Bones – The He in the She

FOX

(Season 4, Episode 7)

Let’s say you’ve discovered the skeletal remains of a body right in the middle of Chesapeake Bay. Yes, yes, I know you discover mangled skeletal remains in the middle of Chesapeake Bay every day… just bear with me. So, you discover the remains and it turns out to be the upper torso of a supposedly female victim. How do you know this? Well, the breast implants, obviously.

Or, maybe not. What happens if you discover the lower portion of this victim a bit later and it turns out that all of the female parts aren’t quite, um, where you expected them to be? Ah, haven’t discovered that every day. Have you, bunky?

This is the quandary that Bones, Booth, and the lovely and talented Squints had to ponder in this week’s episode. However, before we begin the review I’d like to take a moment for an irony break.

I didn’t realize this at first, but Patrick/Patricia’s (boy, that’s going to get old fast. Let’s call the murder victim ‘P.’for short) son seemed very familiar. Strip away the tattoos and the piercings and we were looking at David Gallagher, formerly Simon Camden on the long-running (too long for some) 7th Heaven. Now, here’s the ironic part: on 7th Heaven, Gallagher played the son of Reverend Eric Camden. Could this have been a bit of closure for the actor in his role as the son of a religious man? Well, minus the sex change, and the trip to Thailand, and severing of his/her body in two. Anyway, it was weird seeing David in that role after being so closely connected with another man of the cloth.

Irony break is over. Now, back to the show. I only had one problem with this week’s episode and it didn’t involve Bones or Booth or the Squints or even new intern Vincent Nigel-Murray (more on him below). My problem was this:the episode was totally out of order! How could you tell? Well, the very mention that Cam was going to start bringing in other interns to fill Zack’s place was a clue since that’s been going on now for about a month. Also, there was the very perceptible tension that surrounded Hodgins and Angela when they got together, which is something they resolved in last week’s episode. This should have been the second episode right after the season premiere. Hart Hanson and company have done this for awhile now and I wish he would stop. We’re pretty smart folk, us fans of Bones, and we notice these things over the actual story.

Other than that, I had no other issues. Well, I had a small one with Vincent Nigel-Murray in that he was somewhat annoying. To be more specific, his non-sequitur references were annoying. But, he’s British so he’s excused (you know, the accent… it helps everything). Take those out-of-the-blue references and Murray was a likable character who actually fit in more with Cam’s style of investigation than with Temperance’s. In the ever-growing list of interns that have graced the Jeffersonian this season I would put him at number three to come back.

This week’s episode featured a recurring theme on Bones: the battle between science and religion. With the murder victim being a pastor that theme was even more prevalent than usual. Normally, Bones can talk her way through the religious conversation, cutting into the fat of all of the “superstition.” This week, not so much of that. Here was one of those instances where Booth needed to constantly keep Temperance at bay for fear of being strung up and named a heathen.

Seeley is really in his element when it comes to these situations and it gives merit to why he’s a ‘Special’ Agent. Where Temperance can look at the nuances of the human skeleton, Seeley can look at the nature of the murder victim and the people that loved/hated them. Sure, he was a standard officer of the law when he was questioning JP, the man who left the last message on P.’s answering machine, but he was a different person when he questioned Chuck on the beach earlier in the show. In other words, Booth knows when to be somewhat compassionate and when to be a bastard.

Who else had some good moments this week? Well, Sweets did okay. I’m glad that the second episode of the season seemed to be an aberration when it comes to his involvement in cases. He has come through a number of times since then. There were two scenes where he was the most effective, and he didn’t speak in either. The first came during his session with Bones and Booth. As I’ve learned from my days in Improv, sometimes silence works even better than talking. That minute of silence between all three before Seeley got “the call” worked out in a funny way.

The second moment took place during Temperance’s explanation of what happens during a sex change operation. The look on Sweets’ face when Bones described how the penis is split open… priceless. Then again, I guess that’s how many men would react to a sentence that began, “First, the penis is split open.” I personally cringed as the mental picture appeared in my head. Brrr!

A bit about the actual murder case before we close up shop for this week. Oh, it was definitely the wife the first moment that JP was suspected. The issue was determining how P. ended up severed in two. JP couldn’t have done it because, to be honest, he was a wimp. Only a jealous wife who waited for her husband to get out of prison could have done something like this. Men, there’s a lesson to be learned from this: don’t refurbish a boat.

Guess what, everyone? This is the last new episode of Bones for the month due to the baseball playoffs (Go Phillies!). So, we won’t be seeing you back here until November. Which means a potential for no Halloween show this year. Bummer! Anyway, see you on the other side.

Clacked by Richard Keller
on Oct 08, 2008 @ 22:25 EST5EDT