'Bones', Idols and the psycho stalker

Bones decides to rid the world of American Idol also-rans, which makes me giggle with unseemly glee. OK, what really happens is some Idol rejects show up as singers at an ultra-competitive club open mic night, and one of them ends up a particularly gnarly corpse, but I like my first interpretation better.

Play Spoiler Man.

Our Corpse of the Week is found mangled in the tall grass after being run over by a thresher or some such bit of landscaping equipment. He used to be Tommy Sour, an amateur singer, professional physical trainer, and all-around cheeseball. He'd been pissing people off for a long time.

First suspect: Pam, a client of Tommy's who seemed to think they were engaged. As Tommy called her "Fat Pam," I'm guessing attraction wasn't mutual. She brings an album of long-lens pictures to the interrogation, and she immediately sets off Sweets' psycho-stalker alarms. Booth, alas, doesn't know what he's getting into -- he shows Pam something other than complete contempt, which to Pam is tantamount to a declaration of love. Just like that, the obsession is transferred. She starts tailing Booth, insisting she meet him without Brennan, giving him gifts, and laughing off any attempt he makes to inject some professional distance into the situation. Creepy!

But creepy doesn't equal killer (in this case, at least) -- she was in Florida for when Tommy was killed, planning their wedding. Yikes.

Brennan and Booth turn to the club where Tommy sang for more suspects. A rival singer faulted him for stealing his signature song on talent scout night, but after they had words, rival guy stayed in the bar all night while Tommy was being killed. Booth figures out that the talent scout isn't what he seems -- he's actually a guy the club manager club hired to put on a suit and look scout-y, thus luring good singers and generating more liquor sales. While skuzzy, this, too, isn't motive, since Tommy was too dim to figure the scam out.

He was not too dim to hit on good-looking women. Maybe a jealous guitar-playing boyfriend? After all, Tommy's neck was slit by some sort of non-serrated edge, and a guitar string would fit the bill.  But Guitar Man isn't jealous of Tommy hitting on his girl -- he just hates Tommy because he bilked a friend of his out of $50,000 to self-produce a CD. That friend is his boss at the gym, who has just fled the state, but he turns out to be in the clear, too -- he was just running for creditors, and Tommy dead means Tommy will never pay the money back.

That leaves the neighbor, an artist who has Grinch-like objections to the noise, noise, Noise, NOISE! The sound of Tommy's alarm ringing drives him around the bend, but the sound of Tommy constantly singing was worse. One night, he just lost it and tried to scare Tommy by attacking him with a clay-cutting wire. As Tommy was completely baked, and that wire was meant for, you know, cutting, the neighbor accidentally severed Tommy's jugular, killing him. Oops.

Booth and Brennan
As usual, Booth and Brennan are fabulous together, which is not something you want to do in front of a psycho stalker. I even liked their conversation in the diner when Brennan admits that she acknowledges Booth has superior expertise in some matters, then ruins it by brining up her fabulously successful writing career. Hee!

Brennan talks about when she was a young teen, her mom told her she did a better version of "Girls Just Want To Have Fun"  than Cyndi Lauper  herself. Everyone scoffs -- moms are supposed to say things like that. Booth  decides to let Brennan show off and signs her up to sing said song at the open mic night. Brennan can in fact sing, and is completely adorable bouncing and twirling around the stage. Booth gets out his lighter and is chair-dancing along, which psycho stalker Pam sees. She decides to put a stop to this unseemly event by pulling a gun on Brennan. Booth sees her and jumps in front of the bullet. Brennan jumps from the stage to cradle Booth, shoots Pam in the throat, and yells at Booth to hang on as he fades out of consciousness.

Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends:

• Look, I know Booth getting shot is supposed to be horribly dramatic, but realistically, there's no way in hell he's going to die. It would kill the show. So it seems like manufactured drama rather than earned drama, you know? My editor disagrees -- he doesn't think the show isn't trying to get people with "Will Booth die?", but instead thinks it's more a matter of people tuning in to see what it does to the characters and to Booth and Brennan's relationship. I get that, but I still think it's a cheap ploy. What about you?
• That said, Pam was creepy as hell, and seriously bad news. Booth was remiss not to spot that.
• Brennan is an amazing shot. The way she quickly scooped up Booth's gun and shot Pam through the hollow of her throat was pretty awesome. Her next open mic
• performance selection can be Filter's "Hey man, nice shot."
• Sweets! I do love him, and hope he doesn't turn out to be Gorgamon's minion. It's entirely too much fun watching him (literally) poke at Brennan, and be (metaphorically) poked at in turn by Booth and Brennan together. And hey, I'm betting the two of them are going to need some serious therapy soon!
• A favorite Sweets quote: "Mocking will not change my opinion. I've been mocked many, many times before. [Beat] That... didn't come out right."
• There's something adorable about Booth and Sweets sniggering over a "cut the cheese" reference.
• Zack bursting into song was a bit squicky to me. I'm glad the guy can sing, but there's a time and a place, you know? Zack, of course, does not. And Angela -- stop encouraging him!
• Zack actually had some good moments tonight. He details his exercise regimen to Cam, then says "I'm deceptively strong." "I'm deceived," replies Cam.
• I can't help but think that Fox was encouraging the dread corporate synergy with this episode -- "Hey, let's combine Idol with Bones!" --  and the writers decided to have some fun with it by making the Idol an egotistical ass who craved attention. But perhaps that's just me...

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