'Bones' goes to 11 with Stephen Fry and death metal

Oh, "Bones" -- when you're good, you're so very, very good. The team delves into a death-metal murder, and ends up unearthing enough of their own childhood trauma to fuel a hundred howling rantsongs. It's all with the help of the fabulous Stephen Fry, who returns as Gordon Wyatt and leads our heroes to some inner truth and homemade family. Rock on!

The crime is secondary to the characters this week, so let's fly through this, shall we? A human skeleton used as a prop for black metal/death metal bands belonged to Mayhem, the bassist for the DC-based death metal band Spew. Mayhem (real name: Justin) had marks in his pelvic bone that indicating someone had shot him in the butt and then  gouged out the bullet.  Other evidence suggests he was strangled, then stabbed. Everyone in the death metal world is eager to take credit for the murder -- it just makes us look more hardcore!

And hardcore is what it's all about -- Murderbreath, the leader of rival band Zorch, slashes his own throat on stage, and Mayhem had a shtick where a woman in the audience would "shoot" him and he'd spray the audience with blood. But one time, she actually did shoot him -- in the butt instead of the neck. The shooter was Lexie, Mayhem's girlfriend. Mayhem asked her to -- hardcore! -- and she complied. But she says Mayhem was looking to get out of death metal and into her power- punk-pop band. Some crazed metal fan who disdained his lack of hardcoredness must have killed him!

There's some psychoanalyzing, and some threatening, and then the team sees that Spew singer Pinworm wears a bullet around his neck, and that such a display would suggest to those in the know that (1) he killed Mayhem, and (2) he's the hardest core (hardcorest?) of all! He's also someone who thrives on attention, so when Booth and Brennan tell him they're going to let him go and charge Murderbreath, he slips up and admits to knowing that Mayhem was strangled with barbed wire. Oops! He's the killer!

Gordon, Sweets and psychology
Gordon is in town because Sweets wants to interview him for his book about Booth and Brennan. Gordon is happy to talk -- but he disagrees with everything Sweets has written.

Sweets and Gordon share more than a psychology -- they also have surprising musical pasts. Sweets was (ok, maybe is) a fan of death metal, and Gordon used to be glam rocker Noddy Comet. Brennan attends the Zorch show with  Sweets, and she rips his shirt off to stanch Murderbreath's wound. She sees scars on Sweets' back -- scars that suggested he'd been brutally whipped.

Gordon is the one who figures it all out: Sweets was adopted, yes, but not as an infant. He was six when he met his adoptive parents, and before that, he'd lived through an abusive hell. His adoptive parents died right before he got the job at the Jeffersonian.

Gordon tells Booth and Brennan that's why Sweets is nearly obsessed with learning about their own horrific childhoods. He's looking for a new family -- and Booth and Brennan are it. "So he imprinted on us, like a baby duck?" Brennan asks. Yeah, pretty much. Perhaps you should let Sweets know that he's not the only one with scars on his back...

So Booth decides to invite Sweets to dinner, and when Sweets declines, Brennan blurts out, in her Brennan way, that her foster parents locked her in a car trunk for two days when she was a kid. And this time, her blunt, emotionally tone-deaf, completely-unaware-of-social-norms honesty is absolutely right, and utterly heartbreaking. She even prompts Booth to admit a bit about his past. And it's enough for Sweets to know he's not alone.

Brennan and Booth
One of the things Gordon disputes from Sweets' book is that Booth and Brennan are sublimating their sexual attraction through their work -- "One of them is acutely aware of that attraction, struggles with it daily, as a matter of fact." "Wow," Sweets says. "Which one?"

By the end of the episode, we know -- there's a gorgeous moment after Brennan tells Sweets about her childhood abuse, and she's crying (while still trying to make everything rational.) Booth hands her his handkerchief and hovers over her -- he's paralyzed, and can't stand to see his stoic partner cry. She tucks the handkerchief back into his breast pocket, patting it as she finishes. Booth's hand strays up to the pocket, over his heart, just barely missing Brennan's fingers. He gazes at her, then looks away when he's conscious of what he's doing. Sweets smiles -- now he sees what Gordon was seeing.

Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends:

• Bravo to Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz and John Francis Daley on that last scene. It was heartbreaking and fantastic.
• Gordon announces he's leaving psychology for culinary school. I can only pray that he gets through school in record time, and next season he's running the restaurant the team hangs out in.
• Hodgins, Cam and Angela were basically extras this episode. So was NotZack Clark, although he did have some great moments. "You want to say King of the Lab?" Cam asks after he figures out something tricky. "No," he replies -- but he considered it for a second! 
• Sweets in full death-metal getup, dog collar and all, was a site to behold.
• Booth reveals a bit about his musical preferences: In addition to owning a Noddy Comet album, he name-checks Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys. He also takes umbrage at Sweets referencing "the guy with the tongue from KISS" -- "Tell Sweets to leave Gene out of it!" -- so I think it's safe to say he was a fan.
• Booth shared his own childhood trauma, but not so much with Sweets -- he was looking right at Brennan. He only turned to Sweets when he added "That's all I'm going to say on the subject matter, understand?" He's powerless to her puppy-dog eyes.
• Once again, Booth brings up his grandfather. When are we going to meet the man?

So what do you think? Do you buy the Booth-Brennan-Sweets family of choice? Do you rate this ep as one of the best of the season -- and possibly the series? Talk!