MAN IN THE OUTHOUSE-Reviews

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The first one by Zap2It.

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'Bones': Poop and other perils

By Sarah Jersild

September 10, 10:04 PM

This week, Bones shows us the possible consequences of fooling around on your significant (or not-so-significant) other: You could end up splashed on a reality show, you could end up buried in poop, or you could be witness to an uncomfortable meeting of your booty-call boy and your mental man. None of these options sounds pleasant.

This spoiler dropped trou to warn you about the potential dangers of meeting people over the internet -- honest!

A trucker gets more than he bargained for when the outhouse he scampered into explodes. That's not the interesting part (the boom was probably just caused by the natural buildup of methane) -- that honor goes to the corpse that was buried in head-down sewage up to his waist. Ew! After a mere three days of the poop treatment, the upper half of the corpse is completely eaten away. His lower half was preserved just fine.

The team gets to sift through sewage, which strikes me as even less fun than their usual activities. After plenty of ick, they find that the corpse had been wearing a toupee, that he was bludgeoned on the back of the skull, and that he had a picture crammed down his throat with enough force to break his teeth. Who could inspire that much hate?

How about a guy who hosts a reality show that catches men in the act of cheating on their wives? "Busted by Bill", a cross between "To Catch a Predator" and "Cheaters," is the sort of thing that tends to provoke some passion, especially among the men caught cheating. One in particular responded to his moment in t he spotlight by punching Bill, but even though he's mysteriously left town, he turns out to be a sad-sack gambler who's on the run from his bookie. A wife who refuses to believe her husband was actually about to cheat (even though he appeared sans pants) is another suspect, but she, too, turns up clean.

But there were plenty of tensions at work, too. Bill had argued with his producer, Arthur -- Arthur would lose his megabucks franchise if Bill left, but he'd get a nice insurance payout from the death of his star. Bill wanted veronica, another staffer, fired -- were they sleeping around? Nope, that honor went to Holly, one of the honeytrap girls used to lure the cheaters. A combination of a thrush infection and a tongue piercing proved that Holly was intimate with bill, but she swears they were in love. Why would she kill him? More to the point, how would she have the strength to upend a guy into an outhouse pit? But Pete, the camera guy -- he lived with Holly, used to date her, and was enraged when he found photo of the two in flagrante. He lost it, and Bill was done for.

Brennan and Booth
Brennan shocks the heck out of Booth when he discovers she's dating two men simultaneously. There's Mark, a deep-sea welder and fine physical specimen who gets invited over for sex, and Jason, a botanist and bon vivant who stimulates Brennan's mind but not her naughty bits. Booth mocks Mark, gleefully sabotages a date with Jason, and is ridiculously pleased when Mark and Jason find out about each other.

And I'm actually a bit frustrated with Booth here -- Brennan has the right to live her life as she sees fit. As far as I could tell, she never told Mark or Jason that they were exclusive, so why not? It's not Booth's job to be big brother to Brennan and tell her who she can and can't date. Now, if he decided to actually act on his own feelings for Brennan, that would be different. But since he and Brennan are still in sexual-tension mode, he's really got no right to criticize.

That said, Booth was incredibly sweet when he found out Mark and Jason both broke up with Brennan -- "If they don't realize how lucky they are, they don't deserve you." Ok, great, Booth. But YOU don't realize what YOU want, just like Brennan doesn't know what she wants, so you get to stop criticizing.

A last-minute quasi-session with Sweets led Brennan and Booth to realize they had a spiffy little surrogate relationship going on -- and they were both fine with that. I have to say, I am too. I fear the Moonlighting syndrome -- satisfy the passion, screw up the show.

Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends

* The new Zach stand-in was Daisy Wick, a hyper-competitive, hero-worshipping glory hound who couldn't shut up about herself of her admiration for Brennan. It's enough to make you want the guy who apprenticed himself to a cannibal killer to come back to the lab.
* Sweets is a perceptive guy, but he's apparently got crappy taste in women -- he ended the episode asking Daisy out.
* That gang spent part of the time in Hazmat suits because they were dealing with raw sewage. Sweets was loving it -- "These suits are so cool! Zzzt, zzzt -- I Am A Robot." It was kind of adorable. I really didn't need to see him sneeze all over his helmet, though.
* Sweets, on the crime: "Shot in the head, punched in the face AND dumped in poop. Whoever did this did not get enough therapy."
* Things found in the sewage: Two toy cars, three cellphones, a doorknob, a rubber casing and a plastic Easter bunny head. The Easter bunny head was just freaky.
* Cam had very little patience for for Daisy -- when Daisy said she just wanted to make sure they realized SHE found the wig, Cam muttered "you did everything but hire a skywriter." Latter, when Daisy kept going on about herself, Cam suggested "You might want to keep a little mystery about yourself." Alas, Daisy was oblivious. No wonder she got fired.
* Daisy did have one good line: "My boyfriend thinks it's weird that I love doing this, but I think it's weird he loves the accordion."
* Booth and Sweets analyze Jason: Booth: "That guy is gay. Please, double cheek kiss, tight Italian suit" Sweets: "Coldplay" Booth: "Never married." Sweets: "Coldplay." Hee!
* I actually enjoyed the return of stalker Noel -- he definitely knew how to tail a guy, and his asides were hysterical.
* Brennan tells Cam and Angela that she's perfectly able to satisfy herself -- she just needs two guys to do it. "I've done that," says Angela. "I miss college."
* Booth wants to know why Brennan is with mark: "There has to be more than sex," he insists. "Not really..." says Brennan. And sometimes, with some people... she's right. And if Booth doesn't know that... well, I wonder what his college years were like.
* OK, tell me if I'm reading too much into this (and if I am, I blame a recent sojourn recapping The Secret Life of the American Teenager, the awfulness of which broke my brain): Did anyone else get the impression that the show was implying that Brennan was some sort of oddball freak for enjoying sex, presumably because girls aren't supposed to be like that? Because if so, that's getting to be a tired storyline. Brennan likes nookie, while Booth seems to want to believe she's some sort of delicate flower. In my opinion, Booth needs to get over it, and so does the show.

