A case of bubbling, foaming 'Bones'

The effects team gets to go all out this week on "Bones," coming up with a corpse that will leak green foam, form a "hard candy shell," and look properly gruesome when a bungee-jumping bride and groom get a glimpse. All this and a monkey -- and you know everything's better with monkeys!

The suit-clad corpse is found at the bottom of a ravine and brought back to the lab, where his skin bulges and flexes disconcertingly. I wonder for a moment if one of the spiky cold-virus slugs from "Fringe" migrated to a different show, but no -- it's just a noxious green foam that bubbles up from the body. Um, yay?

But that's just the beginning of the craziness with these bones. As they foam, the bones are turning into gelatinous goo and dissolving away. When TriviaMaster NotZack pulls a high-powered lamp over tot he body, there's a pop, and the body becomes wreathed in blue flame. Cool! The team figures out the bones are giving off hydrogen gas, and that leads them to the conclusion that they were doused with hydrofluoric acid. Hodgins coats the bones with antacid (he's got an industrial-size tube of antacid powder under his station, and wait, antacid comes in powder form?). The good news -- that stops the bones from dissolving. The bad news -- now the body is encased in a solid shell. Doh!

Dental records show that our foamy corpse belonged to Alex Newcomb, the former "Top Bwana" salesman at Jungle Jim's car emporium. Jungle Jim has apparently decided that carrying around an adorable monkey will sell cars. Ohhhhhkay. Alex quit recently and went to a rival dealership. On the way out, he touched Jim's monkey (yes, they went there), which Jim finds unforgivable. Booth and Brennan go to his new job, where the brothers who own it claim everything was shiny and happy. But a visit to a nearby strip club suggests otherwise: Strawberry Lust, a dancer, said she saw Alex and Buddy, his colleague from the dealership, get in a fight right before he died. Booth takes Buddy for a test drive in a very fast, very expensive car, and convinces Buddy to spill that 1) they'd fought because Alex snaked one of Buddy's customers, and 2) Alex had said he was going back to Jungle Jim's to get his old job back.

So, maybe the current Top Bwana at Jungle Jim's offed Alex to keep her position? Brennan makes a singularly inept attempt at interrogation (more on that later) and unwittingly finds out that Alex was splitting his sales with his brother, another car salesman as Jungle Jim's. Chet is ill, and his sales had been dropping. That information, plus the monkey poop found on Alex's shoe, lead the team back to Jungle Jim's, where they find blood in the service area, plus a barrel of cleaning fluid that contains lots of hydrofluoric acid. We've got a murder scene!

But we don't yet have a murder weapon, and it's going to be hard to come by one when the bones are locked in an antacid-provided carapace. Fortunately, Angela works her tech wizardry and shows that the murder weapon was most likely a pair of scissors. Let's see, Chet's wife is a tailor... She confesses that Alex caught her having sex with Jungle Jim -- she was trading her body for Chet's continued employment. Alex wouldn't let her explain, so she killed him.

Booth and Brennan
Brennan observes Booth's interrogation technique, and decides that she wants to do that, too! She asks Sweets to teach her to read people... which goes about as well as you would expect. After one session of almost recognizing hugely exaggerated expressions, Brennan decides it's her turn to question the suspect. She even tells Booth that hey, if he can do it, it can't be that hard... It is. She sucks.

Later, Brennan tells Angela that she can't figure out what Booth has that she doesn't. "Booth's brilliant at pretending to be stupider than he actually is most of the time," Angela tells her. "Especially around you. He knows that you like to be the smart one, so he lets you have that." But, but... I AM the smart one! Brennan protests. "Ok, so maybe you should just let him have the people skills part of the job to himself, then." Angela says.

And wonder of wonders, Brennan actually does. She allows that her interrogation was dreadful, and that Booth is the master at it. "So, you're admitting that I'm better at something than you are?" Booth asks. "N--!" Brennan starts to say. Then: "Yes. A lot better." Who woulda thunk it?

Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends

• We learn a little more about TriviaMaster NotZack -- he burbles facts when he's discombobulated. Cam uses that to help him focus, but I have a hear time caring. Bring back Wendell -- he's the best NotZack!
• When the corpse's skin starts moving, Brennan asks if it could be insect activity. "I've never seen insects like that," Hodgins replies. "Except in Alien." And on Fringe!
• Booth lays it on thick for Brennan: "Foaming? What would cause that? Too much beer? Or maybe he ate soap!" Brennan is oblivious to the sarcasm: "You should stop using cartoons as a scientific reference point."
• Brennan accompanies Booth to the strip club to speak to Strawberry Lust. Booth tries to send her away, but Brennan says she wants to "observe." She's talking about Booth's interrogation techniques (I think), but Ms. Lust assumes she's talking about the lap dance. That's confirmed when Brennan forks over the money for it. Ah, Booth -- the things you go through on your job!
• When Brennan asks Hodgins and TriviaMaster NotZack how the fire happened, both guys point at the body like guilty five-year-olds. "Oh, I see, we're going with the old 'blame the corpse' defense!" Cam says.
• Cam and the guys try to figure out how to examine the bones after the shell has formed. TriviaMaster NotZack suggests severing one of the less-important limbs and doing some tests, then maybe a hitting the shell with a mallet. Hodgins suggests a piñata scenario. Cam gets frustrated enough that it looks like she's actually going to smash the corpse with a tire iron, but Angela presents the tech solution before she can make contact.
• Booth borrows the fast car from Buddy (really? Buddy would let Booth near the car after his previous driving?) and Brennan demands to drive it. Booth acquiesces... and Brennan guns it and stalls out in the middle of the intersection.
• Strawberry Lust is dancing to pay for the criminology degree she's earning at Georgetown. Sweets had a much more unsavory way of making money for grad school -- he taught car salesmen psychological techniques that they could use to manipulate buyers. For shame!