The Girl in Suite 2103

So, again we have Cam with the "everything must go through me, first" routine. No person with a staff of 4 and a job doing autopsies wants everyone to check with her before they fax a simple sheet of paper. She tells them she is the circus ringleader, the biggest curve in the loop. How many different ways can this woman think to say, "I'm the boss." Does she want every single detail so that she will be the one to report back to Booth, the closest contact he has to the forensic staff, an excuse to spend more time with him?

I like the fact that Hodgins plans to tell Booth something and keeps walking out the door even though Cam objects that he doesn't have her permission. He doesn't do it defiantly. He's just unconcerned. Cam doesn't know that his family has money and practically owns the lab they work in. I look forward to the day when he may have to do something to have her put in her place. Although, it could be that Cam will grow out of her power demands. Tamara Taylor is still with the show in 2012 and I don't think these control struggles will last for 5 straight years, so there's a good chance that this too will pass.

First Temp tells Booth he's deferring to Alex because he's a midget and then when Booth yells at him, she asks, "why are you being so mean?" She changes from one position to its polar opposite in talking about midgets, romance and everything else and the writers don't even realize that her character has no real consistency. Her manner is the same, thanks to Emily, but what she says is dependent on what the script needs her to say, not the person that the show has failed to fully mold yet.

Booth continues to emphasize the fact that Cam is more into him than the other way around, by telling her not to think of him when they are working, especially not to think of him naked. You'd think that was just thrown in for humor, but then she caresses his head and tells him to go get some coffee.

First of all, other than being self-conscious around Brennan (which Cam should question) it's not clear why Booth wants to keep their relationship a secret. They are actually employed by different people and it's fraternization of a sort, but not the worst kind. Second he tells her that Angela is practically psychic about what people are doing sexually. Well, Angela is not the only one. Brennan knew that he and Camille had a past when she first saw them together too. Plus, even in this episode she picks up that the waitress is hitting on Booth. So, she would notice the familiar glances and gestures between Cam and Booth too, usually. but she doesn't because the script doesn't want her to.

Thirdly, why DID Cam caress Booth's head? She could have told him to go to the coffee shop (so that she could manufacture evidence outside of his presence) in some other way. He jumps up immediately when she does and whisks Brennan away, but I don't know if he thought the touch was a little much.

At the coffee shop, Cam suggests that they make the evidence point to the son with the mother who possesses diplomatic immunity so that she will waive it, to protect her kid. Since they are not going to actually take that evidence to trial, I don't see it as an immoral act. Booth says he doesn't want to go around diplomatic immunity because when our Americans are overseas, he wants THEIR diplomatic immunity to be honored. I support that completely, which is why we should not torture POW, no matter what horrible things they are suspected of having done. however, if the mother WAIVES diplomatic immunity, that's not exactly dishonoring it. Indeed, she eventually does waive it. I guess that if the fact that she was tricked into waiving it came out, that would lead to retaliation, whereas her doing it because she was plagued by guilt (and feared the treatment she would get in an Colombian court) is a different matter.

Still, I don't know if what Cam tried to do and backed off doing as soon as Booth waived an objection would be cause enough for me not to trust her, in Brennan's place. She didn't go behind their backs and she was going to lie to a criminal suspect (which police do all the time) not to authorities. So, I don't see a moral lapse exactly. Booth says that Cam is, at heart, a cop. More of a cop than I think a coroner should be, in fact. And she just wants to get the bad guy. but he says they have to remember not to become the bad guys. Well, that's fine, but he should have those same principles when he's interrogating and bluffing a witness, not just when he thinks Americans abroad or at war might suffer because of his conduct.

Anyway, Brennan's reaction to what Cam did and Booth's veto put them on the same side. Does that explain why what he feels for Brennan is stronger than the feelings that never expand beyond the sexual attraction he has for others? Maybe, but since neither of their ethical convictions seem that strong yet, I wouldn't try to base their alliance and relationship cement around it.

As for Cam, she made jokes when she first appeared about blaming others if the case fell apart or wanting to get finished early so she could kick off and go play poker or something, but they were just jokes, I thought. They haven't revealed much about her true character and what she would or wouldn't do, what lines she wouldn't cross. We need to know this is they are going to compare her values to someone else's. When she bought the manufactured evidence file she said that everyone helped her with it, except for Zack who wouldn't help until she threatened him. Well, I know more about Zach now. I need to see her do something questionable in the field before I can really determine what she's willinmg to do for a conviction. Right now, she seems to be more talk. I never had to spend much time wondering about Andy Sipowicz's make up, but this show refuses to make characters who are as definite. As a consequence, they are also not as deep.

I like teams working together. I don't like people who create conflict within the team. So, I don't want Cam to stir up as much trouble as she has so far. When you have outsiders coming between the lead characters (i.e. Diana Fowley) that's fine, as long as they ARE the outsiders or antagonists. I can't stand for anyone within the team to be that agitator on a regular basis. It makes it too stressful for me to watch, because I just end up getting mad. So, I would prefer if Cam not sleep with Booth and not continue to wield her power over everyone else. I like it when they all work independently, but together.

Not clear why Angela is resisting Hodgins. Maybe she could talk to Brennan about that, since Brennan was her best friend awhile back. Angela was a great flirt and she knows Hodgins is after her, so does she ignore him because they work together or what? She used to hit on Booth (lightheartedly), so I don't think that would be a problem for her, but they've changed her personality. I'm not sure she's the same brazen person who flashed her breasts at the airport ticket counter when the series started.

The Truth in the Lye

We see Booth rolling around in bed as the show opens (and closes) if they think we are fooled into thinking it's with Brennan either time, they're wrong. I think Rebecca says something about being a police officer on the beat, but not sure. I wondered how she and Booth met, that would be it. The thing is, for the Christmas episode we saw Booth having to beg to see Parker. We also saw her threaten to take Parker away from him not long ago. Now, to make it seem like they fundamentally like each other, but missed their moment is stupid and seems like a rewrite. Booth did not LIKE her and she was a vindictive ex, holding custody over his head, but now she's a different person.

She picks up Booth's phone when Brennan calls and Booth is a little embarrassed about Brennan knowing they slept together. Shift in relationship. When Brennan walked in on him and his lawyer friend, he was not that self-conscious. Now, he is because he must have started having feelings for Brennan. Next thing he knows, Cam is talking to him about being back with Rebecca. Brennan told her.

So now Brennan is gossiping with Cam about "points of interest", instead of with Angela, her best friend? Would have been interesting to see that scene where Brennan tells Cam, but we don't because it would be so unrealistic they knew it would not play right on camera.

Doesn't want Brennan to know he's seeing Rebecca. Doesn't love her anymore like he used to. Doesn't want to marry her anymore. Gotten over that feeling of regret?

Booth says he wants to go back to Zack not talking directly to him and him not talking to Zach. nice point because I was wondering when that ended and why they have been having conversations in the last few episodes, without mention of how Booth used to like to ignore him.

Cam upset about the lack of decorum at the autopsy table when she and the guys are working. Why does she care? She's not usually the one concentrating on giving the corpses respect. In fact, both she and Brennan flip flop. half the time Brennan is saying it helps her if she doesn't give the corpse a name and the other half she is telling them it was a person and they need to stop playing around.

Single moment thesis. Rebecca tells Brennan that she and Booth aren't together because at first she thought being with him would swallow her identity and then when she found out it wouldn't, they had missed their moment. she thinks there's a time for a couple to come together and if they miss it, it's too late. I guess we are supposed to apply this to Brennan and Booth. They could have come together at the end of the show when she said she would keep mum if he needed to satisfy his urges and relax with sex (like she sometimes does and points out that there are a few old partners she thinks she can call when this need arises). but they missed the opportunity, so is that a message that their moment passed.

Brennan tells rebecca that booth thinks she wouldn't marry him because of his job, his sniper past and because he wouldn't make a good father. Rebecca is sad that he got it wrong all this time. Just a big misunderstanding? Just a big writer re-write. She was just yelling at him for doing background checks and intimidating all of her boyfriends a few shows ago. She does have a problem about who HE is and Brennan herself called him an alpha male and good protector. He may be a good father, but he seemed to be smothering rebecca or she felt he would. But now she's saying she realizes that she wouldn't have lost her independence with him. I think a few weeks ago she thinks she would have.

Why was Cam going around telling Hodges and Angela that he was back with his ex? Did she want the confrontation that she actually got? Is that what she was going for.

Brennan said she only told Cam as social intercourse, because she was trying to be "normal." She asks if telling was gossip. If so, she doesn't like it. She doesn't like it, Booth asks!

Booth says he won't sleep with Rebecca again. Some people you can't sleep with. Too many ties. Too much to lose. He's telling Brennan why they can't be together. She says that if he slips up, she won't tell anyone the next time. With Rebecca? Not just Rebecca. She is sure there are other women he can call to satisfy his sexual urges too. Seems like she's basically offering there. He tilts his head, in recognition of the invitation.

Angela comes in and says, "Congratulations on being back with your ex." Cam told her. He goes off to talk to Cam. Presumably sleeps with her because he has less to lose than if he did with Brennan.

This isn't the first time they have talked about his sex life, so I don't know why Brennan acts like she has never engaged in gossip before. Also, Angela usually devines what's going on without anyone telling her, so I don't know why she is the odd person out this time. Also, I don't know why she would wonder if she said something wrong, because she usually pushes Booth's buttons on purpose and doesn't care if it's wrong and makes him uncomfortable or not.

The Blonde in the Game

This show isn't good enough to have recurring villains in the vein of Squeeze/Toombs. I remember Bones breaking someone's wrist, but I don't even remember the episode with Epps in it really.

