Hey Boneheads! I have to start this post by apologizing for how long it's taken me to post these reviews. There's been a rash of deaths in my extended family this spring, and it's had me turning to my comfort media, rather than taking in new shows...
BUT I'M BACK, and Bones has made some interesting progress in my absence. So let's dive right in.
Episode 13, "The Baker in the Bits", shook loose some of Booth's rarely-mentioned-but-fairly-recent memories of prison, as they investigated the death of a convict who struggled to straighten up and fly right after being released. While I found the resolution (one of his fellow cons committing ritual killings) a little ridiculous, other aspects of the episode were more compelling.
Back in the lab, Cam and Arastoo butted heads in a major way when Arastoo made the alarming decision to return to Iran to care for his brother - the only member of his family who wasn't exiled from the country. Cam not only feared for the future of their relationship, but for Arastoo's life, as well! In the end, though, he had to go, and she admitted that he needed to care for her future brother in law.
Another thing I noticed during this episode was how hard it's been for the showrunners to naturally add Aubrey into the ensemble. Most of the cast lives in the Jeffersonian world, and their quirks (like Clark's desire for privacy, Vincent's fact dropping, or Fisher's moroseness) go with the territory of nerd-level intelligence. Robbed of that, I'm having trouble thinking of Aubrey as a true member of the team, and as awkward comment that Bones made in this episode about Aubrey overeating felt like an overly-forced effort on the showrunners' part. I'll talk more about this in my next post, but for now, I just want to put it out to you guys: does Aubrey have the same kind of humanizing quirks that other characters on this show seem to enjoy? Does it feel natural, or forced, in a way that other characters haven't felt? You are totally welcome to tell me I'm all on my own on this one. :)
After watching this episode, I also wanted to mention that lately, Brennan seems to be growing stagnant, in terms of character growth. Apart from her charming explorations of blackmail in episode 1, and Twitter in episode 12, Bones has been pretty subdued. Sometimes they trot her into a scene so she can make sanctimonious speeches, and she's usually right, but I miss the days when she had a lot to learn about being human and helping others.
Then I saw episode 14, "The Putter in the Rough." While I do think that dragging up conflict between her and her father, Max, is a little played out, I did appreciate her getting another chance to remember that people aren't perfect, but they are still worth loving.
I was also grateful to see Wendall's storyline veer away from the cancer drama that's been his main focus for the last year or so. In this episode, he inadvertently broke his new paramour's vintage clock, and enlisted Hodgins's help in piecing it back together. Even though I saw the end of this story coming (the girlfriend revealing that the clock never worked, and he shouldn't have been agonizing about it the whole time), I always enjoy when Hodgins geeks out with the squinterns.