Wow. Sarah (the author here) sure is a snippy little one!

Next one by TV Squad.

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Bones: Man in the Outhouse

Posted Sep 11th 2008 8:03AM by Richard Keller
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I have a, er, bone to pick with some of you. I understand that many of you are unhappy about Zack's fate. I also understand more of you are upset that the season premiere of Bones was less than stellar. But, that's no reason to totally rack up the fourth season as a total failure. It's looking bleak, I know, but a finale and a premiere sometimes don't make a season. All I ask is for you to hold off a bit until you judge this season as a total disaster.

The other thing I'd like you to do, and, again, I know it's hard, try to get past Zack's ultimate downfall. If it's any comfort, the Zack we knew in last year was not the same person we knew in the first two seasons. He was a robot during the last show cycle - someone who was full of logic and devoid of any emotion until the very end of the season. Blame it on his time in Iraq, blame it on Gormogon, blame it on bad writing: Zack couldn't have lasted past season three in the state that he was.

If there is any solace to the loss of Zack it can be that we get to see a cavalcade of new assistants for Bones and the rest of the Squints to tackle. Last week it was the boring but reliable Clark, this week it was the overly-peppy Daisy. Now, she was annoying! Oh, Daisy was smart enough and had gumption to take initiative, but she was definitely not the right fit for the team. She was just too damn eager to impress Temperance, and Bones does not impress easily at all. It was inevitable that she wasn't going to make it past this episode -- despite the fact that she sifted through six containers full of liquefied poo.

The final thing I'd like you to think about while watching this season is that, like it or not, our favorite characters are going to grow and change. In a character-driven show like Bones it's bound to happen. Take a look at the developments in Temperance's life this episode. Who knew she was a two-man woman. It's certainly not something we have seen before with her. As someone who has relied on logic and science to make her determinations this was somewhat reckless of her. Perhaps it's her continued reactions to Zack's situation that made her move in this direction. Or, it could be the underlying feelings that she will never find the right person to spend the rest of her life with that caused her to 'play the field'. Of course, we all know who that particular person is. It's just that we like to ignore it a bit for fear that it will really change the show.

Now, after asking for all of those things from you, there might not be a reason to worry. This week's installment of Bones returned to the formula we fans are all familiar with and enjoy. The murder mystery, while pretty predictable, was decent, the back-and-forth between Bones and Booth returned to normal standards, Seeley didn't act like some dumb American tourist, and there was a pretty good "eww' factor in the form of the outhouse sludge. Even the soap opera that is the Squints was removed as they got down to the business of solving a crime. Though, with that, the writers pretty much dismissed the relationship between Hodgins and Angela. Unless this episode of Bones took place weeks after Bones and Booth returned from London you would think that there would have been some interaction between the two.

Even Sweets had something to do this week rather than just flitting around and bothering the Squints. Not only did he help profile the killer of the Cheaters-like host, but he was also instrumental in a conversation between Bones and Booth about one of her paramours. Needless to say, his mention of Coldplay several times brought a smile to my lips. That, and he ended up sneezing in his bio-suit, which is always good for a chuckle. We also learned that the young doctor is actually a bit lonely, which may be the reason he's hanging out with Booth, Bones and the Squints so much.

This review can't be complete without a mention of Booth and Bones' brief therapy session. As we have seen for years now, the couple that isn't really a couple had one of those "moments" where you wanted to jump into their brains to see what they were really thinking. That lingering look between Seeley and Temperance after he mentioned that she would eventually find the right person was that extra step to Bones and Booth's eventual hook-up. Or, perhaps not.

And, that's it for this week's installment of Bones. Next week, the lovely Jen Creer will guide you along another exciting episode. I'll see you in 14 days.

nice review, thanks sis!