Bones ~ The Proof in the Pudding

Do we think it’s a coincidence that this JFK-assassination-conspiracy-centric episode aired following the X-Files themed episode which prominently featured Dean Haglund who played conspiracy nut Langly on both the X-Files and its spinoff, The Lone Gunman? Or was it an incredibly clever ploy to get X-File fans who may have tuned in just for last week’s episode to hang around? Both? Either way, what a fun episode!

Cam, Angela, Hodgins, Sweets, and Brennan are essentially held hostage in the lab by mysterious government agents who order them to identify the cause of death of a set of bones, but they are not allowed to take any samples from the bones, or do anything that would harm the samples they are provided. Although they are told to not try and identify the victim, evidence quickly begins to pile up that suggests these are the remains of JFK.

Meanwhile, Booth had moonwalked his way out of the lab (literally) just before the lock down and spends a significant amount of time trying to break back in. Finally he makes it past the guards (he walks really quietly), fails to pry open the door, and shoots threw the glass. He and Brennan happily call out to each other just before Booth is tackled by to very large men. Ouch. That one hurt.

The team begins to realize that the evidence points towards there being a second shooter. Despite and elaborate set-up and display of Booth’s awesome sniper skills, the bones reveal that an exit wound is actually an entrance wound, so it had to be two shots from two different locations. Therefore the bones couldn’t be JFK’s, in Booth’s mind, because that would mean that the government covered it up. This is something that Booth, a man who has given his life to the government and sniped almost fifty people under their orders, refuses to believe.

In the great action scene of the night, Booth manages to single handedly take out all of the agents, while Brennan ran away to throw a couple of bones into some chocolate pudding . . . which was conveniently laying around. A sample bone from a different set of remains sunk in the pudding, but the top secret bone floated. This meant that the remains suffered from a disease that JFK was not known to have. Therefore, Brennan tells Booth, these are not JKF’s remains. Later on Cam mentions to Brennan that JFK suffered from Scarlet Fever as a child, and that it could have caused the disease that those remains suffered from. She already knew this. So basically, Brennan covered up the truth (which would have been known only to them, since there would be no way of letting that information go public) to protect Booth. Cue fangirl squee.

Also happening in this episode, Cam found a positive pregnancy test in a bathroom and spends half of the episode freaking out because she thinks it is Michelle’s. The test turned out to be Angela’s. Hodgins tells her that he would be there for her and do anything that she needed, even though the baby is Wendell’s (whom she is dating). In the end we find that the test turned out to be a false positive, but Hodgins’ offer is not going to be forgotten anytime soon. It’s just a matter of time before those crazy kinds get back together.

We also had Diedrich Bader return as Booth’s boss who attempts to help him from the outside. I find it so hard to look at him and not see both Oswald from The Drew Carey Show and Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies. So it’s a good thing his character isn’t meant to be taken seriously here, because I wouldn’t be able to manage. Despite his attempts to be the big hero and rescue them all, he shows up about ten seconds after Booth had subdued all of the guards. As he admitted, Booth sure makes it hard for him to look good around Brennan, whom he clearly still has a thing for.


So what did you think of this week’s episode? Were those actually JFK’s remains, or were they all being tested as Sweets believed? Both? What about the revalation that Booth was a descendant of John Wilkes Booth? Seems like something that should have crossed my mind at some point before, but it totally never did.