Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Judas on a Pole

Hart Hanson wrote it, but so far not as good as the other episodes of his that I praised. Of course, that's just an initial assessment after 10 minutes of the show. David Duchovny directed, which couldn't possibly make me think of Mulder and Scully in comparison to this show more than I already do anyway.

I am hoping that the title means that Booth will do a little betraying in the romance department, but I couldn't be that lucky.

Zach is defending his dissertation. When Booth bursts in and asks how it is going, as always he speaks frankly, no matter who else is in the room. It's funny, but it's not specific to his personality. Other characters do that too. Zach answers Booth: "So far they don't like me." Booth replies: Shocker.

He tells Bones they have a dead body to investigate and tries to hurry her out of the panel. She protests, but he pulls out her chair and she rises. She doesn't mind it when he physically guides and prods her.

Her brother is in town and tells her she's in danger. She says, "I spend half my time with a sniper trained FBI agent. I feel safe." I like what it says about the sense of security being with Booth gives her.

Booth gets a new lead. He grabs Brennan by the arm to take her to investigate. This time she playfully hits him off. "Why do I always feel as if you're abducting me."

They are in the suspect's home and Brennan says it looks 10 times better than Booth's even though the guy is an FBI agent too. Booth says the guy makes more money than Booth that's why his place looks 10x better. He sees her trying to open a locked door with a credit card. She's been practicing the black ops stuff that he taught her. He smiles at her, thinking her efforts cute and adorable. He's pretty adorable himself, the way he's grinning and softly saying "let me show you," three times. He "shows" her how to unlock it by just turning around and knocking down the door with a sharp kick. Knocking open doors was Angel's forte, although he didn't do it from behind. He preferred to just push them open with his hands, but I guess that Booth doesn't have that vampire strength.

Hodgins is showing Booth a document. He keeps pointing to passages and Booth keeps pushing Hodgins hands away from the paper. Usually Zach is the pesky fly. Finally, Booth tells Hodgins, "I can read." Nice direction by DD, if he added that. Also the way that Angela was looking at Hodgins when he talked about the civil rights activist showed that her feelings for him were getting as adoring as his are for her.

The commitee told Zach that they didn't see how he could expect to work looking like he does. He doesn't know what it means and Angela says it's a matter of deportment. Does deportment matter to Cam, because it doesn't matter to Brennan. That's true, Angela says, but Cam is not the type of woman you'd catch with crusties in the corner of her eye. Is Brennan? Still, no matter how Zach looks, what she knows of Zach's prowess so far should make all the difference. Later Cam says that although he is exceptional, she has to be able to put him on the witness stand. I don't know about that, since after two years I've only seen Brennan on the stand once. But that is the initial reason we were told Cam was hired, not because of her non-existent ability to think outside the box. So, at least her saying this to Zach now is consistent.

Zach has a scene where he tells Brennan he thinks the committee approved him because the head of it gave him an openhanded pat on the back. When an older man does that to a younger man it means approval and a closed fist on the shoulder means disapproval. He demonstrates on Brennan several times. It's funny, but I don't think he would repeat the gesture so many times realistically. He's not a robot. In the opening scene when Booth rushed Brennan to the crime scene, he gave Zach a pat on his way out. Does that mean that he approves of Zach?

Booth, Russ and a priest (old friend of Brennan's father) are talking in the hall and priest says he has a private message for Brennan. She says, "Come into my office." As she walks I'm surprised that she is going to hear it without Booth, but then the brother says, "She's just going to tell agent Booth anyway. You might as well let him listen," answering my concern. Russ knows how much Brennan depends on Booth, even though Russ himself is wary of Booth and sees him as a cop who might throw Russ in the slammer above all else. But Russ must tell his father how much Brennan trusts Booth. Booth goes with them inside Brennan's office. He had been walking in anyway, when the priest (Ryan O'Neal) tried to close the door on him. So, he expected to be included in her privacy as well. The message from the priest is that Brennan should stop digging for more information about the father. By looking into the crime that made him disappear in 1978 she is opening a can of worms that some people still want to keep the lid on.

