The Man in the Cell

I know Epps history with Brennan is important to the characters, so he is secondary. But as a recurring villain, I wish he was more interesting.

Once again, as prisoners grasp at Brennan while they walk down the corridor (reminiscent of Silence of the Lambs) Booth is telling Brennan to stay close like he said in the witch episode & the Judas one too. That is getting to be a theme. Booth reminds Brenann that these felons have not seen a woman in some time.

Brennan enters a cell to identify a charred body. It's supposed to be Epps (the man she put away before), but she can tell by the fact that his wrist was freshly broken (and not the old break she herself gave him months ago) that it's not him. She looks at a tattoo on the guy, because the ink of the tattoo survived the fire. Really? That surprises me. Anyway, the tattoo shows that this man was a fire fighter. Epps killed him and made the body look like his own, so that he can escape.

This reminds me of the prisoner escape in the X-Files' Orison. Hopefully, Epps won't make his way to Brennan's apartment, which is what happened to Scully. But Brennan did complain about hip-hop music keeping her awake at night (I trust it wasn't the song Don't Look Any Further that haunted Scully in the Orison episode) and that might be how they allow Epps to slip into her home and keep her from noticing that someone's in her apartment during the climax of this episode, because she'll be distracted by the noise of music coming from next door.

As Brennan is talking to Epps' ex-wife, she says, "We all have secrets in our past." Really Temp? What are hers? Aside from her parents'?

Booth tells her that Epps will want to bring her down, because she threatens him, due to the fact that she's a smart, strong, confident, woman. Brennan looks slightly pleased at this expression of his estimation of her.

Booth is worried about Brennan and Camille says she will hire extra security for the lab. Does Epps know about Camille? Why would he come after her. Booth tells her to be careful too. Did he just say that as an afterthought? Camille asks him, Is that an invitation, for her to stay with him tonight? But Booth is not inviting her over. He just says that whatever security she has, she should double it. Maybe he just pretended to be worried about her so that it wouldn't seem like the only reason he was requesting more security at the lab was to protect Brennan. After all, when Hodgins expressed his concern for Angela, Zach wondered why he wasn't also worried about the rest of them. Booth didn't want Camille to wonder likewise, so he was more affectionate with her than usual. Kissing at work is not exactly being discreet, like they have claimed they are being. This is the first PDA he has participated in since they showed the scene with them in bed together. As he leaves, he looks back at her in the doorway? What is it he wanted to say, before he left. He keeps it to himself.

Even though Brennan would have been leaving the room anyway when they got the clue that Epps was on his way to Little India, Booth grabs her and hustles her out of the lab. "C'mon!" What was that about? Must he physically move her constantly? Hodgins and Camille look on after them.

Although, Booth has told Brennan she doesn't need a gun many times, due to the fact that she once shot a suspect, she buys one at the mall. A gigantic one. They debate about whether bigger is better. Booth says it's how you use it that counts. She says that size matters too. He seems to think her big gun is more amusing than anything else.

So, I thought this episode would only put the forensics team in jeopardy, but surprise, Epps goes to the park where Booth's oaf of a son is playing with his nanny. Epps sure knows a lot about them. Of course, the only reason that people have kids on shows like this is so they can get kidnapped sometimes. Booth runs to the park where his son has disappeared from the ride he was on, right in front of the Nanny's eyes. This is a bad kid. He didn't just talk to a stranger, he got off the Merry-Go-Round to do so, without even consulting the nanny who brought him and he let the unknown guy buy him an ice cream cone. Obviously, though his dad is an FBI agent, no one has ever said anything to him about strangers. Also, the nanny had to have not been watching him for quite awhile for him to be at an ice cream stand several feet away. That required him to be missing for more than one cycle around the carousel.

Epps cuts off his ex-wife's head (that will teach her to reject police protection). Epps says he has left a clue inside the head. Brennan and Booth want her to cut open the head and find it pronto, but she says no. They are going to examine the head first before opening it up. It's her autopsy and they are going to do it her way. Just as I am thinking that I am tired of Camille's protocols, and they are just having her stress that procedures must be followed so that she will have to eat her orders later, everyone else reveals their impatience with her too, so she's not going to suffer for her decision, by endangering someone by her delay in looking at the head, as I thought. Instead, it's the other way around. She gives in. Ha, a minute or two later she is stricken by an emission from the head she cut into. So, there WAS guilt suffering but they are the ones who do it by making her go against her procedures, put in place for safety. So, I guess Booth will feel all guilty and will be all worried about her, remorseful and tender now. Not what I was hoping for.

Things look bad for Cam and they are told to send for her family, but I've peeked enough to know that even in 2012, TT is still with the show. So, no use getting my hopes up that Cam will die. Well, actually I like her. I just want her affair with Booth to be over.

Booth tells hospital staff that Cam has a lot of family, but he didn't go to send for anyone, so I gather he was being sarcastic and she has none. Oh, we find out that, unlike Brennan who is now alone again, Cam really does have family and they are on their way. Just because he made no move to call them doesn't mean anything, I guess.

