'Bones': Blast from the past

This week's Bones brought us mullets, memories and murder courtesy of 1987. Kids, look at our mistakes and don't repeat them. "Skinny jeans" were wrong then, and they're wrong now.

Spoilers.

The Intro: A man named Terry Stinson does an introduction for his graduating class as two current students (one being his son, Alex) dig up the time capsule they buried in 1987. Instead of finding their memories, they find it full of foul-smelling goop. Stinson is upset with a guy named Gil who said it was water tight and sticks a crowbar in to fish around. Gil says it is, a fact that gets verification when Stinson pulls out a human skull - meaning that ain't water. Ew. When Booth and Brennan show up, Booth is reminiscing about his glorious football days. Brennan compares his trophy to certain tribes that use piercings to "symbolize the power and agility that's faded away." Booth changes the subject quickly as they approach the capsule. Gil is still on the scene and tells them the body wasn't there when it was sealed (he knows because he sealed it himself). Instead taking the whole thing back to the Smithsonian, Bones drills a hole in the side and drains the liquefied contents into the tub. As the liquid level falls, the rest of the skeleton and sealed in objects are revealed. Back at the lab, Brennan plays the video that was inside as Zack examines the remains.The rest of the team gathers, Cam telling everyone that Booth is getting a list of people who weren't at the ceremony and anyone in the class who had a record (yearbook in hand) and Angela bringing a sketch of the guy. Zack remembers seeing him in the video and points him out as Cam finds him in the yearbook. His name is Roger Dylan and, if he was at the ceremony, how'd he get put in the capsule?

The Investigation: This was a very interesting one because they gave you two people to suspect from the beginning - both Gil Bates and Terry Stinson pegged me as being possibly involved. Initially, Brennen and Booth go talk to Roger's father as Zack identifies almost all of his healed fractures as being older injuries. Booth asks why, in twenty years, Dad never reported his son missing. It's because he thought he'd just run away based on the note he left with the mother before his disappearance. See, dear old Dad was a drunk (though he's recovered) and when Roger visited him and asked for money the night he vanished, Dad reacted by twisting Roger's arm. Dad didn't take hearing Roger was dead well and, as they're leaving, he tells Brennan and Booth that he loved his son and never meant to hurt him. Back at the lab, Angela takes out each item in the capsule as Cam checks them against the master list and they find two things that weren't on it - a pocket watch and a floppy disk. Angela finds out that the floppy disk contains a 3D first-person shooter game, like Doom only more impressive since it was developed 6 years prior to it. Hodgins says if Roger had been able to publish the game, he would've been a billionaire. Money's a good motive for murder so Booth and Brennen questions Gil again (who's the only living person who saw Roger's farewell note since the mother's dead). They were going to start their own video game company after high school but Gil didn't know the game had actually been made since Roger was a perfectionist and wouldn't show him anything unless it was done. In order to start their business, they needed computers which cost a lot of money back then so they both did odd jobs. Zack then discovered a chip on the skull which would indicate a sharp yet blunt object was jabbed into his jaw, one that would sever his major arteries and cause him to bleed out. The pocket watch had traces of cocaine in it and it belonged to a jerk name Adamson who was on the hockey team (one of his skates was in the capsule and could've been the murder weapon) whom Roger took the SATs for. They questioned him, but that was just a red herring - Roger showed up that night to try and blackmail him out of more money so he gave him the pocket watch and all the cash he had. Earlier, Hodgins found what at first seemed to be a form of nerve gas in the liquefied remains but turned out to be a broken down compound of this hardcore mosquito killer the city sprayed around a housing development area the night Roger died. That happens to be be where Terry's wife Jenelle used to live. When Booth and Bones visit Jenelle to ask her a few questions, she states that he was only her math tutor (which they already knew thanks to Gil) and that she thought he had a crush on her, but that was the extent of their relationship. Alex shows up and Jenelle excuses herself to talk to him for a moment. Bones then tucks one of their family pictures into her jacket and quickly wraps up the questioning. At the Jeffersonian, she has Angela pull up a picture of Alex and a picture of Roger - they share facial markers. Meaning Alex is Roger's son. With the suspicion squarely on Terry Stinson's shoulders now, Booth and Brennan bring Terry and Jenelle into a questioning room where the proverbial cat gets let out of the bag. Terry had no idea Alex wasn't his son and Jenelle explains that Roger adored her and paid her a lot of attention, something Terry really wasn't doing at the time. When she found out she was pregnant, she told Roger who wanted them to go away together (which is why he was gathering all that money). She said no because she and Terry had reconciled at that point and she never heard from Roger again after that. As devastated as he is, Terry still says that Alex is his son and they are a family. Which is good because I'm sure neither Booth nor Bones would want to be responsible for breaking up the marriage of an innocent man. So Gil did it. It was an accident. They had gone back to put a spoof version of the yearbook in the time capsule so they dug it up and Gil used his pavement shovel from his job to open up the lid. When Roger told him about Jenelle, Gil didn't take it so well and they end up getting in a fight. He jabbed at Roger with the shovel and accidentally killed him. Gil didn't know about the pregnancy, which made him feel even guiltier.