I guess Saroyan isn't familiar with Brennan's violent streak yet. When Booth said it got violent the last time Bones and Epps were together, Cam said that Bones needn't worry because Booth will be there to "protect" her. Of course, Booth revealed that Bones wasn't the one who needed protection and they had Brennan childishly reply that Epps made her angry. It would have been better if she had coolly explained why she dispatched him, rather than making a joke of her defensive skills. Well, it is funny how she always wants to carry a gun (and Booth gave her one this time without her even having to ask) but since her physical reaction is often justified, they shouldn't always joke about it.

When Bones said she couldn't meet with the father of the victim, I thought that was an excuse for Booth to take Cam with him. Thank heavens it was Angela instead. He told Camille that she would just use sarcasm and that wasn't the way to win over a witness. He said that unlike Bones and Cam, Angela was better with the living than the dead. I'm glad they were in the same category, so that the ptb weren't pushing Cam on us as having something that Brennan did to form an unnecessary triangle or competition and also so that Cam wouldn't feel bad that Brennan had things that she didn't, after last weeks show, when both Angela and Booth (and I) said they would take Brennan's side over hers.

Epps did a number on Brennan's head about enjoying the thrill of the kill. Power. He felt satisfied that he'd gotten her to take the life of his co-killer, bringing her down to his level. Don't think she bought into that. She was just sad about taking a life, which guilt was somewhat of a cliche, especially under the circumstances.

They continued with the Angela/Hodges thing with Angela enjoying Hodges compliments in the early scenes and then talking him through his nervousness when he turned out to be the one to have to save the day by pinpointing the girl's whereabouts.

They always have Booth snapping, throwing something in the air and catching it and otherwise playing with his hands. Hodges has even mimicked him doing it in a past episode. I guess an interesting way to express his personality, but can be a little wearing 7 years down the line, I would imagine. Repetitive gestures probably shouldn't be given to characters in a long term show. The actors themselves will have mannerisms that will seem to belong to the characters over time. You don't have to make any up.

DB's close set eyes make him look cross-eyed sometimes.

The Boy in the Shroud

Camille doesn't stay in the office like Goodman did. She works with them, in the lab at the autopsy table.

Brennan doesn't think the kid is a street kid? Why, because he has classic features when Angela reconstructs his shroud? I think poor kids can have nice bone structure. I guess Brennan would expect street kids to be more scarred, broken bones or something.

Camille thinks that because the kid was in a dumpster, he was a foster kid or something. Brennan thinks that she's artificially narrowing the field. Camille said she was brought in to streamline things and insists they only search for certain types of kids. Brennan just has to concede that Cam is the boss, but doesn't agree with her reduced search parameters. It turns out that this kid WAS from the suburbs, not the street, so Brennan was right. But his girlfriend was a foster kid and she went missing too. So, that's why he ended up in the dumpster. So, we're supposed to think that Camille was right too, but I don't. Brennan wasn't trying to identify the GIRL who was still missing at that time. She was trying to identify the boy's body and she was right about it's origin.

Booth just agrees with Cam's deductions based on what she's learned in urban areas identifying adolescent bodies. So, they've both worked tough streets and feel they know things that Brennan doesn't about every day life there. I don't necessarily agree and could deal with Cam better if she weren't needlessly argumentative with Brennan. I wonder if Brennan will confront Booth about alway taking (or seeming to take) Cam's side.

So, after I've written that Booth aks Brennan what she wants to do next and she says that is Cam's call and Booth says he asked her. It turns out she's super upset about Cam's assumption that the foster girl did it because she was a foster girl herself. However, I would rather it have been for a non-personal reason having to do with the evidence not necessarily targeting the suspect and wanting to keep an open mind, than having her feelings hurt. I don't want her to be less reasonable than Cam is being.

Booth tells Brennan that foster children have a hard time trusting and they think they have to carry the weight of the world. Um, she has no reason to trust Cam. Cam wasn't being fair. I think even Booth might have doubts that the teenaged foster girl committed the crime like Cam wants to prove. So, Brennan isn't just resisting because of TRUST. But this show will probably split the baby and have both Cam and Brennan be right like they tried to do in the beginning with the question of whether or not it was a foster kid in the dumpster. To me, Cam isn't 50% right, even if Brennan is 50% wrong, not the way this has played out. It's not really whether Brennan trusts Cam, it's whether she can trust that Booth has her back. I hope Booth tells her what he later tells Cam about being 100% behind Brennan. I guess he just backs Cam because he says he's spent 100% of his career on the streets and he was right about how the teenagers in the alley would react to Brennan and Brennan didn't anticipate it. He thinks he and Cam know more about human nature and I guess he wants Brennan to be open to their perspective, but he should just want her to be open to HIM, because he's not playing power games with her the way Cam is and he should not try to push Brennan to act like Cam is not doing that.

Later when Angela and Cam are talking about their first bad boys and commisserating, Brennan wants to get back to the case. Last week, it was she who asked Cam a personal question about motherhood, but now she has no room for chit chat. Brennan wants Hodgins to look at a rose found in the boy's hand. Cam doesn't want him to do that and tells Brennan she can't have her way. brennan says she can't work like that and Cam asks (hoping the answer is yes) if she is quitting. Angela steps in and says that if Brennan leaves, they all do, including Booth. Cam is flustered and I love Angela for doing that, especially since she'd just been getting along so well with Cam and it didn't look lie she would take such a hard line against her. Cam says she'll defer to Brennan this time, but she will start looking for a replacement. That parting line just galls me.

Of course, it's sophmoric, (like the school girl she and Angela were just remembering being) that it was Angela's last comment that was Cam's undoing. She really gets all down-turned eyes and dewy about the thought of Booth leaving, above all others. Come on! Anyway, I love it when Booth follows suit and when Cam asks him what if she fired Brennan, he says he is behind Bones all the way, never have any doubts about that. I love that he's not diplomatic about it at all. If Bones is fired, he is GONE. Cam is hurt that it's no choice at all for him. I am cheering. They are interrupted, but when Hodgins leaves, Booth tells Cam that maybe she just got off on the wrong foot with Brennan because Brennan was a foster child. Uh, maybe she got off on the wrong foot because she's been acting like a smooth (sometimes gracious) dictator ever since she laid eyes on Brennan. It's not just this case. Cam should have come around because of Brennan's expertise and capability, not because she feels bad about hurting the woman's wittle feelings.

Once you reach a certain level of specialization in any field, you aren't micro-managed anymore. You have autonomy because your creativity and innovation demands it. That is how you are able to achieve singular results; it's not just a matter of deference. So, the idea that Brennan would be working in a job where she is constantly saying, "yes ma'am" and "may I" is ridiculous to begin with.

How long before Cam accuses him of being so loyal to Bones because (she assumes) he and bones are sleeping together?

Brennan tells the boys parents that as a forensic anthropolotist she is brought in when the remains are too decomposed to be identified through normal means.

When Brennan approaches the kids on the street, she says she is not a cop. They look at Booth and say he is most DEFINITELY a cop, which is pretty funny. Later he tells Hodgins to go up to Kelly, the runaway girl, because "apparently" he looks like a cop.

So, in the end it turns out that Kelly's brother, the foster boy, killed Dylan so it wasn't her. But he hit him with a pipe, like Cam thought, so they were both right. Ugh! They weren't both right to me, because by herself Cam would have had a 15 year old innocent girl in jail for a murder she didn't commit.

So, Brennan goes to the restaurant to see Cam and tells her that she has control issues according to Booth. And that she realizes they have to share the work. Cam says that not everyone's mind thinks as fast as Brennan's and she has to mole (I think) first before coming to conclusions. She says that maybe Brennan can have 3 get out of jail free cards a week to defy her without explanation or recrimination. And they share fries together (Cam recommends with mayonaise and Brennan had some with Booth there with catsup in a recent episode). It's nice, but I just don't like that they are trying to make Brennan partly wrong when the SCRIPT didn't make her that wrong at all. They should have changed the story if they wanted the audience to see blame on both sides.

They say that Booth reads people the way Cam reads pathology reports or Brennan reads bones. Well, I'm not sure that Booth does exactly that. I haven't noticed him being a spectacular judge of character or especially sharp and insightful, but whatever. He's uncanny and Cam hates him, oh she doesn't really hate him and Brennan laughs. yeah, ha, ha. I guess we will have to resolve Cam's unresolved feelings for Booth in a future episode. I can tell they'll end up sleeping together, even though Booth's heart isn't really with her.

Meanwhile, Hodgins leaves Angela a rose. I don't mind their (rose)budding romance I just think Hodgins feelings came on sudden and are too obvious and worn on his sleeve to be realistic.

So, did Temp have someone in her past, when she was a foster child who made life worth living like Kelly did? She talks to the girl as if from experience, since we know that she hates psychology and wouldn't just do it from what "they" say about foster children. Her brother wasn't there for her, so who was? Someone that we'll meet?

Mother and Child in the Bay

As a coroner, why is Camille so intent on getting a conviction? She should be the last person investigating and shaping evidence. Her attitude of pushing the staff to make the facts fit what she wants to see is what got Thomas Noguchi in trouble.

We meet Brennan's ex. It is nice blocking the way he backs up when he first sees her all the way into his office and behind his desk. He does it rather swiftly and smoothly. If he got any better it would be a moonwalk. So, I enjoy the comedy, but it annoys me that she says he doesn't have to see Parker at all, because they are not married. This is not 1970. You don't have to be married to have paternal rights. He had to beg her at Christmas time, now she's threatening him that she may never let him see the kid again and he's lucky he's seen him this far. He should take this woman to court and get a custody order. He wants to do what's best for his son, but having a mother who blackmails the father isn't good for the kid either. So, getting his parental rights documented once and for all might be good for everyone involved. Of course, Booth had no right to do a background check on her beau, but I'm sick of women IRL and in fiction gaining power over men by threatening them with taking their children away.

