Mummy in the Maze

Halloween episode.

A nervous kid finds a mummy in a maze that was set up for patrons. Bones thinks it must just be a prop, but a pediatrician looked and he thinks it's a real mummy. She initially says he's not qualified to make such a determination (he should know real human bones, from snythetic, being a doctor, even if he doesn't recognize the age of the bones, like she can) and wonders why she has even been called there. Of course, it turns out it really is human remains.

As Booth and Bones investigate, he asks her about attending the office Halloween party. Booth says he is the official liaison between the FBI and the Jefferson, to help bring them together, so he has to go. Wow, she has this million dollar labe and only works with ONE FBI agent. Even if he was a crack investigator, how many cases can one man have to justify the expense they have put into the Jeffersonian (although she works on other things besides her police work; she works as a regular archaeologist). As if that wasn't enough, they have a whole party just to ease the relationship between the FBI (for the one agent that works with Bones) and the Jeffersonian workers.

Brennan says she always wears the same costume to these functions. They don't reveal what it is, yet.

Cam tells Zach and Jack they have to go to the party. Now that they know who he is, Hodgins should be able to beg off if he wants and if he would refer not to run into family members and I resent her bossiness, once again, since she should be able to understand his reasons for not attending. Hodgins doesn't mind going, though. Hodgins finds a thrift store tag on the mummy wrapping and says he is king of the lab. Cam looks askance and corrects himself to say that he is a loyal servant to the empress. I am so tired of her reminding everyone that she is boss all the time, after she's held the position for this long, why is it still necessary and why must she emphasize that when they aren't even doing anything to defy her? You can't have a casual conversation in a room where she is present, without her playing the boss card.

At the thrift shop, which is run by an extremist minister, Booth and Bones are shown how he uses Halloween to have his congregation dress up like sinners (abortionists, sodomites, prostitutes) so that he can still teach religion on an occult holiday. The minister is a character to be mocked and I'm surprised that the show tackles controversy, like whether or not abortion is a sin, head on, by making this minister's views the subject of humor, if not ridicule.

A Private Investigator looking for Angela's husband reveals that Angela Montenegro is not her birth name and she changed it to that because it came to her in a dream, something she's never told anyone before. They don't tell us her real name. Hodgins claims he is ready to force the husband to sign the divorce papers if possible. Does the P.I. have a gun? Angela just wants to convince him to agree to the divorce it politely. Hodgins says, "what are you? A Canadian?"

In the car, Booth wonders why the fundamentalist pastor didn't make Bones mad and she says she appreciates the consistency the minister showed. Booth doesn't like the pastor forcing someone into Christianity, by giving them horror stories. Bones doesn't seem to mind that so much. She believes in evidence, Booth believes in what he feels and the pastor believes in the sacred book [but the book is not black and white; it's open to subjective interpretation and you'd think Bones would mind him bullying people into believing what he does with the threat of eternal damnation]. You'd think that Booth would be on the other side, since he probably believes the same thing that the pastor does, as a Catholic. Booth even says he thinks the two of them are on the wrong (reversed) sides of the argument.

Cam calls them back to the office, because there are parents who think their daughter may be the mummy. She says she's not good with loved ones. I thought when she got there she was good with the public relations, the people aspect of the job, when Bones wasn't. So, I guess her public relations expertise doesn't extend to compassion for the grieving.

Booth and Bones talk to the parents who are oddly upset that their daughter is not the mummy. Meanwhile, another mummy is found at the amusement park and they head off to look at it.

The body is in the fun house. Past the killer clown. Clown? Booth has PTSD about his own clown run in and Bones asks if he is ok. Clown. He jumps when he comes in proximity with the clown. Bones diagnoses him with a fear of clowns, coulrophobia, when he is jumpy in the funhouse. That's fine, but it's a tv cliche by now. He wasn't afraid of the clown whose head he shot off. He was annoyed by it.

They find a corpse in the torture chamber called, aptly, "Dungeon of a Thousand Corpses."

The lab results reveal that one victim was buried alive, which reminds me that we still have to find the Gravedigger killer from the past episode. But the other mummy died of a different cause, so I guess this isn't a continuation of that plot.

Seems that the murderer is literally scaring people to death, with spiders, being buried alive, etc. Booth talks to other witnesses, but I don't know why he and Bones don't stay on top of those parents who seemed disappointed that their daughter was not one of the mummies. The mother said she "felt" that her daughter was dead. But Bones told Booth early on that a feeling is not fact. They should have found out more about that missing girl and what her parents knew. [Well, it turns out the daughter was not dead. So, why was the mother getting the vibe that she was and why did she seemed disappointed when the dead body did not turn out to be her child's? That mystery was never solved].

