'Bones' and the bouncing baby boy

This episode of Bones was cotton candy -- sweet, fluffy and insubstantial. It wasn't bad, but there wasn't much to it. Our heroes find themselves in possession of an adorable wee kidlet; hilarity ensues. I don't quite buy the rationale for Bones and Booth having to take care of the kid -- and take it to various potentially dangerous crime scenes -- but the episode had enough funny moments that I'm willing to overlook that particular narrative stretch.

Spoilers aren't purple.

Brennan and Booth are called to the scene of a crispy corpse in a car that ran off a rural road. While they're poking at charred flesh, Booth hears something -- a baby crying. The baby is in his car seat, up in a tree. Neat trick! Brennan also finds a key in the diaper bag, which the baby promptly swallows. Due to chain-of-custody requirements, Booth and Brennan now have to keep the kid until the key comes out the other end.

Poking around a nearly dead West Virginia town reveals that the baby is Andy, his mom was Meg and (thanks to Angela's facial reconstruction picture) Meg is our corpse. Meg worked at the only business still going in the area, a place that turns tires into playground mulch. She had a husband, but he was a drunk who was in and out of jail, and left Meg before Andy was born. When Booth and Brennan go to check out Meg's trailer, they find the wastrel husband rooting through her things, but he's too dumb to have committed the crime. Also he has an alibi, but I'm going with too darn stupid.

The squints discover that that Andy is on seizure medication, and that Meg was suffering from bone deformities that probably caused her debilitating pain. She didn't have any painkillers in the house, and her boss says she worked harder than most of the men at her physically demanding job. A couple of Meg's coworkers say a sleazy accountant from corporate headquarters was hitting on her before they both disappeared. Could he be the killer?

Andy finally produces the key, which goes to a safe deposit box in a nearby bank, which holds a gun that had been fired recently. The bone fragments and brain matter they find on the gun belongs to the missing accountant, who also had evidence that someone was embezzling from the tire recycling plant. Meg's boss had been skimming -- he knew it was only a matter of time before the plant shut down, and he wanted a nest egg. He killed the accountant, Meg witnessed the crime and tried to blackmail her boss, and the bossman killed her.

Brennan and Booth
The crime itself was secondary to the Brennan, Booth and Baby moments. Brennan is hysterically (and believably)  uncomfortable around the baby at first, while Booth goes into practiced daddy mode. You gotta love a man who can change a diaper with such aplomb. Of course, Brennan eventually becomes smitten with the kid, and refuses to warehouse him with the state when he finally releases the key. It was glorious to see Brennan start to unbend and play with Andy, sneaking a zerbit on his neck and wiggling her fingers while chirping "phalanges!"

However, a little of that goes a long way, and I'm glad they set it up so Andy goes to Meg's friends, a childless couple who had cared for him while Meg was working. But Brennan's time with Andy, and the couple who adopted him, prompted her to use her seven-figure book advance to rebuild a bridge that connected the town to "the scenic route," despite an earlier speech about how towns, like organisms, sometimes just die.

Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends:

• Brennan, when Booth tries to hand the baby off to her: "Just because I have breasts doesn't mean I have magical powers over infants!" Amen, sister.
  
• Brennan is in typical clueless mode at first with Andy: "Elephants are not purple. This is wrong," she tells him when she finds his toy. Later, when talking about how she got Andy new clothing, she says: "I sent an intern, who apparently loves bears, which in reality would devour a small child." True, but not exactly the point.
• I really did appreciate that they didn't immediately have every woman on the show clutch at her ovaries and announce she wanted kids. Sure, Angela said she wanted "a million of these," but Cam was happy to appreciate the cuteness and then hand the kid off. I just wish Cam hadn't announced that she didn't want kids because it would mess up her figure. Sigh.
• Brennan gets a seven-figure advance for her books? Yowza!
• Booth, when Brennan asks him what he does with his money: "I use it, for food and rent." But he's happy to suggest ways from Brennan to spend her cash, namely on a 103-inch plasma and a house on the river.
• Booth, when he picks up on the reason Hodgins is doing something before it has to be spelled out: "That is right, people. I am a constant surprise!"
• Fun science fact: Rubber floats. Bone doesn't.
• Baby Andy has rickets. More vitamin D for you, young man!

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