Player Under Pressure

ORIGINAL VERSION

Good show. The best of this dismal season so far. Written by Janet Tamaro.

[This show is aired out of sequence. Apparently, it's from last season. I only finally surmised this after watching 40 minutes of it, because of Jack constantly talking about Angela marrying him and Bones not knowing Booth was a jock. I guess the aired version of the show takes out the parts where they talk about things that have already happened in prior episodes. When I loaded the DVD, I saw that there were two versions of the episode to choose for viewing. I thought maybe there was just an "aired" version because of all of the erection talk in the show and suspected it had to be edited out for censors. But now I realize, it probably had to be changed because it was written a year ago. I wondered last year why Jack had apparently proposed to Angela offscreen. Now, I know that he didn't. Funny to discover things as a lone viewer that are already legend, lore and fodder for trivia games among show fans. After watching the whole thing, I read the show was pulled out of last seasons schedule, because of the Virginia Tech shooting, but there was no shooting on this show and I dont' think just because it was set on a campus it should have been yanked. It contains no similarities to the real life crime.]

[My original thoughts upon seeing the episode for the first time, not realizing it was actually an episode from the prior season]

Booth and Bones investigate at a University campus. In the gym, Booth says the last time he was behind the bleachers was when he was a student trying to sneak a cigarette and make out. Bones is surprised that he once smoked. He says he was a jock and she asks, "You were a jock?" Um, yeah. He said it at least 50 times in the time capsule ("you were that guy") episode.

They find a decomposed body, which was pushed through a grate, chewing it up. Bones figures an alcoholic passed out near the heater and his body practically melted, plus rats got to him. Please, there's no way a body decomposes that much in a few days, no matter what the heat or rodent conditions are in a school.

The security guard, Cutler, turns out to be a former athlete who was drafted by the Detroit Pistons. The decedent, RJ Manning, was 20 years old and had a necklace with a #11 medallion on it. Seeing that after just hearing about the Pistons reminds me of Isiah Thomas. Strange to give him the last name Manning, especially since, like Danny, he was going to be the top draft pick. And was a power forward like Manning.

Manning was killed by multiple blows to the head.

At the lab, Zach asks when Angela is going to move in with Jack and he says he doesn't think she will. I'm surprised. I remember her not moving in before, but after that they not only got engaged but tried to walk down the aisle, so I thought living quarters had been resolved long ago, especially since they were talking about making "family" Christmas traditions in the holiday episode. Whose house did they do that at, if they aren't roomies?

At the school gym, Booth is showing Bones how to play basketball, while she's lecturing him about how society puts too much emphasis on sports. I bet she'll get a basket without even trying [she did and smiled at her success.] Bones says that athletes suffer from arrested development, acting out childish games as if they have adult importance. Booth says that he was a jock, so when she criticizes the mentality, what is she saying about him? She says he grew out of it. He says he didn't. He only stopped because his shoulder went out. He leaves by saying he was in a war, so if sports is a childish substitute, he can live with that.

Outside, while talking to the other forward who will replace Manning in the lineup now, Booth says he's still mad at her. The replacement forward's girlfriend, Celeste, takes offense to Bones' questioning and immediately says she does not like Bones.


All the students defer to Mr. Francis, the team advisor who seems to have a finger in every pie associated with the team and their families.

Hodgins asks Cam why Angela won't move in. She tries to talk about the case, instead of answering his questions, studiously ignoring him. She concludes that Manning was on steroids. Jack says that they'll get married and Cam is stunned into paying attention and answering him directly. I don't understand. They already did that. Angela knows it's a permanent commitment and is waiting for her divorce to come through. Why are we re-treading the territory. Are they that anxious to have a wedding take place during another sweeps period? Cam says she doesn't give advice (she does, sometimes) but that she doesn't think that Angela would go for the orthodox proposal. Hodgins thinks that's a good point. He's already proposed to her about 3 times and she accepted in the end. Why are the writers acting like they have amnesia?