They ask him if he ever tried to convert Brennan's father. The priest says, Max wasn't open to it. He says he's sure Booth knows the conditions for absolution. So, he just assumes Booth is a good Catholic?

Booth had the prosecutor from New Orleans (who can't even practice in DC can she)help him and he exhumes a body to prove that a civil rights leader did not shoot a man. the civil rights leader is released from prison after more than 30 years. Booth is suspended without pay. Suspended is FBI speak for fired, Cam says. The forensic team all raise their hands and agree to work under the radar to help Booth get reinstated. For Booth's part, he misses his car most of all. He has no wheels. He ends up borrowing the New Orleans' attorney's.

Brennan is horrified that her father would not only murder, but leave such a gruesome trail. Booth respects Brennan's father. He thinks a stand up crook is better than a crooked cop like the one who framed the civil rights leader. Brennan is upset that he didn't trust her to help him put her dad in jail. This story is like Rizzoli and Isles and that coroner's father who was also a crook, but I don't think Booth would blow Brennan's dad away like that Rizzoli cop did.

FBI Deputy Director Kirby, a fellow sniper, one of Booth's upper bosses turned out to be the bad guy in 1978 and is still bad today. Russ had been staying at Brennan's apartment and they go over to get him and he is gone. There is just a massive pool of blood left behind.

Brennan looks at it and falls headlong straight into Booth's shoulder. "No one can survive that much blood loss." Booth tells her that they can't be sure it is Russ' blood. Brennan collects herself.

"I wish you wouldn't keep letting me hug you when I get scared." So, they noticed that that's become a pattern. Booth answers: "When I get scared, I'll hug you. We'll call it even." Mulder and Scully did. I remember the way she hugged him in Closure, in particular.

Back at the lab, Cam straightens Booth's lapel. His hands are in his pocket as she does so and without exchanging any personal gestures with her, his immediate words are he wants to tell Brennan that the blood is not Russ' but Cam says Brennan already knows. She has gone to see the priest. What? Bones abruptly walks away from Cam and says that Brennan "can't be going places without him, not when it's open season on Brennans." He's back to business, without a goodbye or further thought of Cam. Cam tilts her head and remains standing in the autopsy doorway, as she recedes into the background. Clearly Booth has a one track mind. What she needs to discover is that it's just as one track even when Brennan's life is not in danger.

Brennan is walking along a path with the priest. The camera intersperses Booth with the attorney and Brennan with the priest, as Booth hastens to get to her. This makes twice in 2 episodes that he has had to rush to save her life, though it wasn't in danger with Will actually. They were just having dinner. But Father Ryan is about to do her in. Oh, wait. He says that she sees things in black and white like her father, but her mother wasn't like that and neither is Russ. He says she's like her father and she denies it. He then recounts an incident from her past. Something only Max could have known. It turns out he's her dad. I should have known that they just wouldn't cast Ryan O'Neal as an old family friend. As the priest, Brennan realizes he had plastic surgery and is 15 years older, that's how he disguised the fact that he was her father. But wouldn't she recognize his voice? Russ recognized it, didn't he? Yes, Max confirms that Russ knew it was him all along. Russ shows up with a truck to help the dad escape? Has Russ given up on being a good citizen now. Is he going on the run with the dad? Isn't he an accomplice to the father's murder now, that he's helping him avoid the law? What about Russ' plans to marry. He told Brennan he didn't want her money to help with his new family. Charity is out for him, but it's ok to go on the lam and help a murderer?

Father tries to give her a bible and she rejects it, because it might mean she'd have to accept what's inside.

She hugs him and he thinks she is sentimental as she keeps saying, "I'm sorry," but to his surprise she kicks him and is about to handcuff him for arrest. He turns the table on her and, warding Russ off, without punching or hitting her he manages to handcuff her to a bench.

