Thursday, July 19, 2012

Spaceman in the Crater

Someone fell from the sky to their death and the body is so mangled that they can hardly tell if it's a human. Was it an alien? Hodgins doesn't think so, because aliens don't wear loafers. Everyone mocks him, for believing that aliens exist at all. I wonder if there will be some mystery remaining after the case is solved suggesting there was alien involvement after all, just as their was a mystery left in the headless witch episode.

If they don't suggest aliens really do exist in this episode, there will be one in the future that does. I'm sure of it. [Well, it didn't happen in this episode, so that's still a plot turn that's slated for the future]


They deduce that the dead body belongs to an astronaut.

The 3 astronauts' wives (widow and her two friends) that they talk to are too close to each other. Finishing each other's sentences in an unnatural way. I find it strange and so does Brennan. They must be hiding something. It's probably a take off of that astronaut who wore a diaper so she could drive non-stop for hours to kill her rivals. The wives probably killed an astronaut who was having an affair.[Turns out that one of them was the murderer. The other two weren't in on it, so I'm not sure why they were giving off such a conspiratorial vibe when together].


Taking a break from case news, Hodgins asks Booth how to propose. Hodgins can't even get Angela to move in with him, why does he think proposing might work? Booth says he doesn't know how to propose. The one time he did it he got shot down flat.

He says he did it buy the book. But then he has to amend that and say they were waiting for the stick to turn blue and he realized he wanted to marry her if it did. I can see that Booth and Bones will probably have a problem once she becomes pregnant with his child, even though it was a sperm donation. He will want to marry her and she is opposed to the idea anyway, but especially when she thinks he is only doing it for "traditional" reasons.

Hodgins has already been rejected, by Angela. He guesses he didn't propose correctly. I'm surprise he said he already did. Why did they make that offscreen?

They go to a space simulator (dubbed the vomit comit) to interview the guy who is going to replace the dead astronaut. The younger astronaut says that Cal, the deceased, knew when he (Cal's student) was unfaithful to his wife, Colleen, so he would have known if Cal fooled around too. Probably not, not if Cal was fooling around with Colleen himself.

While talking to the guy, they float around in zero gravity, which is really not entertaining to watch. They look silly and it is unlikely that they would really interview the guy there for insurance reasons, if nothing else.

Cam is all upset because she thinks Zach does not acknowledge that the deceased was a human, when he asks to remove the flesh from the bones. That's fine, but she's really not that respectful consistently herself. She'll be treating the remains like an "it" just a couple of episodes from now, as if she'd never rebuked others for doing the same. The writers always want her to be scolding someone about something, no matter if it's for the same thing she herself did last week or not.

They begin to suspect STC members, Space Travel Coalition, a club of rich men who believe in extra-terrestials and have already paid money to reserve the chance to go into space, as soon as civilians are allowed to do so. Cal was helping them and believed in ETs too. One member thinks the National Space Agency (basically NASA) would have killed Cal rather than have him publicly admit "he'd seen a visitor." The STC thinks the agency got to Cal through his wife.

In the car, Booth tells Bones, "our government does not kill people." She harumphs and says, "You were a sniper. Wasn't it our government who sent you to kill people?"
He just looks at her, looks away and sighs. Is he conceding her point or just frustrated that that's how she looks at his sniper work, as simple killing. But a part of him looks at it like that too. He knows he was protecting our country, but he still thinks of himself as killing people (as proven by his talk with Wyatt about Epps being his 50th). Anyway, the question is what the definition of "protection" is. If killing is justified in one context, the government can justify it in another. So, Booth shouldn't be surprised if non-war murders happen. But it's nice to realize that it's his government allegiance that bolsters his belief that Hodgins is crazy. He has more of an investment in Hodgins being paranoid than the others (non-snipers and non-FBI agents) do.

They find an implant in the bone that didn't show up in the x-ray. It's coral. Hodgins says to Cam, "it's a combination of human and alien technology." Cam says, "don't say that to Booth" and then continues on with her analysis without missing a beat.

Hodgins thinks the government was experimenting on Cal to see if they could minimize bone degeneration in astronauts (bone mass declines and becomes porous the more time they spend in space). The experiment failed, so they killed Cal to dispose of evidence.

They have to find out the source of the technology in Cal's bones.

This is not an enthralling episode. Better than the X-Files' "Space", but its dryness indicates that space travel is just not a subject that fares well on dramatic, episodic tv.

Hodgins says, there's an ex-Agency doctor who might have been involved with the technology. He turned to the STC for funding. Cam says that Booth will love this guy, "because he doesn't believe in coincidences." She's certainly an expert on Booth and his likes and dislikes.

They speak to Dr. Pascal who says that his experiment on Cal was going to be a success and he had no reason to kill him.

Later Brennan tells Booth that someone is lying to them. Booth concurs, "yeah, maybe everyone." She says his strength is supposed to be telling when people are lying. He tells her she hasn't given him anything to work with to spring on the suspect and get to the truth.

Zach says Cal was hit with something like a broadsword. Angela comes in dressed to go out with Hodgins. Booth says she looks incredible and just by looking at her he says he can tell she smells great. Zach says you cannot see smell. Anyway, it makes me wonder how Angela usually smells. When she's not dressed up, does she not smell so hot?

Turns out Cal was killed by a propeller. Cal's student James and his wife Colleen, who was mad because Cal was going on the mission instead of her husband, are the culprits. She slapped Cal and he fell into the propeller and was killed. So, James disposed of the body to protect her.

At dinner, Hodgins proposes to Angela again (I guess the first time happened off camera). She declines and says she doesn't know why. She just has to have a feeling and she doesn't know what it is. If she knew she would tell him, but she knows it when she feels it. But she loves him more than he knows and hopes he won't stop trying.

Booth asks Bones if she ate yet. "I told you I would wait," she answers and gets her coat and adds, "How did you know that James would tell me." He says because James loves his wife and has a conscience. She says she doesn't know these things.

He says he can't tell the difference between coral and bone, so they make a good pair. "Hey speaking of marriage . . ." they weren't actually speaking of it, well of Colleen and James, I suppose. I thought Brennan would raise her brow when he brought up the subject of marriage and wonder if it had to do with her, but that doesn't seem to cross her mind.

He tells her that Hodgins was going to propose tonight. She says that after what Colleen and James did to Cal, marriage doesn't seem that great.


























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