Vincent Nigel-Murray has entered AA because he “liked to imbibe and have a good time,” and has reached step 9, in which he is required to make amends. During the night he forces apologies on most of the Jeffersonian staff for lies and transgressions that were probably best left untold. In an amusing turn of drunken decision making, he apparently told his buddies he’d engaged in sexual affairs with Angela (Michaela Conlin), Cam (Tamara Taylor), and Brennan (Emily Deschanel) on various occasions. Of course, Brennan is the only one with the balls to laugh in his face at the ludicrous assumption. To her credit, she does manage to realize she’s hurt someone’s feelings for once in her life. More forward motion on her part. Yay.

Booth (David Boreanaz) and Bones continue to work angles that don’t implicate mythical creatures, and discover the deceased is a myth debunker with a cable television show. He intended to debunk the myth of the chupacabra on the show, but he died out in the woods. They interview the proprietor of a nearby hunting lodge and his wife, who both swear they believe the chupacabra is to blame. The victim’s producer provides two additional suspects – a pet psychic who lost business after the victim exposed her as a fraud, and the man who’s spot he stole on the cable network.

They send my Sweets (John Francis Daley) in to do most of the interrogating this episode, a choice I absolutely adore because he’s hilarious and brings such depth of performance to the table. The Sweets character on this show is such a real person, such a study in contradictions. He’s a man who is both professionally confident but eager to earn the respect of those around him who he wants to consider as friends. I just love his vulnerability and the way Daley lets his insecurities show in the smallest facial movement or eye contact. Lovely.

But I digress.

 

Angela helps Hodgins find the victim’s hidden video cameras, and once again I must compliment the way the writers are painting their relationship through her pregnancy. It’s quite believable and also fun to watch. Angela is able to identify some ambient sounds, sounds which lead Booth and Bones back to the hunting lodge, where news of a possible chupacabra sighting have sent business through the roof.

Sweets interviews the owner of the lodge, and after some crafty questioning, gets him to admit he faked the chupacabra attack by stringing the victim up, draining his blood, cutting out the heart and making the strange bite marks with the incisor of a stuffed bear. The catch is, he swears the guy was already dead when he mutilated the body. He asks Sweets, “since I didn’t kill him, it’s not so bad, right?”

Sweets: “No, it’s bad. It’s really, very bad.”

Nice scene. It ends when the whole story comes out, one in which their “murder” turns out to be a simple hunting accident. The whole crew ends the night in the tavern, toasting greed and stupidity, the human pitfalls that keep them employed.

Sad, but true.

I’m almost scared to say this aloud, but I’ve started to not dread watching this show on Thursday nights again. I may even be starting to look forward to it again. The best thing they’ve done for Bones is to eliminate the relationship talk by having Bones and Booth agree to revisit the idea in the future, when they’re both ready. That way we can focus on each week as it comes, immerse ourselves in each new case and the comings and goings at the lab, without being pulled apart by the never ending will-they-won’t-they scenarios.

We still get some nice moments between the two of them, which is both necessary and workable…after all, the chemistry between Boreanaz and Deschanel is one of the main reasons this show worked so well, and wormed its way into our hard to please little hearts from the outset. We want them happy, and full of banter and friendships and possibilities, and for the moment, they are brimming with all of those things.

Brava, writers of Bones. You’ve won this girl back.

Season 6, Episode 18 “The Truth in the Myth” (original air date April 14, 2011)

Bones airs Thursday nights at 9/8c on Fox.

Pictures Courtesy of Rick Mickshaw and Fox