Cam defers to Brennan's medical skills and even let them do an experiment she thought might be wacky, but she still had to rub it in that she respected Brennan's expertise and was glad to have her working for Cam. Brennan was upset that Cam took Zack. She said, "Zack is mine." And she reminded Zack that he was HER graduate student, but she shouldn't have to. If you're supervising someone whose work is beyond you, then you shouldn't undermine or second guess them.

When Brennan asked Camille if she wanted children it was funny, because she asked a personal question while they worked and Cam was shocked by it and found it distracted from their task. She doesn't know that the rest of the staff does that routinely. Booth wanted to know why Cam looked at HIM when she asked Brennan if she was pregnant. So, Cam assumes there's something going on with them too. At least she doesn't seem to bothered about the prospect. I don't need her territorial about Booth. When Camille talked about being a hero, I don't know why they had Brennan correct her and say "heroine". That is the opposite of what Brennan would do, I think. I think she would use gender neutral terms.

Brennan again says she doesn't want to be a mother, which makes it seem like the writers were planning for her to get pregnant eventually as soon as this show began. She says it with such conviction that you know some day he will be called upon to eat her words.

Brennan tells Angela that people aren't meant to be monogamous and to commit to one person for life. She discounts the notion of "love" with Angela and has done so with Booth too. She reminds Angela that Angela has multiple partners. Angela prefers to just call it "dating." I don't know why Brennan would totally discount love as just a chemical reaction when she has discussed how much she loved and idolized Russ when she was growing up. So, she knows affection. She asks Booth about the bible and why Abraham was willing to kill Issac. Booth says he would never kill his son, even if God ordered him to and when Brennan acts like anyone would do something, he answers that he wouldn't leave like her parents did. He apologizes. He didn't say it to insult. He said it as if he knew what she was getting at with her questions, which is good because I didn't quite realize. She doesn't think parental love is real, because her parents left her. She didn't think so before when they'd only disappeared and were presumed dead, now that she knows the truth about her parents, the fact that they'd left her and the fact that they'd lied about her even more, she is against parenthood and distrusts the vaunted bond between mother and child even more.

In the end it's not clear why Brennan was there when Booth planned to meet up with Rebecca to collect Parker. Was she there to keep him in line? As he talks to Rebecca and her boyfriend and things get heated, Brennan calls him several times from her seat at the table. I don't know why. Is she trying to calm him down? If so, it would be nice to know if he heeds her and is open to being soothed by her. Of course, I remember when Scully got Mulder not to make physical contact with Padgett just by putting a light hand on his arm. When he approaches the table she says she is going to leave. He says he wants her to stay and she says it's for "family" and goes, but watches them from outside.

Rebecca seems almost blowzy, definitely not a lawyer or forensic anthropologist. Wonder how she and Booth met. Maybe when he was gamnbling.

The Titan on the Tracks

Wow, the last season cliffhanger wasn't a fluke. Hart Hanson is definitely this series' best writer so far. And that's not always true of the creator. Can't say it was necessarily true for Chris Carter or Whedon. They were often good, but often missed and tended to miss character wise, not just on script quality. But the same may end up being true of Hanson. It's early days yet.

As they question the private eye in a restaurant, Brennan reaches over and grabs one of Booth's fries, with catsup. Nice understated piece of direction.

They didn't need to do the close-talker thing outside of Turko's interrogation room. That was in there to remind the audience that they have chemistry, but it's not necessary. Give them good dialogue when they are in a scene together and let them exchange that dialogue, then you'll know whether they have good chemistry or not. They do. Boreanaz also had chemistry with Tamara Taylor, especially when he asked her if she took the job because of him.

Angela knew he had had an affair with Camille because of the way she touched his arm when he laughed, which called attention to the way that Brennan touched Seeley's arm, both when she asked him about talking to the dead in the car and later when she told him to bluff Turko outside of the interrogation room. That did convey an intimacy.

Boreanaz was also great when Booth told Angela not to talk to Bones about whom Angela thinks he's slept with. The way this guy delivers a line with a smile and humor that's not really ha ha from him but IS amusing to the audience . . . it's really amazing and I can't really compare it to anyone else. Obviously Duchovny is very funny but not in the same way. I realize that this is a lab show and we don't see Booth doing more investigation, because police work is not the show's focus, but DB is really invaluable nonetheless, which, in the end, is why after only 3 of 7 seasons he was really considered the co-star of Buffy, even though he had way less screen time than anyone else who was longterm on that show. No wonder on this show that they made him an equal co-star from the start, whether or not he actually has as much to do as ED.

But in today's show, the way Booth told her about who her father really was just based on the dolphin was some pretty good detective work, after all. It just didn't take place in the field.

Well, the dolphin IS evidence that can be tainted if you smudge away finger prints that Max left behind. He might be in the system and looking for fingerprints might help them find one of his other aliases. So, I don't think they should have picked that up.

Tamara had great dialogue for her debut and she handled it splendidly. But I did resent Camille. First, she knows she has never met her new employee and she doesn't introduce herself. She gives her an order and when Brennan doesn't follow it, she says, "Why are you still here?" Brennan says because she's not a coroner and Cam isn't her boss and Cam says you're half right. Well, it's obvious then (if it wasn't before) that Brennan doesn't know her position, so why start off as a jerk?

When she told the guys they couldn't use a spam experiment it seemed like she was just imposing her will for the sake of it, not for a reason and not taking into account the staff's expertise. Yet, the way Booth explained it, that she just didn't want them to undermine credible expert conclusions with experiments that could be easily mocked in court, it made more sense. I wish Camille had explained that though, if that was her purpose. So, she stands up for them in front of the attorney and then they all like her. Reminds me of the old My Three Sons when Chip likes his new stepmother after she defends him to his school teacher as if he is her very own son. The thing is, Camille could more easily make me like her as an employee if she treated me with respect, rather than like a child, when we were alone. Of course, I know how important it is to have a supervisor who will back you up in front of third parties, because I've lacked that in the past. Anyway, Hodgins and Zack seemed to like her and they'd been working with her for awhile. She was just new to us and to Brennan. Their reaction to her and acceptance of her nicknames (that Zack didn't want Brennan to use for him) and appreciation of the attention she gave them (she called him Zackeroni because she saw that he eats macaroni regularly, something Brennan would never notice, no matter how long Zack worked for her) showed that she has carved out her own place in their circle.

As long as she backs off of the heavy-handedness with Brennan, she'll be ok. Obviously, when a new character comes in and tells the established one that she was hoping for a meeting of the minds, but she'll have to be a dictator over a subject that she hasn't even had a discussion with Brennan about first, it alienates one. However, they showed us that Camille wanted Brennan's approval and I guess she got it. So, she's not crazy enough to think that she can keep her job if she distances Brennan. If Brennan quits, Camille won't have a staff to supervise. They made it clear that Camille got the job because it has public relations needs that Brennan can't fulfill, not because she knows more than Brennan.

Booth says that Brennan doesn't intimidate. I don't know . . . I guess that's true in a way, but she was certainly nervously about appearing in court after having been burned before. So, I think the defense attorney did intimidate her before. But it tells us what Booth thinks of her character and what kind of regards he holds her in. Hopefully, Camille won't be jealous about Bones' relationship to Booth. I am sure the writers will have Bones getting jealous of Camille though, in order to enhance interest in the ship. Since Booth wanted to know if Camille took the job because of him (she said she took it because she couldn't resist the chance to work in a first class facility compared to the underfunded and unsanitary conditions that she is used to working in), he must have been the one who broke it off.

Nice the way Brennan asked him if he was defending Cam because of their past sexual relationship and he said he just wanted her to know how inappropriate that comment was, as an aside, because he was talking on the phone when she made that comment, letting him know that she'd been informed (by Angela who only knew due to body language) about him and Cam while he was preoccupied. Why is it inappropriate, since he asked David about David's relationship with Bones? Maybe because David wasn't a co-worker -- maybe because Bones wasn't there when he asked.

But they all continue their habit of talking about each other, when the other is present. Zack told Camille that Brennan was testing her with questions that Brennan already knew the answers to, with Brennan standing right there. You'd think Brennan wouldn't want Zack to work for her, the way he often does that, but she usually doesn't even pay attention. Angela does the same.

So, Brennan knows about Booth's old gambling habit and mentions it. I just found out and I thought it was a secret from her.

When Angela talks about body language, Hodgins says that Angela touches him when he laughs too, like Booth and Cam do and Angela corrects him and says that Hodgins touches HER, not the other way around. So, she knows Hodgins likes her and is indicating that she doesn't reciprocate.

The Woman in Limbo

For Russ and Temp to say "Marco," "Polo" to each other in the end was MORE than corny, but overall this is an excellent episode. I'm glad that the show's creator could be one of the season's best writers.

The title refers to both the nickname for the cold storage facility where Christine Brennan's bones were kept since 1998 and Temperance Brennan's life being in limbo, since her parents' disappearance when she was 15.

So, Temp has been dating David all of this time, since Booth thought him a suspect in the attempts on Brennan's life? Interesting. Booth is more upset that she didn't let him read her manuscript than that she has a "boyfriend."

While speaking of Russ and the way he would hang outside of the classroom to check up on her and call, "Marco" so she could answer "Polo" she says that she misses that, someone wanting to know where she is all the time (yes, I can remember that feeling when my dad died), Brennan is interrupted by Booth who says, "Hey, Bones are you up there?" She now has someone else in her life who cares about where she is, even though she may not have realized that yet. When Booth calls out to Bones in the middle of her conversation with Angela, I am not sure the women realize the significance of his timing and constant nagging. I like that way of showing how relationships build and concern becomes caring becomes love.

I also liked the first scene in the show when he is also looking for her and pulls her coat off, so he can help her into her suit jacket and rush her to court on time. I am always surprised when they are that physical because Mulder and Scully never were, although Scully did like to help Mulder with his suit or tie when they were appearing before a judge or panel and Mulder did tug at Scully's bathrobe to get her to go get dressed in the middle of the night (FTF) once.