None of the other players have steroids in their system and it doesn't look like something that Manning would do, since the coach has zero tolerance for it. This is discovered after Booth tried to get a confession out of him by saying he knows that the Coach might look the other way, to have a successful team and further his own career. The Coach surprised Booth by revealing that he has terminal cancer from steroid use, so no, he wouldn't encourage his boys to do that. Booth was barking up the wrong tree, except one player did use steroids (he faked the urine sample). And it turns out Francis was his supplier.

Angela says no to Hodgins. I don't understand. Why won't someone on the show point out that they already tried to wed and that she's married already. Was that all a dream?

Bones talks to the security guard and asks him was being an ex-jock worth it. The injury to his body. The strain on his relationships. Booth comes in and guesses the guard would do it all again. Bones shakes her head, critically. Jocks understand each other, she says, but their priorities are askew. Some would say that hers are too and that she makes sacrifices for her job which are ultimately hurtful as well.

Turns out Francis signed RJ, still a student, to an illegal representation deal, to share in the proceeds when RJ went pro. In the meantime, he set RJ's family up with money, cars, etc. We know Francis can't be the guilty one, this early on in the show. Booth has bonded with the security guard. They even interrogated Francis together. I bet the guard is the killer [I was correct].

Manning was killed while having oral sex. There was blue lipstick on his penis and RJ also had gonorrhea. They go to find the other athlete with gonorrhea to see who it was that both he and Manning slept with. Who wore blue lipstick? They find pre-seminal fluid in RJ's system and Bones says that a post-adolescent male has 11 erections a day. Good to know.

When the show started, the student-employee who smelled a foul odor from the bleachers was a punk rocker with heavy make up. Why don't Bones and Booth remember that? She should jump to their mind immediately as having blue lipstick.

In the locker room, Bones asks if Booth is still mad at her for saying he's emotionally stunted. If anyone is stunted, it's her. So, yeah I'd still be mad.

They're in the shower and Bones is talking to naked ball players. Booth told her she could wait outside, but she ignored that. When would FBI protocol even allow this to happen, much less the University?? It's as unlikely as Booth going into a girls locker room to talk to naked female suspects.

The guy with gonorrhea asks if they think he had sex with RJ, who had it too. They hadn't thought of that before and looked at each other before Booth says, "I don't know. Did you?" No. The guy said he can't discuss sexual topics with her looking at him, because she's hot and he's naked. Booth tells her to go stand around the corner. Why should she, Bones wants to know, "because he's shy!?" The boy says, "Maybe you didn't notice, but I got no reason to be shy."

Booth tells her the boy can't concentrate so she must cover her eyes or stand aside. Eye covering doesn't work for her (well for the student either, because the boy can still see her and still be distracted), so she goes to another room. The boy tells Booth that Bones is "smokin'". Well, I wouldn't say all of that. She looks ok and could reasonably arouse a 20 year old guy who is already naked in the shower.

The guy says there are basketball groupies and he and RJ easily could have had sex with the same girl. He doesn't know who it might be.

Well, upon further reflection, he remembers that the one girl he didn't wear a condom with was his poly-sci tutor and he doesn't think that RJ "tapped that" because, he whispers, the girl was not hot. Enraged, Bones peeks up from over the row of lockers and questions the fact that all of the people he had sex with the only one he's ashamed of is a "not hot" girl!

Bones looks up at the top of the lockers: "What are you doing?"

The poly-sci student is the punk, pierced girl from the first scenes, proving I'm a better detective than either of them. RJ gave the STD to her and then he wouldn't talk to her, so she gave it to Decker for revenge, to let RJ know she was still alive. Well, why would RJ care that she was sleeping with someone else and how would he know that Decker had the SDT anyway. You gave your disease to someone else? I don't think that's the kind of thing that makes a guy jealous, if he finds out. They ask the girl for her DNA, because the woman who was with RJ when he died may have seen the killer. She throws her used kleenex and her hair at them and says, "knock yourself out."

