Everything’s back to normal on Bones, and I for one couldn’t be happier, Here are your Top Five Moments!
Right away I’m not happy with this episode, due to the annoying Intern Warren. And she doesn’t make me any happier when she responds to Brennan about how she knows what happened to the Corpse of the Week. “The old gutsky.” Just when they got Daisy under control and got me to like her. This girl is worse, because she is just too hip, slick, and cool for you. At least Daisy had some self-awareness that she might sometimes be annoying (with a little help from Sweets). And she was just more socially awkward. But no matter how many times Warren is admonished for being obnoxious, she laughs it off.
I think we’re supposed to side with her on this. It’s not working. Especially after she gets a text and when Brennan asks if the work is interfering with her social life, she responds, “No. Not at all.” Ugh. Please. Add to that she lives on an educational cooperative, and I’m “totally” done with her. Hodgins is intrigued. I would be happy if she disappeared for the rest of the episode.
When Brennan says the professor who runs the cooperative, Barrett McLaughlin, is a little too creative with his teaching methods, Warren chooses to talk in a condescending tone when she tells Brennan she could have used a little time with them. Talking like that to Brennan also does not get me on board the Warren train.
Even when Brennan is super cool and decides to help Jessica in the spirit going along with the whole “cooperative environment” thing, Warren still has to be jerky and ask if the world stopped spinning.
At one point she tells Hodgins she wants to prove to Brennan that genius and flakey aren’t mutually exclusive, but that’s not the problem here. Her actions aren’t flakey, they’re obnoxious and rude. If she was just kind of a space cadet, that would be fine. But she’s always trying to sound and be the coolest person in the room, and it gets really annoying.
And of course Aubrey thinks she’s cute. I guess since he’s a Sweets replacement, he’ll wind up in bed with her as well?
Okay, so she ends the episode being a real human. She cries over the loss of her cooperative, what with McLaughlin moving into a retirement home, and she winds up going home with Hodgins and Angela. Much better for my eyes than seeing her in bed with Aubrey.
Hey, the poor guy’s arms were torn off. Booth thinks it’s gang related. Really, Booth? I don’t think they take the time for that. Just shoot and run. But Booth is convinced it came from weighing down the arms and legs before throwing them in the water. Is he talking about the mafia, here? Because clearly, throwing people in the water is also not really what gangs are known for. But then he finds out the guy took a beating. Now THAT sounds like a gang, right? Not to Booth. Oh, and Booth totally loves that Mz. Obnoxious made a gut call. But Brennan tears that down fast. Again, I think we’re supposed to side with the intern here, but I’m a hundred percent with Brennan on this one.
It will be hard for Angela to come up with an ID based on what was left of the body, since there’s no eyes, ears, lips, or nose (EW!).
For the second week in a row, the Corpse of the Week is kind of a celebrity. This time it’s Hayes Robertson, who’s a “gazillionaire video game designer.” The only puzzling piece is that he was found in ratty, cheap clothes. But Hodgins and I have the same idea. He’s a young gamer. Crappy clothes to Angela is “Couch Potato Chic” for Hayes.
Through one of Hodgins’s crazy experiments, they’re able to find Hayes’s limbs. Warren gives me yet another eye rolly moment when she says he had nice guns.
The murder weapon was the shield used for the game Hayes was developing, which has those little motion capture balls on it. The murder took place on the staging area, but since the people weren’t wearing motion sensor suits, you can’t see them, just the shield.
Noah Gummersal, or his electronic equivalent, meets Booth and Brennan at Hayes’s house that looks like it’s decorated in frat boy chic. It’s also quite a small place for a gazillionnaire. Noah is snotty to Booth right off the bat, and we all know how Booth loves snotty know-it-alls. But Noah gets a lot more humble when he finds out Hayes is dead, and Booth is in the same room with him. Anyway, Noah is Hayes’s roommate and tests video games for him. They had a joint checking account, which is how Noah got paid. Booth thinks this is a pretty good motive to kill Hayes, but I would imagine with Hayes dead, he would have a will, and his checking account would be frozen, etc., so that money train would go away, right?
Suspect number two is at Immersion Games. Her name is Anne Schamberg, and she’s the number two programmer, which makes her acting head programmer now. Anne used to date Noah and says he’s harmless. Meanwhile, Aubrey is geeking out all over the place, especially when he finds out he gets to see where the game is shot. There are actors in motion capture suits playing out the game action.
When asked about enemies, Anne offers up suspect number three, Jen Park, the CFO. Apparently Hayes didn’t feel their game The Crusher was ready to be released, but a delay would cost the company twenty mil. So now Booth is ready to declare Jen the murderer without even meeting her, just on Anne’s say-so. Booth, uh, you might want to interview the woman first.
