Bones Review: A Little Too Close to Home

Bones is always at its most interesting when the case includes the team at the Jeffersonian – though I doubt they would agree with me. The serial killer and genius hacktivist Pelant made his return (from Egypt) after we last saw him evade capture in the season premiere. This time, it gets even more personal when Pelant targets Hodgins and Angela.

The story begins when Hodgins and Angela are gassed in a deep sleep and a skinned, mutilated body is left hanging over them on their canopy. Pelant lets the couple know exactly who they’re dealing with by leaving some Egyptian flower petals around their son, Michael Vincent’s, pillow. Cue freakout.

In order to investigate this latest murder and attempt to track down Pelant, the team at the Jeffersonian agree to avoid using any sort of technology knowing full well that Pelant is tracking them. So Hodgins sets up something called the Enigma machine – it seems to work a little like a fax machine. The Jeffersonian has one, and the FBI has another one set up in Booth’s office. This is how they communicate their master plan to take down Pelant.

Pelant’s victim turns out to be part of the Special Forces and worked for Serberus, a private mercenary agency. Pelant is definitely upping the stakes now – that couldn’t have been an easy kill for him. Pelant has also wiped his previous two identities – he’s no longer Pelant or an Egyptian national. He’s now known as Justin Trimble and works at Serberus. It’s not easy tracking down a man with no real identity.

This case was really Hodgin’s case. He biopsied his lung to figure out what gas Pelant used in his house. When he figured it out, he realized that only two places sell that specific gas: and both are owned by his family’s company, Cantilever. It makes it incredibly easy to find out that someone named Justin Trimble bought the gas and is working at Serberus. They’ve finally got a location for Pelant!

Booth and fellow FBI Agent Flynn lead the search in Serberus and Pelant begins making his great escape.Booth and Flynn chase him out of the building’s private evacuation route, but Pelant’s hacking unleashes a machine gun attack on the FBI agents. Flynn is struck down. Pelant hops into a car and begins to drive away – but not before Booth takes a master shot at the car and it’s apparent he has injured Pelant.

Before running out of the building, though, Pelant had one more very mean trick up his sleeve. A series of numbers and letters begin scrolling across the screens on the computers at Serberus. The team realizes it’s for a drone and it’s headed straight for an all girl’s school in Afghanistan. But that only accounts for half the numbers of the screen – the other half represents all of Hodgin’s fortune being drained out of his account. And if he tries to stop the money from being drained, then they loose access to the drone and the girls will be killed. Hodgins doesn’t even hesitate when he tells the team he’d rather them stop the drone and save the girls rather than save his money. And this story has a happy ending (for now) when Angela manages to get the drone to self-destruct before hitting the school.

Lastly, while Booth, Brennan and the rest of the team wonder about what happened to Pelant after Booth shot him, the audience is given the (very gruesome) answer. The bullet seems to have torn through the right side of his face. In the final scene we see him stitching himself up. He looks monstrous, quite frankly, which is fitting given the monstrous crimes he’s committed in the past.

Season 8, Episode 12: The Corpse on the Canopy (Originally aired Jan. 21, 2013)

Bones airs Monday nights at 8/7c on FOX.

Images courtesy of Jordin Althaus/FOX.