The Booth/Brennan Connection: This whole time capsule thing has got everyone reminiscing so Booth asks Bones to tell him a story from her younger days. She tells him about this boy she liked, the captain of the lacrosse team. He had pulled her name for Secret Santa and then he taped her present to her locker, which she took as a deliberate slight. He got her Brainy Smurf when she had wanted Smurfette. Booth promised not to laugh when she told him, yet he did...and denied it while suppressing his laughter. He stopped after Brennan said Angela was right about Booth being "one of those guys." When they visit Dr. Sweets (yay!), he notices that Brennan is angry and she tells him why. In order to make it up to her, Sweets suggests that Booth share a equally vulnerable and humiliating story with Bones. The rest of the episode, Booth tells story after story but none of them is even slightly as embarrassing. They all end up being about him nailing a girl, which Brennan points out. At the end of the episode, he finally tells her his story. See, there was this smart guy who called Booth and his jock buddies philistines. Not knowing what it meant at the time, Booth replied that he wasn't a philistine, he was Catholic. One of Booth's friends then picked the kid up and dangled him over the stairs. Everyone laughed and the kid cried and Booth did nothing to stop it, he "chose the wrong side" which he finds humiliating. That's probably the reason he got all touchy whenever someone said that he must've been one of "those guys." He also brought her a Brainy Smurf, telling her that Smurfette was shallow and only had her looks while Brennan has looks and brains. This was another strong episode for Bones and Booth's interactions. I enjoyed how they bickered over Booth's stories, so much so that they would still be at it when they walked into another room.

The Entertaining Subplot: There are two this week. The more minor one was everyone recounting tales about how they were when they were younger - Cam was a rebel, Hodgins wore Doc Martins that weighed more than him, Zack had a Michael Jackson glove (which Hodgins reacts to by saying, "I liked Chevy Chase. We all have our crosses to bear.") and Angela had visions of stirrup pants and side-ponytails. The major sub-plot revolved around Dr. Sweets. Booth got him to work up a profile on the killer (which fit Gil exactly) and he really dug being "out in the field." Hodgins tells him that being in the Jeffersonian is not the field but Sweets says it is when you spend 8 hours a day surrounded by neurotics..."No offense, Dr. Brennan." I really do enjoy when Sweets is on an episode, though I'm glad he's not in every single one. Not that he wouldn't be entertaining in each one, it's just that the therapy session bit should be used sparingly which is probably why they're setting him up as a psych profile specialist. They do a really good job at both showing how adept he is at his profession and how young he is. He called Hodgins "dude" and also said at one point that helping catch a killer would really make it "a good night" with his girlfriend.

Quotes of the Night:

• "Whoa...that is rank." - Booth upon seeing (and smelling) the time capsule for the first time
• "Definitely an 80's plot to destabilize the country." - Hodgins when Angela takes out a can of New Coke from the capsule
• "He's Mr. Second Best. It's kinda like when you want Brad Pitt and you get Matthew McConaughey."  - Angela about Terry Stinson

Did I miss your favorite part or quote? How awesome is Dr. Sweets? And how awful is it that a lot of those terrible 80's fashions are coming back?

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