If they had let Cam x-ray the head first, she would have seen the capsule inside the skull and this would have been avoided. Booth tells her he shouldn't have put so much pressure on her. Well, it was more than pressure. He TOLD her to stop doing everything else and get inside the head. But she says it is not his fault. It's Epps' fault.

Epps makes a call to Brennan and she doesn't want to tell him who was the victim of his exploding head. He says that if she doesn't tell him, he can't help her save the person's life.

Why does it matter who it was who got hit? The hint to save their life would be the same no matter who the victim is, wouldn't it? But Brennan falls for it. All he did was tell her how Saroyan got hit, which she already knew. But whoever it was who fell ill, the antidote would be the same.

Epps' clue to Brennan? "The body knows what the head can't say." Booth is at Cam's hospital bed and Brennan says she'll check back with her findings, but he decides to come with Bones. You could read this as his not caring enough about Cam to want to stay at the hospital or about his feeling too guilty to stay by her side or to stay in one place for too long. Maybe he feels the need to be doing something. I wouldn't be upset to think he was abandoning her, but it wasn't a choice between Cam and others. He was needed in the field to help Cam herself, if there's any chance of saving her. So, it's not like he made something else the priority. He just knew that sitting there holding her hand wouldn't help her most, especially with her family on the way, to be with her.

Zach is helping Booth decipher the message Epps left with Booth's son Parker. Maybe the word "Parker" is itself significant. Zach tells Booth to do a Boolean search? A menacing Booth prompts Zach to gather that Booth doesn't know what a "Boolean search" is and maybe Zach should do it himself. Every time Booth leaves the room, Hodgins and Zach call him back with further info. Finally he says, "Call me back I will shoot both of you." Oh-oh, Zach needs him to come back one more time. Ok, but Hodgins says, "Whatever you got, let it be worth dying for." Very funny.

Zach finds a location where Epps might have left a clue. Booth grabs Zach by the tie, saying "C'mon," this time with a rather high voice. I'm glad that even with Cam dying he has the time to be playful!???

They see a headless body lying on a table with a sack of powder on top of it. Booth's the only one who learned from what happened to Cam. The others are ready to approach that corpse without thinking twice. Zach grabs the bag, which triggers a pressure point. There's a bomb in the corpse. When Zach is at risk of detonation, Booth physically hustles Bones out of the room again. She must be tired of being manhandled.

He covers Zach's hand with his own after putting a table on its side, to shield them from the explosion, if they are quick enough to get behind it, once they remove their hands from the corpse. Booth instructs Zach: "On 3 I want you to jump back as high as you can." Zach rejoins: I'm not a good jumper. Booth: Be a good counter. Good dialogue. Good plot point. Good bravery on Booth's part. Very impressed. There is an explosion, but he and Zach only sustain minor injuries. This is one of the first times that I've seen Booth be as clever and instinctive a cop as Brennan keeps saying he is. Of course, Zach and Brennan (humoring Zach) won't give Booth credit for his bravery. Zach says he is the one who acted with courage and Brenann agrees. Booth tilts his head. "Someone saved someone, is all I'm saying." Adorable.

Hodgins finds the poison in the bag of powder they retrieved and he knows how to treat that. He gives the hospital instructions on how to save Cam. "Shouldn't you be there for that," Brennan asks? Should she have had to ask if his feelings are what everyone assumes they are? Wouldn't he have already been there? Since they are bluffing Epps by saying that Zach is dead and Booth is in critical condition after the explosion, why wasn't he at the hospital anyway, pretending to be a patient and using that as an excuse to stay close to Cam? Instead, he was still at the lab, joking (mock pouting) about who was the hero, him or Zach. It's not like he was too inconsolable about Cam dying and all.

Hodgins says: "Priorities in life man. You want to be there when someone you love come's back from the brink of death." Well, he's going to the hospital, but he doesn't love her. Funny that Hodgins mentions "priorities" when I had been thinking that too, as soon as this episode started and Booth first talked to Cam about protecting Brennan. The writers are thinking along the same lines as I am, but aren't making the character conclusions I was hoping for as clear as they could be.

Booth is always talking about how many people he has working on things. Ask him something and he says he has dozens of people already working on it. He apparently has 100s of subordinates that we never see.

At the hospital, Cam has been made up again, color on her face and lips, to show us she is well on the way to recovery. Her speech is slow, but she's still able to joke. "Don't call me Seeley." "Don't call me Camille." Awww, their opening lines to each other when her character first joined the show. How heartwarming, for those who are moved by such things.