The guy dressed as a Grim Reaper seemed to be present at both crimes. They bring him in for questioning and Booth starts to slap the guy around, reminding him that the victims were teenaged girls. One was 14 years old. Bones is surprised. At first she just looks on, as if concerned, but then she punches the guy in the nose herself (not out of passion like Booth did, but rather matter-of-factly). I thought Booth would yell at her, but he says "nice shot." The perp starts talking and says he would lure the girls away and then his girlfriend, a pierced, mouthy type who also worked at the amusement park and whom Booth called "pin cushion," would watch and sometimes slap the girls around to arouse herself. Sometimes she got carried away.

Angela's husband (whom the PI says smells good, like a fresh wind right after a summer storm and is beautiful) refuses to give Angela a divorce. He built a cottage for Angela on his island. He's sentimental over Angela [really? After all these years? Did he ever try to find her?]. Angela says he should get a grip. She still wants a divorce.

Booth muses that Lola (the girlfriend who assaulted teenagers) "gets off on inflicting pain." Bones wonders if they are going to hit Lola too, once they catch up with her. Booth says not with a closed fist (like Bones used on the boyfriend) because that leaves a mark.

Booth says he will go deal with Lola and she should return to the lab. "Why, I won't hit her unless you say so." [At least he is the one who doesn't want them to work together now. That's nice for a switch]. He says she does lab; he does street. "Together, we catch bad guys. That's good math."

Cam dresses as cat woman, in a bodice, cat head gear, the whole works. Hodgins is the captain of the Titanic. They are dressed up doing lab work still.

Bones says to Cam, "Is that your costume?" Hilarious. Bones comments/complains that it is sexually alluring [maybe that's why they sent Booth away, so he wouldn't see it yet, but we never get to see his reaction to it, if he had one].

Cam just says thank you. Cat Woman is very powerful, so she is not ashamed to be her, but Bones says that Cat Woman does not fly and does not have super speed.

Booth is back at the dungeon and he threatens Lola (who asked for her lawyer) that if she doesn't start talking, he will start removing her piercings and won't start with the ones on her face [kind of salacious, really, when you think of other places that could be pierced]. He arrests her.

Back at the Jeffersonian, he is outside of Brennan's office dressed as a nerd and waiting for her. He should have dressed as Angel. Sigh. They really need to have him do that in a few years, before this show goes off the air.

She is dressed as Wonder Woman when she comes out, which I thought of when she told Cam that Cat Woman didn't have super speed and couldn't fly, but then I didn't expect Bones to dress in something sexy, as she seemed to criticize that. In fact, I thought she would just go in her lab coat and call that a costume.

Booth says she looks good. "Wonder-ful." But he's not falling all over himself. I'm glad they don't make him googly eyed.

He says he is a nerd squint and he mimics one of them, pretends to be Zackish.

Sweets has profiled the killer and the person he describes is Booth, according to Bones: male, loner, respectable blue collar job, unmarried, saves people, military background.

I don't think that Booth is "blue collar."

Zack is dressed as the rear of a cow, complete with an udder. He resents the way Booth is dressed like a nerd or at least Zach stares at him, causing Booth to say, "What? What?" Angela appears to be dressed as Cher, a contemporary Cher with feather headdress, not a Cher with long, swinging hair ala the seventies.

The victim-to-be, the missing girl, is afraid of snakes. So, they guess the killer will use snakes to scare her to death, like he used everyone else's phobia against them and they track down people who have been collecting snakes and find a lead.

Oh don't you just know that this will all end with them running around the fun house. I would guess the maze, but Booth handled the maze by simply knocking down the haystack walls, so that wouldn't cause enough confusion during a chase scene, not like a funhouse would. (Humbug) [I was wrong, they didn't go back to the fun house]

Booth wants them to guess where the girl might be, so he can save her. Jack and Zach say they don't guess (after Gravedigger you would think they would have gotten over that; Zach had to guess to find where they were buried, but they had Zach talk to Cam about how they can't jump to conclusions earlier in the show just to get to this stalemate now.)