Never mind. Jen comes walking up and accuses Anne of letting her friends in. Then when she finds out they’re FBI, she gives Booth a piece of paper with her attorney’s number on it and orders them to leave. The expression on her face is snotty throughout. She is horrible.
Suspect number four is the “minotaur” from the game. Travis Leete. He is a real piece of work. While wearing a motion capture suit, he takes on Booth, then Aubrey, who both bring him down in a really embarrassing way. Seems he thought they were only characters in a game. He’s not too bright, this one. And he insists he came up with the idea for The Crusher, which Hayes stole from him. He says Hayes based the game on a move he made one night, when Hayes had the nerve to call him a troll when he’s a minotaur, so he punched Hayes. That’s when an expensive diamond bracelet fell out of Hayes’s pocket. Travis claims Hayes said he wouldn’t fire him about the punching, if Travis kept quiet about the bracelet.
Suspect number five is Chloe. Looks like Hayes might have been having an affair with Noah’s girlfriend. But when Aubrey goes to her apartment, it’s cleared out. Through Angela’s magical technology, she tracks Chloe to the next town over, only her pictures are tagged with another name, Alice Kelly.
When they bring Noah back in for questioning, he gets more and more agitated when Bones insists Chloe was cheating on him with Hayes. For some reason when Aubrey comes in to say Chloe/Alice is there, he leaves the door open, and Noah manages to slip by him and Booth. Seriously, just no. Booth would have had that boy on the ground in a second. We just saw how fast his reflexes were.
Anyway, after Noah gets into the hallway, he asks Chloe to declare her love for him, but she has no idea who he is.
Turns out Chloe and Noah never met in person. Hayes stole images of Alice from the internet and created Chloe to control Noah, who never leaves the house. Booth leaves Noah and Alice alone in the interview room. He tells her he got her the diamond bracelet that had been in Hayes’s possession. Seems there’s actually a love connection being created here. Alice appears flattered and charmed by Noah, who acts super adorable. I love nerds. I approve of your attraction, Alice. Good job.
Once Booth comes in to interview them, he finds out Noah has been talking to Chloe all week, which would be difficult if Hayes was Chloe.
They conclude from the shield fighting video that it was a woman fighting Hayes, and more specifically, Anne. Hayes had set up Anne and Noah, but when they started talking about moving in together, Hayes realized he wouldn’t have control over Noah any more, so he created Chloe to break them up.
Anne killed Hayes then took over Chloe’s account and broke up with Noah, so she could have him all to herself. What made her snap was that Hayes told her they were just characters in his game. Yeesh. Now I’m not feeling so bad that his arms got ripped off.
Oh, yes. Here we go. The clash of the parents, where Booth wants Christine to be able to scrape her knees a bit, while Brennan wants her to go to a Chinese immersion kindergarten. She went to a bunch of schools before she went to university, and she wants better for Christine.
Booth gets desperate enough to ask Aubrey about his kindergarten experience, because I guess he feels it’s been a shorter time for him. But Aubrey just wants to get into the psychology of Booth and Brennan fighting over it, so Booth changes the subject.
Brennan gets desperate enough to ask suspect Noah where he went to kindergarten.
Brennan and Angela have a heart-to-heart. It seems after talking with Jessica, Brennan has gotten all freaked out that she’s too rigid. She doesn’t know how to trust something with no formal structure. Angela insists Christine is going to wind up blaming her for everything that goes wrong in her life anyway, so Brennan should do what she feels is right for her.
The whole thing about how Warren is part of the commune, has also led Hodgins and Angela to discuss Michael Vincent’s education. Hodgins had enough of dressing up in a suit and tie when he was a little kid, so no private school for Mikie. He’s going to public school. Angela points out it’s all they can afford, and I just have to laugh. I know, I know. We’re constantly reminded Pelant took all of Hodgins’s money. But the thing is, the more they bring up how poor these two are, the more silly it looks.
First of all, this job doesn’t look like it pays peanuts. And they’re both working. There are people who have lesser-paying jobs who are able to send their kids to private school. But beyond that, the whole thing with Pelant being able to drain every last cent from Hodgins, who is a conspiracy theorist and would never have all of his funds in institutions where his entire fortune could be taken electronically, is preposterous. And after they killed Pelant, that Hodgins wasn’t able to get back any of his money, makes no sense.
So please, show, stop reminding us how poor they are, because it shines a bright light on how ridiculous the whole thing is. And they also want us to forget the whole hot sauce thing with Opie, which is where I think they were going with how Hodgins could earn back his fortune.
In the end, Brennan pre-screens a bunch of schools and lets Booth decide which one he thinks is best, since he’s way more open-minded. I wouldn’t say that. Booth may be a bit more fun, but the man has very rigid ideas.