"How are you feeling, babe?" He says to her. She mentions that she's ok, except for having all the plaster dust in her lungs. Plaster dust? That's a clue. Bet he shoots off to go protect Brennan. Cam probably won't be too upset. I think she feels guilty because she ordered extra security for the lab but that heart was still delivered to Angela anyway, penetrating right through the security she ordered, after she'd told everyone they were safe. So she probably wants Booth to protect others and won't see it as him putting other priorities ahead of her when he runs off to Brennan, the way I would like to see it. But that will come in a future episode. Her dawning realization. I am sure of it.

Wow, I sure nailed the thing about Epps getting into Brennan's apartment and the music from next door. He cut a hole in her wall from the apartment next door (hence the plaster dust) and climbed in through a shared wall. I am too psychic! But so is Brennan. She is not caught off guard by Epps. She had figured out the source of the plaster dust herself. As soon as he enters the room, she points her gun at him (shades of Orison once again) and does not have to be rescused by Booth.

On the balcony, Epps falls over the railing and Booth has him by one arm. Epps taunts Booth to let him fall, but Booth says that he is not like Epps and won't just take a life. Epps tells Booth he wants him gone, so he can't hurt Brennan or Booths' son in the future. Wouldn't the world be a better place without him? Booth holds on to Epps' hand and again says that he is not like Epps. He tells Epps to grab onto the railing with his other hand, but Epps won't. Brennan is there but she (suspiciously, ha) says the can't reach Epps' arm. Epps ends up falling.

The authorities tell Booth he is cleared of any wrongdoing. Units on the ground saw what happened? Wow, they have really good eyesight. The sniper across the street saw it too. So, we are sure that Booth didn't mean to kill Epps. It won't be a case of crossing an ethical line, as Scully did in Orison, but the Bones series is young. That test will come to out lead characters and one of them will fail it.

He feels guilty about letting Epps drop. Brennan says he didn't have his full strength. His wrist was sore from the explosion. He says his wrist wasn't sore (hinting that he deliberately let go or didn't try as hard as he could to pull the man up) and he's angry at himself and tells her she does not wish he had let her shoot Epps like she says she did (reminds me of Fred and Gunn in Angel and him taking the guilt or killling an enemy for her). But I don't really believe that Booth deliberately let Epps go. That's not what happened and if they want to say he transgressed in that way, then they have to make it clearer to the audience. Let us see that happen visually. Don't bury a big character moment in a scene that makes it look like the opposite happened. The way the scene played, it wasn't even a mystery, so that people could debate what happened either way. It looked like Epps feil, period. Plus, he had the option to grab the rail, which Booth told him to do. Epps CHOSE not to, because he wanted to make Booth feel guilty. If anything, I don't believe that Brennan couldn't have helped pull him up. She may be the one who let him fall. Her "I can't reach" looked and sounded a little flimsy. Yeah, she couldn't reach from where she was standing, but there was nothing keeping her from skootching over a little. I'm just saying.

Booth is at the park with stupid Parker. Brennan finds him there. I guess she knows he goes there every Saturday. She mentions that Cam is released from the hospital today. Booth won't be there to take her home. He indicates that his relationship with Cam is past tense, over because people in high risk situations can't be in personal relationships with each other. It's because they were that Cam was injured, he says. Well, that didn't happen to Cam because Epps knew they were lovers. I don't think Epps did. It's no different than what happened to Zach, really. All of them at the lab were in danger. Does he mean that Cam opened the head, because her lover told her to? That's not even true. When he just tried to boss her around, she resisted. It was after Parker, an innocent child (gag) was endangered that she buckled. I think she would have done that no matter whose little boy it was. Plus, Zach wanted to cut open the head too. He's not sleeping with anyone. He was just worried about all of his colleagues that Epps might want to hurt. Nothing about this had to do with Cam and Booth being lovers.


Weak excuse to break it off. I wonder if we will see him and Cam continue this conversation. I suppose that when he detailed why people in high risk jobs cannot fraternize Bones thinks he was giving a roundabout message to her as to why they can't be in a relationship but I don't take it that way. In a noncommittal tone, she says she knows what he is saying. But does she? To me, he is disentangling himself from Cam so that he can be open for exactly what he says that they (he and Brennan) are not supposed to have, a personal relationship. Although, this point would be clearer if he rushed Cam to saw open the head just to save Brennan. He actually did it because he was mad about Parker's close escape. That's when he really insisted that Cam open the head. If he'd done it solely because he was worried that Epps was getting closer to Brennan, then I'd say that a personal relationship with a co-worker did cause Cam's injury and that he knows that, but chooses not to explain which personal relationship was the culprit to Brennan. But that's not the way it happened.

He doesn't want Parker (annoying kid) to be scared of the park after what happened, so he's trying to get him used to it again. Get back on the horse. Brennan said he's always trying to make things right. They talk about Cam and his decision to put their liaison in the past and she says she understands why you can't have personal relationships with people you work with. After that remark, she observes that Parker seems to be having a good time on the merry-go-round again. He says, "It's important to make things right. I just don't know how. I don't know how."

That comment from him is definitely meant to refer to Camille too, but the way the episode was set up, I just don't know how. I don't know how.