Why did he reveal himself to Russ, but not to her. He said that Brennnan seemed to do better without criminal dad in his life, while Russ always seemed to do worse.

After he handcuffs her he says, "If you find somebody that you can trust, you hang onto them. Remember that. And I'm proud of you. I love you." He kisses her. Will Booth think she let her dad get away, that she let herself be cuffed? Maybe, but I don't think he'd suspect her of lying to him about doing it, if she'd done it. He trusts her as well.

Booth realized the priest was an imposter? Did he know it was Brennan's dad? I guess so. That makes him smarter than me. Booth runs towards Brennan and the priest who has climbed into a car with Russ and is driving away. Booth yells, "FBI stop or I'll shoot," but he's not FBI right now. Couldn't he get in trouble if he actually shot Kennan? Brennan calls out to him and I think she is about to remind him that he's not FBI, but maybe not. She never finished her sentence. Probably, all she was saying ("Booth, Booth, Booth . . .") was don't shoot my dad.

Booth had borrowed the New Orleans' lawyer's car and Russ makes sure to hit and disable it so that he and can have a headstart in escaping with his dad? "Did he really have to hit the car? I wasn't going to chase him." Funny that Booth was relegated to driving a yellow, old economy car.

Um, did Brennan and Booth make an effort to warn Kirby (the crooked FBI agent who had tried to hurt Brennan and Russ to smoke Keenan out) that Max Keenan was on the loose? If they didn't, it's too late now. We see Max hanging Kirby's corpse like a scarecrow and setting it on fire, just as he did the first body that Booth and Bones found. He disemboweled his victim, to show that the guy "spilled his guts." Thankfully, that occurred after the man was already dead, but it was also done as a warning to the last guy who tried to get to him by threatening Russ and Temp. That is hard core and its a very effective scene as a show ending and also a heavy thought to know a main character's father is capable of such violence. I see Ryan standing there watching the body go up in flames and at first I think Russ is with him, but luckily he wasn't. That doesn't mean he won't be doing hard time for aiding and abetting a wanted murderer. Time lapse. Ryan's silhouette morphs into Booth standing at what is now a second crime scene looking at the scarecrow. Nice direction DD.

Brennan says her father killed for her and Russ. Booth says that Russ is with her father now and doesn't need protection (has Russ given up on that woman he was going to marry with 2 kids?), so Max killed Kirby just to protect her. That was the blood that they found in her apartment. Booth understands Max's ultra violent acts and, frankly, takes them pretty lightly. He just says that Max loves her.

He says it must be hard for her, seeing her brother and father drive away without her. She has been abandoned by them yet again. She says, she guesses "I'm just one of those people who doesn't get to be in a family." He moves her chin up with his finger, so that her eyes meet his. "There can be more than one kind of family." He is doing a serious, sincere stagey stare into her eyes that is rather moving. Kind of stirring.

I can't say that he was actually moving in for a kiss, but their faces were inclined towards each other. Then, Zach knocks on the window, from the restaurant that they are standing in front of. Ha, I was wondering if Cam would see them gazing intently at each other through the window. They are all there celebrating Zach getting the job as a "doctor" not just an intern. Cam hired him after Angela gave him a make over. Brennan invites Booth into the restaurant. He demurs, "He's your squint, not my squint." She says, "We are all your squints."

Hmmm. The Judas title did refer to Booth too, as he went against the FBI, his own employer and a brother sniper, to free the civil rights leader wrongfully imprisoned and framed by an FBI agent.

As they enter the restaurant, Brennan says "Do me a favor and pat Zack on the shoulder with an open hand."

"Why does that mean something?" Laughter. She holds Booth by the arm. I wonder if Duchovny finds it unusual to see two FBI agents who are ok with touching and laughing it up together so easily. Booth and Bones aren't my brooding beauties, but, of course, their bond isn't as deep as Mulder and Scully's either.




















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