Bones - The Radioactive Panthers in the Party - Review

I'll be honest with you, readers: in the third-from-the-final episode of Bones, I expected more to happen - especially with such a nutty name like "The Radioactive Panthers in the Party". However, it was a pretty straightforward who-done-it episode with very little over-arching contribution to the narrative. Probably.

PLOT

The episode focused heavily on the death of amateur filmmaker Ronald Bergman, a local mattress merchant who sank a million dollars of his own money into producing his own movie, only to have it completely rewritten by a temperamental actor with a rough reputation. Although they did tussle over the creative direction of the film, it was Ronald's store manager, unwilling to surrender her authority back to him when he came crawling back to the store, who ended his life and attempted to disguise the details of his death.

Meanwhile, Booth and Brennan crossed paths with Dr. Mayer (played by the always-delightful Betty White). She's moved on to a completely different field of science after her brief internship at the lab, and Brennan seeks her advice about how to get more in touch with her professional passions. She also seeks Angela's counsel, and although it seems self-reflective, she ends up having a conversation about passion with Wendall the intern, who was struggling to settle on a doctoral dissertation topic.

DISCUSSION

And that's really all that happened! It was a surprisingly simple episode. While I find this a tad disappointing as we hit the final crescendo for the show, I also hope that this means the last two episodes will be jam-packed with drama and satisfying conclusions.

However, I did get a whiff of two potential story-ending developments. First, Brennan repeatedly asks people about passion for their work; how they sense it, whether it noticeably changes, if Wendall has any, et cetera. Although her conversation at the end of the episode suggests otherwise, I began to wonder if Brennan is sensing a shift in her love for forensic anthropology. Perhaps, like she did a few seasons ago, she'll step away from the Jeffersonian?

And secondly, Booth has seemed to take a laid-back approach to his work lately. This episode, he gave Aubrey the lead role in the investigation (ostensibly to impress the L.A. field office that's been inquiring about him), but he's also claimed back issues in a recent episode, and it really just seems like he's been going through the motions lately. Is Booth considering an exit from work, as well? Or will he meet a totally different - and far more vengeful - end?