Anyway, Bones' was a cute, domestic, familiar gesture. I also liked the way they referenced a previous episode ("in the fridge") and how the defense attorney attacked her for winging it.

Very nice little scene for Emily when she repeats that her name is Temperance Brennan. She's a forensic anthropologist. She has a brother and gently cries. That would certainly go on any Emmy reel. Booth comes up to her and says shushes. He says he knows who she is and hugs her.

She has a boyfriend, but he's no where to be found when she's alone at home at night and Booth is bringing her Chinese foods, two times in a row. All David did was bring her back her manuscript. He told Booth they were in a relationship. She didn't. I don't know if I even believe David. Plus, he didn't say they were dating, exactly. Booth said, "Are you two, uh . . . " David says, "Yes, does that bother you."
Booth, with surprising honesty says, "yes, don't give her jokey advice before court." But what does that have to do with him being bothered that she's dating. I think he answered honestly that he IS bothered by it, but gave a reason about being bothered that has nothing to do with the truth. But David probably wasn't fooled anyway. He sensed there was something between Booth and Bones back when Booth was interrogating him, before he had his first date with her (they met online and she was shot at before he could make it for their dinner).

In the end, when we see her manuscript, I'm not impressed by the dedication to her partner and friend. What says more to me is that she crossed out the working title, "Bone Free," because Booth had criticized it earlier when he heard it. It shows she values his opinion. Trusts him. Wants to impress/please him.

This episode is showing us things about the characters that I've wanted to see without being bludgeoned with TELLING, curing one of the biggest criticisms I've had of this first season. I like when they reveal things so quietly that if you blinked you'd miss the discovery. I hope they can continue in this vein.

Low key as a season finale, but as a final bid to get a new show renewed for a second season this was really a quality entry.

The Soldier on the Grave

An NBA athlete enters the war. The story goes that he died taking out insurgents and saving his unit, but the men who were there with him the night he died know how he really died and can't live with the guilt of hiding the fact that the athlete was actually killed by a fellow officer, not by an Iraqi insurgent. One of the men in the unit is murdered before he can talk. Take off on the Pat Tillman case. Tillman was a football player who gave up a multi-million contract to go to war and was killed in action in 2004 in Afghanistan. It was reported that he was killed by insurgents, but later established that he was killed by friendly fire. The same is true of the athlete in this show, Charles Kent. This is a 2006 episode.

Kent's family says (after slapping Booth for the exhumation that Brennan ordered) they want the truth, rather than the silver medal for their son, as Tillman's parents said.

The fact that Brennan knows older movies like Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Stagecoach means she was not always the socially removed person she is now. As a younger person, she was more up on pop culture than Zack is today.

When Booth sees a friend's grave by the murder scene, he feels that the friend saw what happened. He knows Bones doesn't see it that way. She says that she knows he thought his friend was a good man and that's enough for her. Nice gesture of comradeship, support and trust in his judgment on her part.

Did people really go to fight after 9/11 to help others gain their freedom, like to help people in Afghanistan get the right to vote, like the victims mother says he did, because his grandfather never had the right to vote? Sounds quite unrealistic. People went there to protect America and then had to expand their initial motivation after the fact, when it seems like it was unclear what we protecting America from in Afghanistan or that our methods were the right ones to do it. We may have done more harm to our country by our efforts over there than good, so we had to switch the focus to protecting THEM, those citizens, not ours. This episode acknowledges that strategic switch in perceptions, through Hodgins' skeptical comments, but I don't think it's realistic to hear the victims' mother offer that "liberation" motive.

Booth runs into an old friend in a wheelchair and introduces him to Brennan. What happened to him? He got hurt. I liked that, because it happened right after he told Booth that soldiers like to be around innocent kids because they don't expect anything from you (don't know if this is true or if that's a rational for soldiers who hang around kids). But he tells Temp that it's because, unlike kids that adults like to hear your war stories, like it's entertainment and soldiers don't want to do that.
Well, when he doesn't elaborate with Temp, I feel it's because he feels that her curiousity is invasive and she doesn't need to hear the "story," because what matters is the man. I think he's proving his point that adults are insensitive to veterans. But no, turns out he just snapped at her because he is hiding what he and the friend were doing when the friend was injured.

I don't know why Brennan said that it was unusual for a grown man, wizened from combat, to spend so much time with his little sister anyway. Was she suspecting the murder victim of something untoward? I don't know why she asked. I guess it was just to give Booth the opening to say that veterans like innocent kids who don't ask anything of them. That's a little uncomfortable. Too Michael Jacksony for me.

She gets mad when Brennan gives the commanding officer too much information. initially they weren't even going to tell anyone it was a murder. They were going to let the killer think he'd successfully framed a suicide, but Booth blurts it out to the C. O. She is right that he's lost his objectivity, but she's the one who frequently tells too much to suspects, so I don't know what she's complaining about.

I don't sympathize with the near breakdown Booth is having over the exhumation and investigation into kent's death. If he feels a fellowship for these other officers, then he should WANT the truth, not the cover up. The cover up already killed two men, Kent and the murder victim. It's driving the other survivor crazy. Booth should be more motivated to do the job of finding answers for them, than worried about disturbing the war hero's grave. I don't like him being the soldier who doesn't ask questions about war. I'd rather have him be the soldier who questions more, as the best way to respect those who died.

I am relieved when Booth concludes, after all the survivors say they heard a "pop, pop, pop" that they are all rehearsed and have been hiding something. He knows their stories don't match and starts acting like a detective, instead of a guy with flag-colored glasses.

We learn that Booth had a gambling problem. I know he's going to fall off the wagon and start gambling again, just like Angel fell off the wagon and became Angelus again.

His old pal assumes that the doctor is his girlfriend. He says she's just his partner. There's no reason anyone would assume that she was his girlfriend anyway. So, it's cutesy of the writers to have everyone do this. People did it with Mulder and Scully too, but the difference was that Mulder and Scully were evidencing couple traits and B & B really don't.

Although the way Brennan feels bad that she's upsetting Booth is kind of like she thinks of him more than a business partner and not only wants his work support, but doesn't want him to think she is undermining him, doesn't want him to think she would hurt him for no reason, but is only doing it because she wants to solve the murder, not because she's insensitive. She cares what he thinks of her and what he thinks she thinks of him and that does lay a nice groundwork for romance, a pebble on the path of love.

Turns out the unit killed a family of innocents. Booth talks about it with his paralyzed friend. Turns out Booth saved his life on their last assignment, but couldn't save his legs.

Booth and his friend (now a judge whose family, wife and kids, Booth visits) have done something they feel guilty about. The friend says it's not wrong and Booth wants to know if it's not, why do they keep it a secret? Well, it sounds more sinister than it is. The friend suggested he tell his girlfriend, but he said that Bones was just his partner, not his girlfriend, but he ends up telling her in the end. He says what he's done is not all right, as long as it stays a secret. He had been sent in as a ranger sniper to assassinate a man who killed many people. He found him at his son's birthday party and shot him there, in front of the kid. The way Booth was acting, I was thinking maybe he'd mistakenly shot the kid too. No, he's just all cut up over having killed the father in front of the child and changing that boy's life forever. A bullet never kills one person, he tells Bones. "We all die a little bit." She puts her arm on him and he holds her hand.

That line about them all dying a little bit reminds me of "every day a bit of death, in the butter, in the bread," from A Little Night Music. I just don't think the revelation is as moving as they wanted it to be. Maybe because they had Booth acting too nervous and jumpy, then angry. The emotional moment was too aware of itself as we were led up to it and as it happened, for me to be that moved. Plus, Brennan had felt guilty about disillusioning Booth's patriotism with her evidence of wrongdoing and Angela had advised her to reach out to him, not as a lover or friend with benefits ( as Bones first suspected that Angela meant) but as a friend. So, we knew that Brennan was going to do that. Booth's friend tells him to tell his doctor/girlfriend the truth, because he needs to talk to somebody about it, so I didn't know that Booth was going to do that, since she's not his girlfriends, but when Booth DID do just that, it didn't come as a surprise.

The Graft in the Girl

As I near the end of the first season I realize that the show's naming conventions (i.e. the _____ in the _____) make it impossible for me to recall and distinguish one episode from the other. It's all like a big blur. I liked the last episode and tried to compare it to another stand out episode I've seen and could not remember any past episode I especially liked to save my life. I can't even remember the title for the last one I viewed. If it had been named Voodoo, it certainly would have stuck in my mind more. Curiously, when the titles are vague, my memory of the show's plot is similarly opaque.

Anyway, the Graft episode is centered on Amy Cullen, Booth's boss' daughter, who has been stricken with cancer. I wonder if they will follow up on this in future episodes. Will we be told if Amy lives or dies?

Booth really looks dumb compared to Brennan. I expect her to know about medicine, bones, science, etc., but she knows general detective things. She enters a room and sees a water hose and figures that there must be a drain somewhere. She finds the exact location of the drain under carpet without even having to search for it. Then she looks at the vents in the walls and feels that bone particles might have been left in the vents when they were cutting them up for illegal bone grafting.

Couldn't Booth have at least noticed the drain. Isn't that more under his line of work and observation than hers? Also, if he finds it, then it will make them look more like partners in this investigation. As it is, he just looks like the jock who is tagging along with the brain.

Hodgins continues to admire Angela. It's not a relationship I mind, but I'm not particularly interested in it either. In fact, I think I'd rather see Zach with someone, because it would all be so new to him.

When Booth shows up at the hospital, Amy says that he's ok most of the time, so he has been there frequently. It's a nice clue to give us. When it begins, it's not clear that he wants to be there. He seems to act like it's a drag to see his boss at the hospital with his daughter, but maybe he is just upset that Brennan will say the wrong thing and he's used to coming there alone, not with the squints. At first, I didn't think he was that sympathetic to Amy's plight, but he is, just not maudlin or teary about it. Then, when he is resolved about finding who was doing the grafts that were giving people cancer, even when his boss didn't want him to do it on the FBI's dime, he was determined, but not overwrought, which I guess is good. We don't need tears. But I do think we need some other kind of inlet into these peoples' emotions, because it's not in the script or in their facial expressions either, most of the time.