The DNA is not hers. But many of the cheerleaders wore blue lipstick. It matched their team uniforms. RJ's girlfriend was a cheerleader, but she wasn't with him that night. She said he liked all kinds of girls, but she's just one kind. "The permanent kind."

Bones asks if the girl planned to live like that, with a philanderer. The girlfriend said that RJ came home to her. "That's the way it would have stayed," from his crummy little apartment to the mansion he would have gotten. Bones wonders if she's crying because she loved RJ or because she lost her mansion. Booth mouths, "the mansion."

Bones tells Zach that the girl made the decision to hold on to him by letting him have sex with anyone he wanted. Zach says that the idea that one person could satisfy all needs of another --- or even more than one need -- is sentimental and mawkish. Well, Bones has said in the past that people weren't meant to be monogamous. She wouldn't put up with it in exchange for a mansion, but in the past she has indicated that infidelity was to be expected.

We learn that the security guard's daughter was the cheerleader with RJ. Someone also spat at RJ, as there was a residue of saliva near the body. Her dad did that, I'm sure, when he found them together. Celeste is holding hands with her boyfriend during the interrogation, but the boyfriend pulls away, when he hears about the oral sex she gave to RJ. Bones and Booth thought the boyfriend was the person who spit at RJ. They didn't even consider that it might have been the father. Again, I'm a better detective.

Once they get to the gym, the guard confesses even before Booth and Bones can ask a question. He came in on Manning and his daughter. It killed him to see his daughter doing that. It also sounds as if he was jealous of RJ for being the "Magic Boy" and also mad because RJ had an STD and knew that when he took the daughter underneath the bleachers.

Guard pulls out a gun. Booth tells Bones he needs her to leave, NOW. She doesn't move and guard says it's not them he intends to shoot.

Booth tells the guy not to go down without a fight. Bones says, "What are you doing? You WANT him to shoot you?" He tells her to go. Surprisingly, she does.

The guard says he was just like RJ once, under the same bleachers in fact. He tells Booth he wouldn't understand. Booth says they were all like that. Guard says when you have a daughter, it's a different perspective. Booth tells him people will understand. Booth says he understands and recites guard's basketball stats.

"No one changed directions on the open court like you. Do it now. Just change direction again." Booth is intense, focusing on talking the guard down. DB is very good in the scene. Guard informs him that he, Cutler, died a long time ago. "I'm just putting him away." Oh-oh. So, did reminding him of his former greatness backfire? Just as he moved his arm and Booth thought he was lowering the gun, is the opposite going to happen? This is one of the times I should have been watching in real time for maximum tension, rather than pausing constantly. Even in releasing the pause button, I'm a little scared. I don't want to hear the gunshot go off and see Booth's reaction. Just as the suspense peaks, Bones appears from the other side of the bleachers and takes the gun out of Cutler's hand. I should have known that she didn't just walk away quietly, just like she didn't walk out of that locker room.

Booth nods to Cutler, moved and quiet, "All right." Emmy reel moment for DB.

Angela tells Hodgins she's not planning to break up with him, when he asks, if they're still together. He wants to know if he'd asked properly if she'd say yes. I have no patience for this, because they won't address the fact that she is married and DID say yes to him before. It's odd and maddening.

At the diner, Booth is still harping on the fact that Bones said adolescence was stunted for jocks. Bones says, "I never meant you." He says that he's one of those guys. She says, no he isn't.

"You don't play at being a warrior. You are a warrior. Every day you're definitely a fully developed man." He seems self-conscious, says ok and decides she should leave the tip.

Bones continues, even Cutler knew Booth was lying when he said he treated women like that under the bleachers too. Oh, did she believe Cutler? Bones said yes, because Booth still knew the first girl's name whom he took underneath the bleachers. He shifts in his seat and doesn't say anything. It's rather tender. She looks at him and takes the last sip from her malt. "Let's go," she says. He rises from the table, wearing a milk mustache.