Welcome back, Boneheads!
It's been a long, tense summer for those following Booth and Brennan; season 9 ended with our beloved Booth handcuffed to a hospital bed after an explosive shootout while Brennan cried out for him, restrained by FBI agents. The Jeffersonian squints had just uncovered a deep-rooted conspiracy in the course of their investigation of the death of a reporter who was preparing to come forward with some damning evidence.
The season premiere brought us 3 months forward from that moment, to find an incarcerated Booth taking heat from inmates and correctional officers alike. Brennan's taking strides to free him, both legally and illegally. The Jeffersonian team is taking a closer look at the exhumed body of an EPA worker named Cooper to shake loose some of the secrets they discovered. Sweets and Miss Julian are working the system in Booth's absence, alongside an eager new agent named James Aubrey.
And that's all I can tell you without getting real spoiler-tastic, y'all, so if you haven't seen the episode yet and don't want it ruined, quit reading and get to watching.
Fox has been teasing the episode as a glimpse into Booth's hard-knock life in prison, but thankfully, that's over by the opening credits. Booth dives back into the mystery at hand, a little bit worse for wear but back in his element.
While the squints chip away at Cooper's body in search of answers, Booth confronts the bigwig at Sanderson Chemicals that got permits approved right after Cooper died. From there, he's tailed by newcomer Agent Aubrey and brought into the FBI headquarters where tensions are high; the agents think Booth killed 3 of their own kind, and the Deputy Director is reluctant to reissue Booth's gun and badge.
To be fair, Booth's dogged behavior is a bit unstable. This case is personal to him, and he admits he's out for revenge rather than justice: "The ones who did this to me and my wife - they're gonna pay. And after that you can have my badge and my gun. You're never gonna see me again."
Brennan consults both Angela and Sweets about Booth's behavior, and gets two pieces of advice. From Angela, she's told to "take what she needs" to keep the relationship solid. From Sweets, she's reminded that Booth's faith in the system is shaken beyond belief: "It's like somebody died."
I love Sweets' bit of insight here, because it harkens back to "The Proof in the Pudding", an episode way back in season 5, in which the thought of a government cover-up agitates Booth; as a former sniper, he's placed his trust in the government, and discovering he might have misplaced his trust calls to question a lot of very hard decisions he's made for his country.
As the episode reaches its climax, the squints discover that Cooper died from a toxic mixture of chemotherapy medication and antacids - antacids that Sanderson Chemical was working on. Booth and Brennan follow a lead at an old-folks home while Sweets rushes over to retrieve the documents that could prove the chemical company was involved in Cooper's death.
It's hard to say goodbye to this character; Sweets frequently helped Brennan untangle emotional complexities she couldn't understand, offered counseling and camaraderie to Booth, and aided the Jeffersonian team through a host of personal and interpersonal stresses - all with a boyish grin and a brilliant intellect. His own emotional (and physical) scars added great dimension to his role, and it's one I'll miss as the season continues.
Our final view is one of the Jeffersonian team coming together to analyze Sweets' remains; they're swallowing the pain, buckling down, and eager to find answers to the big questions hanging over their heads. Despite this rather abrupt ending (and a break from the show's typical killer-of-the-week format), I think it's a great metaphor for the show's viewers. This season is going to be personal. The villain is going to be bigger than one person, and it'll take more than one episode (maybe even the whole season) to come to a head. It's time for us Boneheads to square our shoulders and get ready; there's a plot afoot.
Everyone seems very shocked by Sweets' departure, but the truth is that Bones is in its final season, and this is no time to pull punches. They have (at most) 23 more episodes to leave a lasting impressions, and we'd all be pretty angry with a "tra-la-la everyone lives!" conclusion to the series. Like True Blood did just this summer, they're upping the stakes by killing off a major character right up front; we Boneheads should brace ourselves for the possibility of more tragedy in the coming months.
Some of the big questions this episode rose that I encourage you to answer in the comments section:
- Will there be any repercussions to Brennan's ballsy blackmailing?
- Will Booth follow through on his threat to leave the FBI once this case is over?
- Will more familiar faces end up on Cam's slab?
- Will the runners of this conspiracy be the villains of the season?
- Will Sweets' remains lead the team to a big discovery?
- Will one of the team members turn out to be part of the conspiracy?