The ending where Amy gets to visit the Louvre through a Viewmaster device (360 degrees) is rather nice and low key.

The Man in the Morgue

Watching this show, it dawned on me that I had been reading Temperance wrong. I blamed the writers for not letting us know how she felt, but not communicating feeling is not a writers' vacillation (though sometimes it is) or a character trait. It is a condition. Brennan is like Monk without the OCD. She is an idiot savant. She's blank, not because she's suppressing, but because she is feeling nothing to express. She feels, but conveying that feeling is not part of her make.

The question is whether she was always like this or whether her parents' disappearance made her like this. Although, I don't know if this can happen to you at the age of 15. It probably takes hold earlier on.

She seems to be open to going on a date with the guy in the morgue, a dinner date at least. She wakes up having lost a day and covered in blood. She does not repress her panic. She doesn't feel the same type that a "normal" person would. She is upset enough that she can't talk on the phone to the woman arranging to take her to the airport, but she looks at the situation logically from the start.

Of course, this episode reminds me of what happened to Mulder in Demons and Scully coming there to help him out.

Booth gets there and is protective. She lets him turn her cheek to check out her bruise. He can't keep her from talking to the authorities and incriminating herself, but she doesn't talk because she thinks she has nothing to hide. She talks because her automatic response is to answer questions that are posed to her -- well, except when she doesn't.

She introduces Booth as "kind of my partner." Why the police woman makes a big deal of that and says that if he came all the way from Washington he's not just "kind of" a partner is ridiculous. He can be a friend without being a boyfriend. And if he is a boyfriend, why would the police woman make so much of it. It's not like they're in high school and she found them k-i-s-s-i-n-g, sitting in a tree. I don't understand that sophmoric attitude, except to let the audience note that they're supposed to take note of Booth's concern, which we could have figured out anyway.

Although she lies to the staff at home about why she's staying over at first, later she reveals there's been a murder and that she's a suspect without meaning to, but without reacting as if she let something slip, without a reaction to their surprised reaction.

She asks Booth why he even talks to her (or something along those lines) and he says it's because when people think they've gotten away with murder, she makes sure they don't. Well, except on a special case, he has never seemed to have this drive to uncover a long concealed truth. In fact, a lot of the time, he seems unconcerned and just takes a case on as a favor or because he's been told to. It's not like he's compelled to make people pay, except when he received that child's finger in the mail. So, I don't see him admiring Brennan because she exposes people who think they've gotten away with it. He's not Mr. Cold Case buster.

She says that voo doo is a religion to some just like Catholicism is to him. He doesn't appreciate the comparison. I don't think they've named his religion before this. Brennan makes more of his religion and conservatism than he does. He doesn't seem to be as hung up religiously as Scully was. The voo doo thing would have freaked Scully out, causing her to close up and unsettling her in ways she wouldn't want to admit. Booth isn't unsettled so much as he is mocking. Brennan is unfazed either way, expecting the rituals and rules of voo doo as much as she does any religion, for cultural reasons, if not believing it herself. Even though Brennan has said that Booth doesn't like being an out of wedlock father and only likes traditional relationships, I don't really see him living that life.

They still don't let us see Brennan and we don't even know if he is still seeing the lawyer, whereas we know that Brennan is open to dating.

In the end, Booth seems to believe that Brennan lost a day because she was under a voodoo spell making her have amnesia. Don't know why he came 'round to believing in it. She denies it and seems to think she was drugged, thinking of logical reasons why the drugs did not show up in her tox screen. She said voo doo is attributing magical powers to objects and objects have no power. But then Booth gives her an earring he found at the crime scene that had belonged to her mother (reminiscent of Scully's cross) and was ripped out of her ear. She said she hated to lose it because it belonged to her mom. He didn't tell her where he found it. At the time, he didn't want to place her at the scene of the murder, so he kept the presence of her earring a secret. But now when he gives it to her at the end he makes it seem like his having it is more mystical than it really is.

Does she still think that objects mean nothing he asks as he smirks and leaves? No, they mean something. What? She lost an earring and Booth found it. She is smart enough to guess where he found it (as she had flashbacks of being at the murder scene, even through her amnesia) and why he kept it secret. So, even though she should be grateful that it is returned to her, she shouldn't consider it fate. In fact, she should have thought to look for the earring there herself, once she remembered where she had been that lost night. So, I'm not sure why regaining the earring means to her or why, but it isn't a bad ending to the show. She holds the earring in the way that Scully held up her cross when she opened up Emily's coffin and found it empty.

All in all, this was one of the better shows, though.

They started a thing with Hodgins flirting with Angela. It was nice the way they had Zach pick up on the fact that Jack tried to make himself look taller in front of Angela and Brennan. Too bad that they didn't show Angela (or Zack for that matter) being concerned about Hodgins' diving. They didn't know he was in danger, but if they planned to start something with Angela and Hodgins in the future, they could have started it there, by letting Angela know Hodgins was threatened with death and seeing her reaction. If she had hugged him in relief (or he had shown concern for her when her boyfriend died), now when he starts flirting with her like he's seeing her for the first time in this episode, it would seem like a natural progression and not something out of the blue.

Before, he's just seen her as a colleague whose as interested in dating conquests as he is, but no one he finds particularly attractive. Also, Hodgins hasn't been concerned with Brenann romantically either, just Zach has. Zach would try to make himself taller in her presence, not Hodgins. They just thought that up in this episode. One show doesn't seem to know where the ones coming up right around the corner are going. Let's see if the 2nd season is planned somewhat better than this one has been.

The Man with the Bone

Brennan and Booth seemed suitably concerned about Jack Hodgins diving. Booth doesn't like people flirting with Brennan now. He kept threatening the nerdy, academic guy who flirted with her. I guess after letting the gang member do it without a reaction from him, no one else will get buy now. Brennan seems to think nothing of the guy's flirting one way or another, but she did keep spurring the guy on with insults that seemed to turn him on. They mentioned her bossiness again and it had come up when they were playing with S & M toys. This nerdy guy liked it when Brennan threatened to get rough, so it's the recurrence of that theme.

when the guy told Booth that he doesn't know that he wouldn't like having Booth beat up on him just as much as Brennan, Booth backed off, alarmed by the flirting. It reminded me of Mulder who did it in reverse, flirting with the midget in Humbug who was upset because Mulder thought he might be peeking at Scully.

No follow up about Zach's career stagnation.

The Skull in the Desert

So, I don't think with Angela often discussing dating opportunities that this would have been the first time she mentioned this "same time next year" annual affair she has for 3 weeks. Also, why would it be a secret, especially from her friends, that she is the one who doesn't want more of a commitment, not the guy. I guess you could say she didn't tell people this because she thought there was something wrong with her, so she'd rather people think she didn't get chosen rather than she didn't want to commit.

For the Director and Hodgins to deliberately try to get Zach in trouble just so he will move on and fulfill his potential was a little silly. But the fact that he is so enamored of Brennan that he doesn't want to stop being her intern and progress in his career is nice. If he leaves the show, I'd miss him.

Booth doesn't want to go to the desert to investigate, when he does it seems more for Brennan than for Angela. And he doesn't seem particularly sympathetic towards Angela either. He's not insensitive, but he's not moved by her pain the way Temp is. But then when he tells the Sheriff that he's trained and doesn't give up easily, he is showing empathy about helping the man find his lost sister. I like it that his ego is stroked because Brennan says that she needs him down there to get "federal on their a**." Boreanaz is great with this kind of humor. He can carry a show with just the way he turns a line or reacts a couple of times an episode. Funny when they think the sheriff went off and left them and he tells them that they can last 3 days max and it will take 5 days to get back to civilization minimum.

I had hoped/expected to get more scenes with him having to bunk with Angela and Temp (funny when he said he wasn't going outside in the hot sun while they dressed and the best he could do was close his eyes) and still don't know where he ended up sleeping. Or I thought they might be stranded in the desert a little longer than they were and we'd get to see all 3 interact, but that didn't happen. It didn't make it any less of a show, but every time you think things might go a little deeper (and we're way through the first season now), they don't. It's gloss, but no real depth. But I can watch a couple of episodes in a row without a sweat and maybe if it dug more into the characters emotionally, watching might be a little more taxing. For someone who doesn't want to get involved in a heavy drama, maybe it's good that this show doesn't delve more. I just am surprised that you can never get a grip on the characters and they might as easily go one way as the other, after all this time.

Surprised we didn't hear more about Brennan's reaction to what she thought was Zach's slow response (he tried to get info to her immediately, but Goodman let Hodgins have the sample first). She said she would talk to Zach about it later, but the show ended before she returned home. Maybe they will follow up on future episodes.

The Woman in the Tunnel

This is another example of the inconsistency of the characters. You never know who will be empathetic and who will say the other lacks sensitivity. You could say that it shows that neither is black or white, but that's not it. You can have different views on different issues, but when your views on the same type of situations change from week to week, that's a script problem, not a sign of shades of gray.

Booth always tells Brennan not to tell people too much about how their loved one died and she always wants to beat someone up or to look at the bone and not the person, yet she's the one to tell him to treat the homeless man with respect. I guess because she has looked at tribes across the world and knows what hierarchy means and treating the head guy with respect will gain compliance from everyone.

Once Booth knows that the guy was in the military he treats him better, but Booth should be the first one to know that many vets are homeless people and suffer from mental disorders as a result of their combat. He shouldn't have assumed that the guy wasn't worthy of his respect because he lived in a cardboard box in the first place.