Bones defends her staff and says Booth should go to the party. People like them (squints) cannot work with people like him (instinct, Cam, Booth and "Cher") at a time like this. They need to use a logical process of elimination. But to me, Cam is one of them. She walks the line, at the very least. She doesn't use her "gut" or "feeling." She uses medicine and anatomy, like the squints. She is just more down to earth than they are.

When asked, Jack and Zack assure Bones that Wonder Woman is stronger than Cat Woman. She says, "I concur."

She and the boys do a little guessing of their own to narrow down the places the killer might be from 126 to one (a florist shop over a subway track). Brennan tells them it's not guessing, it's "necessary intuitive leaps" which are allowed by Einstein.

Zach: "I acknowledge Einstein as a scientific authority."

On the way to the "lair," Booth tells her that despite all her science, she guessed the location. She denies it.

When they get there, she brings out her big gun and in her skimpy costume, Booth wonders where she even found a place to carry it. She is eager to shoot the lock, but Booth just pulls it open.

Booth figures out that the paramedic is the killer. Bones shoots a locked door, even though he told her to stay back (how did she know she wouldn't hit the screaming girl inside?) and the bullet bounces off of her Amazonian Wonder Woman bracelet and hits Booth. She had just told him in the car that the bracelet wasn't real, it couldn't really stop bullets. She was right, but it can propel them.

The door opens and snakes come out. Bones screams, even though she knows they are not poisonous. She says she is not in control of her actions. He tells her to get on his back.

The girl is trapped inside, with fear of the snakes paralyzing her and keeping her pinned against the wall. They enter the room to help her. A Clown comes in and Bones shoots at it. The clown runs. Booth tells her to stop shooting at things [she had been on his back and she later claims that he dropped her on her head; he says he only did that because she shot him]. Then, in the next sentence he tells her to guard the girl and blow the head off of anyone who comes in, except him. Bones comes to the realization, "my gun is too big for me." He says he could have told her that. They switch weapons.

Booth taunts the killer (the paramedic dressed as a clown) and says he must have been in the navy the way he missed Bones, but Booth is quietly bleeding from Bones' bullet. The guy says he was in the infantry. He knows the weapon Booth is using and by his count, Booth only has one shot left. He says it's a stupid gun to have brung to a shoot out (see there, Bones?)

Bones comes out to try to help Booth, but gets shot at. Booth wants to know if she is ok. Not for long the killer says. He says he will just empty his barrel. "Your girl is going to look like hamburger."

With his "one shot left" Bones shoots through a closed door and still fells the killer.
"One hell of a shot," if Booth does say so himself. As they look at the killer on the floor, Booth says, "Now, can you see why I hate clowns?"

The PI tells Angela she tried to seduce him. "Who, Hodgins." Ew! No, the PI says, the husband. But it didn't work. He just wants Angela.

The PI calls Hodgins "Hodkins" and Angela corrects her saying there's no "k" which I find funny, since I had trouble remembering that myself a while ago.

Angela doesn't want to go down and see the husband. She will love Hodgins forever. She only wants a divorce, from her ex. And she orders the PI, "don't say 'ew' about Hodgins again."

The PI tells Hodgins that most of the time the client goes back to their spouse. [Well, in most cases she hasn't only known the spouse for a few hours, so that statistic is meaningless in this situation]. But, just when we think the PI is predicting that Angela will lose interest in Jack, the PI later tells Hodgins that she doesn't think Angela will go back to the husband.

Back at the lab, Bones and Booth are alone and everyone else has gone to the party.

She says that Booth can be Clark Kent (she has to have help from Booth naming Kent though). She says they can be Wonder Woman and Kent after a bad date.

"A bad date, because you shot me."

"It was only a flesh wound and you dropped me on my head."

"AFTER you shot me."

He's smiling, but she gets serious. She says she's sorry he had to kill someone. She knows he hates that. [Who, except Dexter, likes that] He says the guy had it coming to him. [So, good. He'll have to undergo no more therapy about that kind of guilt, at least.]

He says he saved the girl, so it was a pretty good date. She says, but it wasn't really a date. It was work. And they are Booth and Brennan, not Wonder Woman and Kent (earlier she told him that her lasso and bracelet didn't really work like Wonder Woman's and he gave her a "duh" look). He says he knows and that she's the one who brought up the date analogy.

They go to get something to eat and, as he is walking ahead of her, she does the Wonder Woman spin behind his back. No magic. He turns and wonders what she's doing. "Nothing." But she brandishes her bracelet as they exit. She hasn't convinced herself that the costume doesn't make her a super hero.