'Bones' meets Bridezilla

"Bones" encounters a woman who has been planning her perfect wedding her whole life. This gives Brennan the opportunity to talk about pointless, antiquated rituals, which prompts Booth to defend love and marriage, which causes random passers-by to shout "Just get a room, already!" Or maybe that's just me.

The Bridezilla in question is Meriel Mitsakos. Her corpse is crushed in a bale of recycled cardboard, and it has basically oozed into the substrate. The team has to scrape her off the cardboard like pizza from an oven -- and thanks a lot for that image, too. Is this show trying to make EVERYTHING that tastes good unpalatable?

Examination of the body finds a straight pin near her spine -- probably from a dress fitting. The maggots feasting on her yummy pizza flesh are completely plastered -- there was a heck of a lot of tequila in her system when she died. There's glycerin on the body, consistent with the way bouquets are preserved, or with the atmospheric bubbles at the Champagne Lounge. And evidence on the body indicates she was run over by an SUV -- twice. Apparently, the killer struck her down, then backed up over her to make sure she was dead.

The suspects

• The plastic surgeon who shaved down her toes... presumably because Booth and Brennan didn't like him, as there was no other reason for him to off her.
• The wedding-dress seamstress, who had been moved to slap her after a particularly fraught fitting. But I'm a gentlewoman! She says. I'm not entirely sure how that qualifies as an alibi.
• Her ex-fiancé, who got dumped, then found out his grandmother's engagement ring was sold to pay for the current wedding. He drives the sort of car that ran her down, and there's a black hair on the tire. But no, the hair belonged to a dog he had hit last week.
• The current fiancé -- after all, she was still shopping around for a better husband, and that's the sort of thing that might make a man cranky. But he's is in total denial about the shrewish nature of his intended -- he genuinely can't believe she didn't love him completely. Poor sap.
• Owen Smith, the last guy she consented to date through the cell-phone Date or Hate service. There's something weird about Owen: He's TOO perfect.

That's because Owen doesn't exist -- he's a composite picture created from the last four guys Meriel had consented to date. The nerdy guy who runs Date or Hate decided he was Meriel's perfect match, but she'd never realize it because he didn't meet her physical expectations. So he made a fake guy, she said yes to "Owen," and Date or Hate dude swooped in. Meriel didn't take it well. Date or Hate dude lost it and ran her over. Twice.

Love and lies
While Brennan and Booth are checking out the bridal store, they see Daisy trying on a wedding dress, then squealing and throwing herself in the arms of a man who is NOT Sweets. Brennan wants to tell Sweets, but Booth tells her to leave it alone. Alas, Brennan eventually gets Sweets alone and tells him what they saw, and her (admittedly quite rational) interpretation of events.

Sweets is heartbroken, but after going to Booth for manly man advise, he confronts Daisy -- who tells him she was trying on the dress because he's the same size as her cousin, who was out of town on sale day. That man she hugged? It was he cousin's fiancé. Our two lovebirds make up with some office nookie.

Booth and Brennan
We're back to bickering, bantering, might-as-well-be married Booth and Brennan this week. Finally! I've missed this! Booth takes issue with Brennan's blanket dismissal of love and marriage, and keeps trying to convince her that she will fall in love and want to get married someday. Brennan responds with quotes like "An intellectually rigorous person would never get married." "Never say never," Booth replies. " That's a paradox, it makes no sense!" Brennan says. True, but not the point. 

But at the end of the episode, Brennan shows up at Booth's apartment looking for comfort. She thought telling Sweets was the right thing, so he could make a rational decision, but rationality didn't have anything to do with it. Besides, she admits, I get jealous, too... Of who? Booth asks. I expect her to invoke Peyton Perotta, but no -- she's jealous of Angela, and Hodgins, And Cam, and Booth... of all the people who believe that love is more than a chemical reaction in the brain, that it's transcendent and eternal. I want to believe that too, she says. Booth promises that someday, she will.

The Lab Rats
Hey, NotRyanAtwood NotZack's back, and I like him enough to give him his real name. Hi, Wendell! Wendell "borrows" the Egyptology department's fluoroscope -- a not-insubstantial, not-inexpensive piece of equipment -- to scan the body. But he left a note! (Pardon me while I geek out a bit, but I'm pretty sure fluoroscopy is used to deal with moving bits and functional imaging, no stationary bones.) He's also the one who knows how to get the icky body off the cardboard by treating it like pizza.

The Angela and Hodgins story continues apace, as Hodgins' picture shows up on Meriel's phone as a potential Date or Hate match. That reveals that he's using a dating service -- along with half the single adults in America, I'd guess -- which leads to discussion about love and relationships and blah blah blah. Angela joins the same service, and their pics pop up on each others' phones -- but Hodgins decides to turn Angie down, instead joining Wendell and his bevy of beauties at a nearby bar.