The guy says he shot a pregnant woman and Booth seems to know what he's going through and Brennan says, "What you shot a pregnant woman." He tells her if she really wants to know what he did he'll tell her and the statement is almost a threat or a challenge, at least. She silently indicates she doesn't want to know and he says good decision. To me that's confusing because he was in the army and she's been in war torn countries. She knows the kinds of things that happen. She knows he's been tortured. Why is it so hard for her to hear what he's done. It would help her to know him better and he might want to talk anyway. I don't know why it's made to be a shocking thing or maybe something that would change her view of him. She said that war was sanctioned torture or violence anyway, done to protect the country. So, why act like it's something that would be too horrible to hear, especially when you think of their job and the absolutely horrific things they see on a daily basis.

Brennan tells him to be brothers in arm with the homeless man, to get information from him and Booth says that's insulting. Yet, I'm not sure if he's not doing that every thing when he tells the guy to wait for him outside the perimeter (the place where the treasure is where the homeless man is afraid to cross) and to get his back and the man says that he never left any of his men. So, did Booth just make it seem like he was a military comrade to make the man feel important (and not leave the scene) kind of like the way he does with Zach. He was playing upon their common background. Why? To patronize the guy or because he really likes him now and feels a kinship? Well, I think he does relate to him and the actor was god when he described what he did in the war, but I do think he was also kind of talking down to him when he told him to watch his back. I almost wish the guy had had an opportunity to save him, to put them on equal footing, rather than them just looking down on his homeless plight, which is what they all literally do in the end when they watch the man going home to his underground place, being welcomed to the other homeless who look up to him as a leader. They do indeed respect the guy, but it is a little condescending, but not as bad as the Bold and the Beautiful's homeless storyline by any stretch.

Two Bodies in the Lab

So, Brennan takes notice of Booth's lovelife, but she doesn't try to sabotage it. Booth can't stand her going on a blind date. I'm not sure what the point of his jealousy is. If he likes her, does he want to do something about it?

When she is shot at, I think it may have something to do with that gang hit they put out on her that Booth never told her about. But no . . .

Don't really enjoy their little foreigner dance segment. In fact, it gets to be uncomfortable to watch after awhile. But does he suddenly ask for a drink because the lyrics are getting somewhat sexual and embarassing to sing and dance to? I expected to spend a little more time with them at her apartment, maybe see some sleep over moments.

I certainly didn't expect the explosion that came. I like how level-headed she was when she grabbed the blanket to put out the fire on his chest, before she ran to him in the kitchen.

In the end when he rescues Brennan, I think it's interesting choreography for him to put her tied hands around his neck so that they will be in a hug, but I think it would have been better to just untie her. I know he was sore, but I think he still could have accomplished that.

As usual, in talking to third parties, this time her blind date, Brennan tells them more about the status of the FBI investigation than she should, telling the guy, David, that Booth did interview his coworkers. Booth knew his alibi checked out and didn't want to say so. But if the guy had been guilty, maybe she shouldn't reveal everything that they know so blithely.

Booth wants to keep her safe and doesn't want to leave her side. Unclear whether she thinks his feelings are more than professional.

He held her and told her that it was all right because he was there. So, he thinks his presence comforts her? That reminds me of someone writing that Angel (and Buffy) saw him as her protector when he never really did a great job of that.

I guess the way they had her talk about his medical records and reveal that he was tortured and also got injured shielding someone else (his buddy who died) was less heavy-handed than usual. I like the way Booth didn't comment on the torture, but when she said that some cultures hit the bottom of the soles with a hose, he just said, "I know." Not even acknowledging that it happened, but if it did, he sure didn't need her to explain it to him. Nice.

At the hospital, she decides to stay with him. Rather than going out on a 2nd date with David. He saved her life after getting burned in her place in the explosion. Plus, she knows he's been tortured in the past. Would she have stayed if not for these things? Would she have stayed just because she likes him. When she told him she had a date he said, "I didn't think you got dressed up for me." That was a nice touch. they settle in to watch tv and she just leans towards the bed. I don't THINK she was going to lean her head on his arm, but before contact is made, if any was planned, he says, "Oh, Bones, the arm." So, he takes any romance out of their evening that might have occurred. I don't know if he would have been lonely if she had left him there alone or not. Hard to read either of them or what the writers actually intend to show.

The writers knew from episode one that they wanted to have a shipper relationship in this show, so the audience is supposed to root for these things, but they just throw the moments in as pro forma, not as the result of character development or thought. You know there's something underlying their bond and that it's romantic in nature, but you've seen this so many times before that you react automatically, because it's expected. It's not that the writers have anything specific or unique in mind that has to do with Booth and Bones and not just any generic star-crossed lovers in one hour dramas. And I feel that while Booth and Bones are enjoyable, they're moving laterally. I don't feel that we're learning more about them or that they're being explored more deeply, just that we're treading water predictably. It's not a boring ride at all, but it's not as meaningful one as it could be with as much thought as they put in their relationship as they put in her forensic anthropology, which does seem unique, but maybe that's because I don't watch any of the CSI type shows and this is a new type of crime investigation in the lab for me.

The shippiness should be less of a cliche.

This show is sometimes fun drama, but it's not really intelligent drama that you want to get on a forum and dissect after each episode airs. Been there, done that, miss the feeling.

We see his chest as he is in the hospital bed. He doesn't exactly look flabby like he may have in the past. His chest, the pecs, look a little more defined than they have in the past.

The Man on the Fairway

This is one of the best episodes to date. I feel that they're learning to show not tell. Zach and Brennan have been on cases by themselves. Zach misses Booth, but Brennan doesn't say that she does. Booth says it though. He's being particularly hammy and animated in this entry. He's funny enough, but it almost seems forced. It's a caricature. They already had Hodgins imitate him, while throwing something in the air, making winky faces and clucking his tongue. In this episode, Booth is acting too much like Hodgins' version of him, instead of a real human.

It's ridiculous that Brennan is falling for this guy just because his father is missing and he tells her he knows she knows what it's like, because her parents' disappeared. It's not charming to me. It's stalkerish. I can't think of anything more annoying than having someone tell you about yourself and I'd think Brennan would feel the same, but for some reason, it turns her on.

What I like though is she reminds me of Scully in Bad Blood. Scully was drawn to the Sheriff (or thought she was) but she recited what Agent Mulder said about vampires (none of which she believed) because she respected him, even when she didn't believe him and even when she was flirting with another guy. She listened to him, even when he spoke gibberish to her and you see glimpses of Brennan having that same faith and allegiance in Booth, here. The guy whose father is gone tries to turn her against Booth, because Booth doesn't understand them, doesn't understand her like he, Stranger Extraordinaire does. Even though she's into the stranger, she wants Booth on the case and tells the guy that she and Booth are a team. And she wants to know what Booth's instincts tell him about the man.

Booth doesn't trust the guy and actually tells him to back off on getting into Brennan's personal history. Why would he care? He just recently told a lawyer her secrets in the hopes that she would be taken by surprise and break down on a witness stand in front of the jurors. So, why would he now tell some guy not to mention her missing parents to her, especially since he never intervened last week when another guy (with a criminal record) threatened her in his presence. His being openly protective like that, seemed out of character (to the extent that he has one on this plot-driven show).

Anyway, out of nowhere Brennan is giving the stranger the police file on her parents. He looks at the file and I guess is so turned on that he reaches in to kiss her. Huh??? These two haven't shared as much as coffee. Why would that be his first move. A hug maybe (like the one they shared later), but a kiss?! If I thought he was unlikable and smarmy before this seals the deal. Brennan doesn't say anything except, "this is where I work." Is that the only reason a kiss is out of line, in her mind? Strange. She should have given an elbow to the guy's sternum.

But he tells her she doesn't have the complete file on her parents. She may be in denial, in fear of learning the truth, but if that's the case, maybe she should say she didn't want to follow up. For her to act like it never occurred to her makes her look super dumb, which is not something she'd been in previous episodes. This guy's perseverance in finding his missing father seems to have spurred her, but if that's all it took, why hasn't Booth's work on crime investigations ever made her want to reopen the file. Also, since he used the disappearances to get her to open up on a witness stand, didn't Booth look at the police file at that time. After she softened on the stand, didn't he want to ask her if he could help close that door for her. Didn't he want to know how people could disappear without a trace? I can understand that he didn't want to invade her privacy (any more than he already had), but I can't believe he didn't ASK and let her be the one to tell him she wasn't interested.

If a part of her was interested (she says she thought the police would work on the case and she trusted them, but helping Booth, she knows that he often needs her help to see all the clues, so why trust the police to do their jobs when it came to her parents). Working with the FBI she knows that even good investigators can't cover all the bases. They often need outside input and fresh eyes. So, I don't buy her excuse that she trusted the police. I think she was just scared of opening a can of worms. Maybe a small part of her thinks her parents abandoned her and she doesn't want confirmation. But if the stranger can get her to want more in a couple of days, then I can't believe working with the FBI, with Booth, on an ongoing basis didn't make her crave answers long ago. It was a switch that turned too quickly not to always have been in the "on" position all along.

Anyway, when the Stranger finds that the bones don't belong to his father, she tells him she's sorry about 30 times, which is strange dialogue. He suddenly stops hitting on her, which I guess maybe he did to give the audience the creeps and make us see him as a suspect. They hug platonically and that kiss he wanted to plant on her in the lab doesn't rear its head again. Maybe the character is going to recur and pick up where he left off. Even though Booth seemed somewhat jealous of him and always tried to interrupt the vibe between them, he tells Brennan that he doesn't think the guy was guilty of killing his father. I like the fact that he was not only right about that, but honest with himself and Brennan about it and not biased.

