Bones - Bodies in the Book

March 16, 2007

Bones - Season 2, Episode 15 – Bodies in the Book

One Sentence Synopsis: Tempe Brennan (Emily Deschanel) has written another book but its success interferes with her real work when a serial killer seems to be copying the murders in her novel.
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The Meat: As her publicist tries to tell her that she no longer needs to work at the Jeffersonian, Bones confusedly answers that it is her real work. Even after having a second best seller Tempe prefers working with bones (hence her FBI partner Booth's (David Boreanez) nickname for her) – and this is one of the aspects of her character that makes this show so good. It looks like everyone on Brennan's team has read her book except her boss, Camille Saroyan (Tamara Taylor) who, it turns out, prefers “romance” novels.

The story this time is about how the three murders in Tempe's book are, one after another, committed exactly how they were in the novel. Tempe has to deal with feeling in some way responsible for these deaths, even though intellectually she knows that she shouldn't feel any guilt, and the concern of her new boyfriend, FBI Agent Sullivan, makes her more uncomfortable causing her to push him away. Booth, who obviously harbors feelings for Brennan and is jealous of Sully's relationship with her, becomes somewhat confrontational at first to Sully offering to help on the case but by the end of the episode is actually working to keep the two together.

The first murder is a man tied up with red tape to an anchor where crabs fed on him, like the first death in Brennan's book. During the investigation the man's wife and brother-in-law are questions, and the victim's history of abusing his wife seems to point to the brother-in-law but he turns out to have an air-tight alibi for the time of the murder. Two more murders, two more suspects, and two more alibis. Thinking a crazed stalker fan might be obsessed with Tempe, Sully and Booth use her fan mail to track down an overzealous fan who's troubled Brennan before but he also seems to be a dead end. The actual resolution to the murders is more novel than most episodes of this series, though considering I find the predictability of the show its most glaring weakness this isn't saying that much.
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Character Watch: My whole reason for watching this show is its cast. Each character feels unique and adds flavor to the show. There is very little of Zack this episode, other than a humorous scene involving rats and how to extract a digested bullet. This is a little disappointing as Zack's character has lost a lot of what made him interesting since he was officially hired by the institute and cleaned up his appearance. But we do get a good helping of Hodgins and Angela, whom I love as a couple. Honestly, I really like this whole cast and its hard to pick favorites, but Angela definitely would be a contender, and she is such a good confidant for Tempe as well as an anchor for Hodgins. Booth and Brennan both have a good amount of screen time, of course, and Sully makes the obligatory appearances as Tempe's current squeeze. Camille gets striking little screen time as well, but since the series is now mostly focusing on the “love triangle” between Sully, Tempe and Booth and not Camille, Booth, and Tempe, this is understandable.
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Favorite line: “She fed all the rats laxatives?”

Favorite moment: Sully and Tempe make up at the end and are embracing while, across the lab, Booth watches through the glass doors then slowly turns away.

Cool Forensic Moment: Sucking the fire ants off the third victim.

Easter Egg: The name of the main character in Tempe's book is Kathy Reichs.  Kathy Reichs is the real-life forensic anthropologist who writes the Temperance Brennan novels upon which the tv series Bones is based.
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Overall Grade: B
- a solid episode in this series – a series which almost never soars yet never drags either.