The Bone That Blew-REVIEWS

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'Bones': The (rich) kids aren't alright

By Sarah Jersild

November 26, 08:44 PM

I'm starting to think several people on the Bones writing staff are arguing with their parents, spouses or significant others about why they don't want to have children. This is the second episode in a row where some punk kid did something horrific. What's next -- a toddler terrorist? An infant serial killer? A genocidal zygote?

Max K, the spoiler way!

When a couple of tree-poachers (can you poach trees?) find a charred skull dangling from a tree in a national forest -- right in the middle of the masked booby migration route! -- Booth and Brennan are on the case. A DNA hit from some bone marrow reveals the victim was Cal Warren, an ex special-forces Marine who had gone completely off the grid. He paid for everything in cash, he wasn't in any databases, and for all intents and purposes, he'd disappeared.

An RF proximity card found in Cal's apartment leads Booth to Woodbury school, the sort of k-12 private academy that costs more than most universities and promises to give the children of the exceedingly rich every advantage in life. Cal was working as a nanny for Lexie and Royce, the children of Richard and Elsbeth King. Richard is a defense contractor, and there had been kidnapping threats. Could someone who was coming after the kids taken out Cal?

The first interesting fact the team uncovers is that Cal's body was incinerated with airplane fuel. And looky here -- Dr. Ezralow, a high-powered dermatologist and mother of another Woodbury kid, flies a Cessna. She initially claimed she didn't even know Cal, but she eventually confirms that they were having an affair. But she claims she didn't do it -- and says that Cal gave her some insider information that was very damaging to Richard's company. When the team finds the site where the body was burned, it's yards from one of the King's country homes. Plus, Booth wicks a bit of fuel from Richard's fine Italian sports car, and discovers that Richard fuels his baby with aviation gas.

But the bones suggest that Richard didn't do it -- at some point, Cal was dragged by a choke chain, and the person doing the dragging was about 5'5". Elsbeth, then. She confesses -- but Sweets isn't convinced. Again, the evidence bears Sweets out -- the blast pattern indicates that an even shorter person fied the shot that killed Cal. That's right -- Lexie, the 11-year-old daughter, killed Cal when he refused to do her homework for her. He threatened to tell the school, which has a strict honor code. She would have been kicked out, and all her friends go there! Her mom saw Lexie standing over Cal with the gun, and she disposed of the body. That, my friends, is really, really bad parenting.

The lab rats
Wendell Bray, the Ryan Notwood NotZack, is back, and I think he's up there with Clark as my favorite NotZack, even if he does bring up tapeworm-infected beer. Ew[Only admins are allowed to see this link] Cam tries to heal Hodgins' wounded soul by getting the two lab rats to do an experiment, but Hodgins won't bite. Apparently, he only does experiments when there's an accused murderer egging him on -- he finally rediscovers the joy of the lab when Brennan's dad, Max, helps him build a wind tunnel to prove the wind speed that was needed to blast a charred skull-bit into a tree. Ah, science!

Booth and Brennan -- and Max
Speaking of Max... Cam hired him to work in the lab as a science teacher. Max is introducing young kids -- who have the run of the Jeffersonian -- to the joys of science by firing lasers through jell-o and doing the Mentos-in-Coke trick. It's very cute, but very odd -- why would he be doing science demonstrations in the forensics lab? I'm just not going to think about it, because I love Ryan O'Neal as Max.

Brennan is appalled her dad is working in the lab -- we catch criminals, and he IS one! She wants Cam to fire him. Sweets thinks Brennan is acting out on her abandonment issues, but both Max and Brennan dismiss this. When Brennan finds Max helping with the wind-speed experiment, she fires him-- his presence compromises the investigation! She, Sweet and Max talk about this, and Max says that he's going to stick with her -- he won't leave her again.

Max talks to Booth, who (after fending off questions about whether he's sleeping with Brennan, and if not, why the hell not?) agrees to talk to Brennan for him. He gets the chance when Max is demonstrating scientific principles to Parker: Your dad is great at what he does, and look at how excited Parker is! Could you overlook the evidence-tampering thing, just for me? Brennan sees through this -- "You're trying to do a favor for me by telling me it's a favor for you" -- but she relents.

The other major Booth/Brennan interaction revolves around Booth being paranoid that he's not giving Parker the best in life by not sending him to a school like Woodbury. Brennan doesn't help -- basically, she spends much of the time saying yeah, rich kids have it better, and you're not doing right by Parker, but you probably won't absolutely ruin him or anything...l probably. It's frustrating. In the end, Brennan starts to come around to the fact that good parenting trumps the advantages that big bucks can bring. It's just maddening that it takes a murderous 11-year-old to make them both figure that out.

Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends

* Yay, Gina Torres! Now if only they'd given her something to do...
* I looked up the masked booby migration routes. (Yes, I'm a geek.) According to Audubon, they don't tend to get that far north. Dear writers: it wasn't as funny as you thought. I did, however, like the humorless Masked Booby Defender -- "The Department of Fish and Wildlife does not kid, Agent Booth." You can keep her.
* Max spots Sweets coming into the diner: "There's the doc that told the jury that I was a sociopath!" he says. "Likeable sociopath," Sweets corrects. That makes all the difference!
* Angela shows off her mad deductive skills. "For an artist, you make a pretty good detective," Cam says. "I think you just insulted me," Angela replies. Um, yeah, she did.
* I get why Brennan would stress the benefits of education and minimize the role of the parent -- she was abandoned by her folks and then basically raised by wolves. That's why she would spout things like "Assuming quality education and adequate supervision, parents are actually rather irrelevant beyond a certain age." Still, every time she dissed Booth's role as a parent, I bridled. Booth is a great dad, and she knows it!
* I loved Hodgins enthusing about the experiment Max helped put together. "Your old man, he reminded me of why I got into science!" he crows to Brennan. "To catch murderers?" she asks. "No -- to figure things out in amusing ways." Heck yeah-- science education would be a lot more popular if kids were allowed to test various ways things could explode.

A fan review from sidereel.

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The Bones That Didn't Blow; A Review of bones Season 4 Episode 11

I love Max, I really wish I'd got him for science at school; I probably wouldn't have spent three years writing "I love Hanson" on my Jotter rather than learning anything. He's just such a likable man! I do however find the likelihood of him being hired to teach children a little far fetched, I think sometimes in order to take or minds away from the romantic aspect of the show the writers clutch at straws and write something slightly outlandish and soap opera-esque. That all said, I did however enjoy his return and the return of my second favourite intern this season Wendell played by Michael Terry. I enjoyed the way everyone sort of bonded with Max, especially Wendell; Max is the daddy of the lab and the daddy who everyone wants as their own except for Bones. It seems that the boys in the lab with the aid of mad Max are back to hi-jinx and that can never be a bad thing, it was rather nice again this week to see a sort of hark back to the early more care free days of bones. To see Hodgepodge think about something other than his ex-fiance and her new lesbian lover was refreshing and in a way it also dealt with the lack of Zack which seems to be have been too underplayed this season.

The makers of this program are very clever; I've noticed a pattern or rather a way of keeping us watching. If an episode like this weeks, is less than brilliant (by brilliant I mean like last weeks episode, or the one with all the angry Santa's, where Bones and Booth kiss) they end it with a particularly good lingering look from Bones to Booth and vice versa... and all is forgiven. Those lingering looks, those little secret smiles the two share, those are what keep us watching and keep the folks on YouTube making montage video's to Ashley Tilsdale songs. I myself feel cheated if at the end of the episode we don't get at least one little yearning glance from Booth in the direction of his woman.

The highly anticipated Booth and Max scene was great if ever so slightly inappropriate, I enjoyed the questioning of Booth by Max as to why he wasn't sleeping with Bones. Perhaps it would have been less creepy if he hadn't said sleeping with and had said dating instead. Regardless it was blooming good especially Booth saying in a slightly husky voice "Bones is beautiful" and my little analytical brain pondered as to whether Max's questioning of Booth represented we the viewers desire to see our perfect partners hop in the old sack."You're a good man and I want that for her" Don't we all Max.

The best bit was the family moment at the end, Booth basically telling Bones that he wants her and her father to be the educational enrichment his son gets from his family; basically saying that Bones and Max (even though he's a murderer) are his and Parkers family.

The criminal aspect of this episode was mildly interesting, though I did guess at the beginning that it was one of the kids who had killed the victim, so there was no shock there. Like the majority of this season I found the episode to be one which showed the emotional development of the characters rather than carrying any sort of major story arc, and like the majority of the episodes this season I have to say that it's not a bad thing!

Happy thanks giving to all of you in the USA and happy crappy weather to all of you in the UK and just happy day to all of you in other parts of the world!

Below is EW's recap.

Bones' recap: Weird Science

Nov 27, 2008, 07:17 AM | by Whitney Pastorek

Kind of a nothing episode last night forensics fans, but it's always great to have Ryan O'Neal back in the house as Brennan's dad. Our murder du jour was a former Marine paratrooper-turned-manny for Mandarin-speaking brats who was blasted with a shotgun, burned, and then blown (courtesy of a Nor'easter) into a tree because he had too many middle-class values. Remind me to avoid rich people, at least on TV.

But the heart of the matter this evening was the relationship between Bones and Max, which has always been testy—thanks to his life as a fugitive bank robber and killer—and hasn't gotten any easier despite the fact that Tempe spent most of last season trying to get the guy acquitted. When Cam hired him on as a kiddie science teacher (um, the Jeffersonian has a junior varsity?), Bones got all riled up and immediately demanded he be fired. According to Sweets, this had to do with abandonment issues. According to Max, that was crap. According to me, it was just an excuse for unnecessary bickering.

Elsewhere: the blond male intern, whose quirky deal I forget, was back; Hodgins rediscovered his love of experiments in Zack's absence (cool wind tunnel!); we learned that the Department of Fish and Wildlife does not kid about boobies; and Booth fretted about whether or not to send Parker to private school. Now that we know sending kids to private school turns them into tiny little murdering sociopaths, I'd say that answer's clear. Plus, Shayne from Some Kind of Wonderful turned up as an overprotective mom, and of course, the following exchange, between Max and Booth: "Are you sleeping with my daughter?" "No. "Why? Are you gay?" No... he's just waiting for February sweeps. Sigh.

We're back in January with more, but in the meantime, here's a heavy holiday-season question to ponder: Is there a time when parents become irrelevant? Well, I had to call my mom like seventeen times from the grocery store just to shop for Thanksgiving dinner, and I'm 33 years old. So, maybe not.