They have a really touching moment when she gives him her parents' file and asks him to look at it and he says, "I'm proud that you asked." Then she leaves the restaurant and as soon as she rises, he begins to look through the file, without even finishing his meal. He sees the childhood photo of her, the girl who lost her parents. The fifteen year old Brennan. He fingers it. We feel the tenderness of his thoughts in that gesture, even though he's not looking sappy or sad (thank goodness), just normal. She looks at him from the doorway, looks at him looking at her. She trusts him. She let him inside, let him see who she was before she became who she is. And trusts him enough to leave him alone to his discoveries, not paranoid at the private things he's seeing. That's a fine moment between them, all the more because it takes place when they aren't actually together.

The Woman in the Garden

I liked the way they told us something about Booth's feelings for Brennan without saying it.

When Mulder and Scully interviewed people and he felt they might threaten her, he got between her and them (I think this happened in Kaddish) and I don't think it ever would have gotten far enough for the guy to threaten Scully much. It's not that he was paternalistic. I just think he acted that way because she was Scully, not because she was a woman. Certainly, I don't think she would have been walking out to the elevator where the suspect might be without Mulder there and without him walking in FRONT of her. Scully let Mulder go in first and they were both confident that she was protecting him too from the rear, so it wasn't like a male/female thing. Much.

On Bones, Booth basically lets Brennan do the fighting, since she likes it so much. His, "oh I wouldn't do that," which was said as a caring warning, not as a threat, is something he's done before with people who got violent with her. And reminds me of Mulder saying that the guy was lucky his partner wasn't there in Signs and Wonders, after she'd just shot Orison. Also reminds me of Angel in the pentultimate episode of Buffy. When he stands aside at her direction and watches Buffy prepare to kill the guy and said he has missed this. So, Booth let us think he takes that in stride when he was told that there was a hit out on his lady scientist. Then he finds the guy and and says that he will kill him and won't even think twice. He won't kill him as a cop, but as a criminal. No one will ever know. He has his gun down the man's mouth and I think the man thinks he means it. Question is, does he really mean it. Will we see how far he will go. How much law he will bend for revenge?

Then, he goes to the funeral and sheepishly says he wonders if he's in trouble for being late. They have a domestic thing going on with hubby being chewed out for disobeying wifey's command to attend a function. It's cute that she doesn't know how violent he just got on her behalf, but it's troubling. Maybe the gang member has put out a hit on BOTH of them now that he's been threatened. Brennan did a lot less to him to rile him up, so doesn't he want Booth dead now too? Booth can't assume that the hit is just gone. He is being more paternalistic and chauvinistic now than if he'd taken up with her at the interrogation. She has a right to know there was a hit out on her. She might act differently in her day to day life. He knows her well enough to know that she wouldn't crumble in fear. But she might be more alert. She might look out the peephole twice before letting in the pizza delivery guy. he shouldn't keep secrets about Brennan from Brennan. Of course, Mulder did that alot, right down to Scully's eggs, but Booth should know that his silence is not protecting her. I don't know why the gang police didn't tell Brennan about the hit instead of Booth, anyway. They treated her like his belonging in a jocular way, but he made it more literal, when he went out to make sure no one touched HIS lady scientist.

As far as them endangering each other goes, when Booth told the other suspect that he, Booth, had no children, why would she pipe up with, "Yes you do." If he doesn't want criminals to know he has children, that's his business. So, the guy wanted to make an emotional point with him. Brennan should know that since SHE knows Booth has a child, then she knows the guys words about being a father will get to Booth even if the guy doesn't know. So, she could have pressed him about deportation/or not when they were alone. She didn't have to call him a liar in front of a suspect who, for all she knows could have targeted Booth's kid.

As far as her not translating Booth's threat to take her child away to the woman who wouldn't tell them about her husband, I understand Brennan's point. But her whole story about being held captive for 3 days and made to think she would be killed the whole time in El Salvador was just another of their little heavy handed revelations. At least they didn't have her captive in THIS episode so that we could conveniently know she was having flashbacks to when it had happened before. Maybe there will be a future episode where this story comes into play. Which is appreciated, since we learned about their Christmas secrets just so that particular Christmas episode could have a happy ending. So, it wasn't as heavy handed as it could be. I just don't like the whole concept that you can explain your emotional reactions based on something specific that happened to you in the past. Most of us have likes, dislikes and fears with an emotional or psychological origination, but it's not that easy to pinpoint exactly what it is. It's too subconscious. You don't usually say, "I'm afraid of heights because I was trapped at the top of the Empire State building once." Usually, you know you have vertigo, but don't quite know why. I don't like it that these people on Bones with their qualms and quirks are just explained in neat little packages all of the time.

The Superhero in the Alley

So, the crew agrees that Brennan exposed her own beliefs in her novel. One of those beliefs, according to Booth, is that FBI agents are hot and Angela wants to sleep with him. Angela isn't embarrassed when Booth makes this comment about her. In fact, she tends to affirm its true. Brennan just gives a look, as if to concede that she does think these things, even though she thought she disguised the real life people in her fictionalized characters -- or maybe she didn't think she did. Maybe subconsciously she wasn't even aware that they were true to life when she wrote them, but now she's beginning to see that it's true.

How does Booth feel about Angela wanting to sleep with him? The thing is, it wasn't Angela who thought he was hot, per se. That was just an overall view in Brennan's book. Presumably Brennan thinks he's hot. How does he feel about that? If he realizes it, he doesn't say. And does Brennan know that that's what she thinks? It's not that I want these people to talk about their feelings. When they do, it is extra phony. But I want some body language, looks, averted looks, silence to clue me in as to how they feel when intimate truths about them are revealed to the others or about the others are revealed to them. They just shrug everything off, which makes it seem that these revelations are there for humor and don't really matter as ongoing plot or character fodder.

The Woman in the Car

Maybe his acting has improved since Angel or maybe DB was just emotionally flat because he thought that would be represent the character. But in this episode he displayed a nice range of emotion, especially when he got the finger in the mail. It wasn't melodramatic, but his anxiety was clear. His anger, his need to get the boy balanced against the need to stay calm enough to be efficient was very compelling. It was a little insulting of Brennan to ask him why he knew she was going to help him find the killer, because the killer made Brennan mad? He wasn't acting mad. He wasn't engaging in threats or histrionics. He was concerned for the boy, but determined, not vengeful and there was no reason for her to treat him like a hysterical gal.

That kid of his looked too old for a car seat, especially back then. Today I think kids have to stay in a car seat until they're 7 or something, but back then they didn't.

He asks Brennan doesn't she think his son's mother not marrying him would be a sensitive subject. Uh. . . why? She rejected him, but that was at least 4 years ago. I don't know why his having a son is something he doesn't want to talk about and even the fact that he doesn't see his son like he wants is something that hurts, but should hurt less than it did right after the kid was born. I don't understand why they think this is such a painful, personal matter that's supposed to make our hearts bleed a little for Booth every time it's brought up.

The way Brennan said very forcefully that she wasn't going to have kids and wouldn't change her mind is almost as if the writers expected her to get pregnant some time during the show's run all along and wanted to use those words against her some day. But I don't think they actually plan that far ahead. Especially not this early on in the show's run when they had no assurance that they would even be picked up for 55 future seasons.

The Woman at the Airport

When the woman told him that he was handsome, but his eyes were too close together, that was funny because they are. They are close together and too deep in his skull, especially given his protruding, wide forehead.

The Man in the Fallout Shelter

How convenient that we learn Bones has a son just so he can worry about seeing him for Christmas. I don't mind them keeping this from us, but if it was supposed to have a real effect, we should have learned it for another reason. Although why would he keep it a secret anyway? He doesn't get to see him. He doesn't feel he has parental rights, so he doesn't talk about him? OK, but it might have meant more if it came out during a case (but not in a gooey wanting to help a child way) or doing a conversation with Brennan than having it come out just so we can be scared he might not see him for Christmas. Also, Brennan telling us about the unwrapped Christmas presents her parents left just so she can open them was convenient and contrived too. Also, her brother was a loser to leave and put her in foster care just because she didn't enthuse over the gifts and made him feel he wasn't enough for her. What kind of relationship did they have for the 15 years before her parents died for him to leave her that quickly, for so shallow a reason. Even if he felt rebuffed by her, to have her go into a stranger's care when they could have been together (he was 19) is shocking. I hope she has a lot of anger towards him and doesn't feel rotten because she didn't show him enough life at Christmas.

How did all of their relatives happen to get there on a moment's notice to see them? Especially that guy who had a troop of people come from Michigan? I wouldn't get on a plane to spend an hour looking at him through glass. If he was in prison yes, but if I knew he would be out in a few days I'd stay home and celebrate with the rest of the family and just call him and make up for the absence when we got together at Christmas.

Booth being drunk wasn't funny or illuminating. I mean having him talk about his son is not tantamount to us seeing into his soul, if that was the point. Also, when they did the case involving the foster mother and the son found murdered, wouldn't the fact that he had a son himself have come up THEN. Wouldn't he have shown the empathy for the boy that Brennan did when she interviewed him? Wouldn't he have done something not to arrest the foster mother, before Brennan rebuked him for it and maneuvered to get him to help her reunite mother and sons? It's like they didn't know until this week's script that he had a son.

It was funny for Brennan to talk about him being sensitive about unwed pregnancies when the whole virgin and child story came up. We got to see that he is religious again.

This show has some nice chemistry, but it's not psychologically deep so that I think I want to continue taking notes about each episode so I can connect the dots and find "meaning" in the end and looking for clues to justify to myself that they only ever loved each other, like I know I want to do with Buffy and Angel (and finish with X-Files) eventually. I just started because I had a chance to do so in the beginning, rather than regretting that I hadn't. Now, I'm thinking why bother. It's enjoyable, but like Ghost Whisperer or something. Not like Buffy/Angel.

He has his shirt off again in a scene. He still hasn't worked out since Buffy. He's not fat, but he's not defined.

The Girl in the Fridge

This is where I came in. This is one of the first two episodes I saw. Michael being such a sneaky jerk should make her appreciate Booth more, but he tricked her too. He had a third party trick her into revealing more than she was comfortable with, for work reasons. So, that wouldn't inspire much trust either.

