Hola, Bones fans! When last we left the gang, a bunch of highly trained doctors forgot to tell Hodgins not to take aspirin in case he had a spinal cord injury after a body exploded all over him, which he did, so he thinned out his blood, got a hematoma, and he’s now paralyzed.
Also, Arastoo came back and told Cam he realized he was in love with her, just as she was getting on with her life with the awesome and handsome Sebastian Kohl.
Let’s get on with it. Here are your Bones Top Five Moments!
So, Hodgins is still Hodgins, in that he’s always upbeat, even as he’s being lowered into a wheelchair, ready to leave the hospital. His doc says she will keep an eye on his lumbar nerves for signs of regeneration, and Hodgins swears he felt the tinglies in his feet just that morning.
He’s also told to take it slow, meaning no work, as the hematoma crushed, but did not sever, the nerves in his lower spine, which means that he could cause further damage, like, oh, not being able to move above the waist or breathe on his own.
Of course, Booth is on board with Hodgins going home and how things are getting back to normal, while Brennan is all Debbie Downer, WAH WAH, and predicts it’s likely Hodgins will never walk again. Booth has some experience with this kind of thing, what with his experience with wounded soldiers, and says the emotional recovery is almost as difficult as the physical, so Hodgins needs to have hope.
And even though Aubrey essentially saved Hodgins, he seems to feel guilty, but Caroline puts him in his place. When they have her just be Caroline like that, all mothery and not taking any crap, it warms my heart. And Aubrey’s.
Hodgins manages to get himself a newfangled electronic bike device that moves his legs for him. He’s thrilled that he can work and do physical therapy at the same time, while Cam reminds him her liability doesn’t cover that. And with all of his newfangled contraptions, I’m surprised his wheelchair is manual.
Oh, thanks Bones show for bringing Wendell in for this episode. And he has a beard! I can still see your baby face, dude. Sorry.
I’m so glad he’s been studying blow flies, because, ugh, gross. I guess they needed another bug expert with Hodgins in recovery mode. No matter, though, because Hodgins literally rides in to save the day and correct Wendell about time of death.
And so much for recovery, because he’s working the case. Yeah, if anybody thought Hodgins was going to chill at home, you haven’t been watching Bones.
It seems Tropical Storm Bertha has played havoc not only with the time of death determination but has also washed away some of the bones they’ll be needing, and with Hodgins an expert in forensics and earth sciences, it looks like he’s needed on the case. I guess breathing on his own isn’t too important, anyway.
The corpse is Andrea (Drea) Torres, who was an attorney with the public defender’s office.
RE: Hodgins. Here’s how it’s going to go:
Everyone: Hodgins, you’re pushing yourself too much, you need to go home.
Hodgins: Just one more thing…
Everyone: No. Okay.
He can’t get his wheelchair where he says the bones wound up, so Wendell goes to the bones and straps a camera to his hat, while Hodgins remains safely at the lab. Hodgins helps him find the bones, and Wendell says, “King of the Lab” which seems to stab Hodgins right in the gut. Oopsie.
As for the public defender’s office, we’re introduced to Tim Watkins, intern/IT support/investigator, who takes them to Alex Pollack, Senior Public Defender. Booth sees a picture that makes him hint Pollack and Drea may have been closer than employer/employee.
When they find cocaine in Drea’s system, Hodgins sees this as all systems go, until Cam finally tells him he’s off the case. I’m sure Hodgins won’t be affected by that at all. When Angela skypes him while he’s at home with all of his fancy physical therapy equipment and talks about the case, that really doesn’t help, either, if his kicked puppy expression is any indication.
Drea’s boss, Pollack, was totally cool with the cocaine issue. And after some threatening from Aubrey, he admits he knows Drea got the drugs from a DJ.
Instead of cocaine up Drea’s nose, they found part of the scale of a Woma Python. Ew. Conveniently , there’s a DJ Woma, so, ya know, way to make it easy for the investigators. He’s all, “Who?” for three seconds before he admits he knows her. He got pushy, so she sucker punched him, and he said, “Hey, you gotta go.” So, not the he-man sort, this DJ Woma. She walked home in a bad neighborhood where Alex Pollack also lives.
During lunch with Cam, once again Booth and Brennan have an argument over Hodgins having hope versus a misguided sense of optimism, with Booth clearly making the case that it should be Hodgins’ choice as to whether he works or not.
Oh, hey, remember Tim? One of his jobs was IT. And it turns out, Drea had spyware on her computer. She must have suspected her computer wasn’t safe, but rather than getting a program to check for the spyware and remove it, she chose to instead never access social media on it. I suppose those bank account passwords weren’t important. Tim says he did it to protect her, but that’s all he says, because I guess working in a law office taught him something, and he asks for a lawyer.
Whoopsie. They found blood in the dumpster directly under Pollack’s balcony that matches Drea’s. And Pollack told Tim to put that spyware on Drea’s computer. Alex is a lawyer, so he double and triple talks Booth to death.
It also turns out that Wendell has been sneakily skyping with Hodgins, which is how he got the python info. Angela comes home to put the kibosh on that, but all Hodgins has to do is get her to remember why she loves him, which all ties to his work at the lab, so she folds like a cheap card table.
Pollack tried really hard to stop them, but Booth and Brennan finally make it into his apartment to find he painted the railing. Fortunately, he didn’t paint the nail embedded in there, and that’s where Brennan finds Drea’s blood
Though he’s a lawyer, and he’s been able to block them at every turn, the second Booth turns his steely gaze on Pollack, he’s immediately a five year old caught stealing candy. He cops to telling Drea he loved her, and she didn’t take it too well, what with the boss/employee relationship they had. There was a struggle, there was a wine glass to the head, and over the railing she went.
So, Cam goes to see Hodgins and admits she sent him home more for herself than him. Seems she feels guilty for letting Hodgins work immediately after the explosion, even though she knew he was hurt. She feels that if she’d sent him home, he wouldn’t have wound up in the wheelchair. Booth’s talk about choices has paid off, though, as she okays Hodgins to come back.
The bad news? It seems Hodgins is not getting better. The doctor tells him he probably won’t recover, but he totally lies to Angela about it and says she told him everything was great.
This is so not good.
Brennan once again learns some lessons about love and faith. Her “I’m going to hug you now” to Angela, was pretty great, because she picked up that Angela was hurting and wanted to comfort her. I love remembering how these guys are besties, despite their radically different personalities.
Also, she and Booth find a picture Christine drew of a skeleton that has a definite Jack Skellington feel to it. Brennan says she wants Christine to grow up to have faith, which is nice, but Brennan is still Brennan, and she wants to make the picture anatomically accurate before Booth displays it at work.