Now that I've seen shows that preceded it, I see them talking about how cold and distant she is because her parents disappeared when she was is as a substitute for showing that to us by letting us see her character interact more. I thought the show was too explainy when I first saw this episode and now seeing it in chronological order I think the episode is even more of a writing short cut and cop out. Booth isn't especially jealous of them or even that interested in what they're doing, except for the fact that Michael is using it against their case. I'm actually surprised that she said their relationship was none of his business, since she has asked him about his more than once in the past.

He doesn't react when she hits him, but that's a nice B & D talk they had. "Cause you can be very bossy." Also cute when she told him he could be very annoying and she doesn't know why the expert didn't critique his witness testimony and appearance.

He asks her about sharing with the professor in front of Angela. I like how they all talk in front of each other. Still.

The Man on Death Row

The woman playing the lawyer, Rachelle Lefevre, reminds me of Michelle Trachtenberg. I like her curly, long red hair.

She, Amy, tells Bones that she senses a sex vibe between Bones and Booth. Where does she get that from?? I guess she's telling the audience something they might have seen themselves. As for Amy and Booth, you can tell the way he tells her to get out of his office, his building that he might have feeling for him. She's the defense lawyer he loves to hate. She admits to Bones that she should have jumped Booth when she had the chance. As soon as she meets her, Bones is commenting to Booth that he has a thing for two lawyers and is dating two of them. He denies it. After talking to Amy, Bones should know that even though she is attracted to Booth, she hasn't slept with him yet and has missed the boat, but Bones continues to chide Booth about his women, even while they're digging the grave.

He responds that he is not sleeping with Amy and he has NEVER cheated on any woman that he's been with. Which, again, takes you out of the script when DB is saying it. After his sex scandals became public I wonder if they lightened up on Booth saying such things in the script.


Why does Amy assume that he would be dating a tall beauty. he doesn't necessarily give off that vibe to me. I also don't know why he'd be wearing $1200 suits. Are FBI agents paid that well? See, this far into the show, I don't know anything about him really, personality wise or background. I didn't know that he had a sense of style. I thought he just dressed that way for the job, not that he was like Ron Harris on Barney Miller and that fashion was important to him. If I'd known that, then I'd know why Amy assumed he'd be with a looker. While plots and actions shouldn't be predictable, you should be able to foresee what a character will do in a particular situation, what they are LIKE. You don't get that in this show yet, especially not with Booth. Moreso with Bones, but not much more.

Angela's date telling them that they were all freaks is a bit outlandish. A normal person might hate what he saw on the job, but he'd respect the fact that he was dating such an intelligent professional. He might think she was out of his league, but I don't think he'd call her a freak. The characters on this show are not realistic. The serial killer in the end -- phony, the way he rubs it in that he played them. Amy's gasping reaction. So cliche. On X-Files the killers could be flaming weirdos and yet, somehow, believable mutants.

Booth tells Angela she's looking good when, actually, she looked like she always looked, except she wasn't in a smock. She is always saying personal things to him. He doesn't respond. But he has no problem complimenting her. What does he think of her? That she's too brash? Cute? Not his type? You don't know. He says he'd be spending his weekend doing something with someone he cared about and asks what Bones would be doing on a normal Saturday. She unearths a skull. Is her answer that she IS doing something she likes with someone she cares about? She told Amy that she was doing this work for him because he asked nicely, not because she has the hots for him. But she likes him, is interested in his personal life and respects him. Plus, Angela thinks Bones is into him. At this point, if there's a crush, she has it more than he does. Although there was that time in SUV that he wanted to stay out late with her and she told him he better get home to Tessa.

Bones believes in the death penalty, she just wants a fair conviction. I am down with that. She is the one more likely to physically attack.

The Man In The Wall

Well, Tessa seemed pretty normal the first time we saw her, but this time she's uptight for no reason. She didn't even see the mummy at the club. She was miffed just having to be there and seeing Bones high on meth. She was making faces for no reason. Bones had to run and tell Booth news and couldn't just use a phone. This is like the time she ran over to his house, but this time, she EXPECTED to see Tessa with him. Tessa bought him a clean shirt and, again, he is zipping his pants. As usual, he's not particularly embarrassed about Bones' and Angela's interest in his personal life. Even if he says he doesn't want to talk about it.

The opening scene at the bar with the women attacking Bones because she spoke about tribal matters was a bit stereotypical. I guess the hip hop story was ok, but introducing it with that scene wasn't helpful. The principal from Buffy played an undercover FBI agent. I liked seeing him, even though he and DB never were on the show together -- well, certainly never on screen, even though DB appeared for the finale.

The rapper sees Bones and asks if the FBI is recruiting from America's Top Models now. She's not especially pretty. Well, she's attractive, but not "model" humdinger.

We learn that Booth has a religious background, as he is able to quote psalms to the victim's father, just springing off the world iniquity, which may be in the bible but that doesn't really make it a biblical word with no other meaning for people.

As usual, I don't know what Bones thinks of Booth having a girlfriend. She insists to Angela that he's not a balker and would not have shrunk from a commitment, even if a vacation together might have meant that he and Tessa would next have to move in. I don't know why she thinks that, since when she fist met Tessa (in the S.U.V. episode) she didn't even believe that Booth could be in a relationship. She thought he was too Alpha Male for one. Now she thinks he doesn't balk?

I really don't understand the ending. Is Booth saying that he's LESS likely to return if he goes on vacation by himself than he would if he went with someone else and joked about not returning? Whatever he meant, Bones is sure he'll be back next week, whatever he says. I almost half expected him to invite her along. He asked if she could just sit on a beach and relax and forget about skeletons and she wondered if that would really be fun. She has been on a vacation alone and he, apparently, hasn't. He appears to think that going with someone keeps him more tethered.

They are both squeamish about the belly button ring being pulled out of someone's skin. He says that even though she's shot a lot of people (as a sniper) he is made uncomfortable by the belly button ring being ripped out. But he is uncomfortable with what she is doing with the corpse's hand, pulling off the skin, putting it on her own to make a fingerprint. Reminds me of Mulder being kind of squeamish and Scully didn't mind making him uncomfortable either. Like telling him to help her dig out body parts from the bio trash in Leonard Betts. Or the maggots during an autopsy. She kind of smiled at his discomfort.

A Boy in a Bush

Learning that Temp was in foster care was laid on too thick. She was separated from her brother. So, there's a sibling out there. The way her past came out was kind of phony and her whole speech about them putting your things in a garbage bag and your clothes smelling like garbage (I don't think so. The garbage bag is clean, isn't it? And they don't have that strong a smell. Plus, I'm not sure that ALL foster homes do the same). And the whole idea that you react strongly when there's something in your own background that is the same is just not the way it happens in real life. Our biases are a bit more subtle than that. It's not a natural way to reveal a plot point.

Drawing her as the person who doesn't like to follow the rules (shooting suspects and reporting the kidnapping so that the foster mother would be arrested) is laying a foundation. He had mentioned the shooting many times before, but I didn't really think of it as showing that she doesn't follow authority. Nor did I get that he was necessarily by the book. but the fact that she knew he wouldn't let the promise that she made to the boy that he'd be reunited with his foster mother shows her trust in him to do the morally right thing, no matter what the rules say. She said she didn't respect the rules, but she respected him. Nice. Although he said he didn't really know what that meant.

We learn that Angela is her best friend. He acted like he just realized that Angela was a squint too, but he called her a squint when they went to that Chinese restaurant. He never approached her as being more sensitive and easier to talk to than the others before. But I appreciated learning that this is the longest that Angela had held a job and only did it because of Temperance. They are painting her as a non-conformist. I guess I should have gotten that when she raised her blouse to get information from the attendant at the airport in the Pilot. But because of her technical knowledge I never saw her as a Phoebe on Friends type, not the sort of person who could not be pinned down or pinned in. Somewhat surprised that after the Director gave her a speech about humanizing the victims and seeing them as people and not just corpses the comment was made about all she needed was to get a speech from an African-American to feel better about her job. It's just that the speech had nothing to do with race. It just happened to be given by a black person and I guess because he had a rich, James Earl Jonesian voice the most noteworthy thing about the speech to Hodgins was that the guy was black, which was a daring slant and bit of dialogue, I guess. Well, it surprised me anyway.


As for Hodgins, I don't like what they're trying to do by making him Ritchie Rich, hiding undercover. That didn't really ring true. The writers aren't good at character development right now. They have good acting by charming people and good quips in the dialogue. They describe the evidence to us in a way that is interesting. They try too hard to gross us out visually though (from a woman who used to flinch at the surgery scenes in Mash, I've come a long way, but still don't need to see gratuitous gore). But they aren't really good with creating characters or revealing character traits to us yet. Also, even though I'm enjoying the show starting at the beginning, I have to wonder if it can stay interesting for 7-8 years. Even at this early stage things seem a bit monotonous, so I can only imagine. But that's the same thing I said about How I Met Your Mother and I now think that I look forward to the current shows, now that I'm enjoying the reruns so much.

Someone wrote on TWOP that Booth's asking which one of the puny mortals wanted to take him on was an Angel/Buffy reference. Not really. Mortals didn't fight Angel a lot actually.

I was spoiled by my own mother. I asked her if she ever heard of Bones and thought probably not since it's not on one of the major channels (well, Fox is now I guess) and since she doesn't like the graphic crime (CSI) shows. But she said she used to watch Bones even when she was still with Charles. She said she liked DB, even though she didn't really know his name and thought he was probably a jerk in real life, because of the infidelity. She asked me if new episodes were being made and I said yes, even though I was at the beginning. I said I know she gets pregnant and has a baby and she says that she used Booth's sperm. I didn't know that. I thought she was pregnant accidentally based on an affair that she had. Her asking for the sperm is like Mulder and Scully.