Bones: Fire in the Ice

Posted by: Jolee  •  January 26, 2009 @ 5:23pm

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

The episode opens with Booth playing a very rough game of hockey; FBI guys vs. Firemen. He gets all up in this guys face, Carlson, for roughing up his team. They fight on the ice, Booth wins, but breaks his hand in the process. It seems like gratuitous "angry Booth". Brennan, Sweets, and Cam are watching:

Brennan: I do not know how I feel about this.

Sweets: It's very primal.

Cam: (Excited) I like it... just a little too much.

Fast forward about a month, a guy and his son are fishing on a now-frozen lake, the son runs the ice auger right into a bloody patch of dead guy in the ice. Ew. B&B check it out, and Booth recognizes a necklace on the corpse – the dead guy on ice is Carlson. Booth is a suspect, and can't be running this investigation.

FBI assigns Agent Payton to run the case with Brennan, who is insistent that she won't work without Booth. Payton invites Booth to remain on the case as an "advisor" to placate Brennan, and there is some weird flirting between Booth and Payton.

The Squints tell us that the guy died a month ago, and then was dumped into the lake. Both knees were broken, but cause of death was a sharp instrument through the eye into the brain. There is water in the esophagus that didn't come from the lake, but an ice rink instead. This doesn't look good for Booth.

Payton interviews Booth "officially", and there is flirting, and a lot of talk that amounts to "well, hockey is rough". It all seems pretty easy, but then Payton suddenly asks about Booth's abusive father. Booth excuses himself, goes to the back room where obviously Sweets had just told Payton to ask that question. Booth flips out on Sweets, who is pointing out Booth's "inside rage". There are obviously daddy issues there.

Checking out Carlson's apartment, we find his almost-girlfriend, a bunch of dead fish, and lots of unpaid bills. There is also a note with an appointment with "Albie". He borrowed $2000 from the almost-girlfriend right before he died.

Back at the ice rink, Payton (with Booth behind her) interview some hockey guys. They point toward hockey player Lou Heren, and puck bunny Chloe. Chloe admits to slashing his tires because he was sleeping with someone else, but doesn't know much else. She does tell us that "Albie" runs a back-room gambling game in a Chinese restaurant.

The Squints and examining the skeleton, and find bruising on the ribs from being struck repeatedly. Hockey equipment would have prevented such an injury, so it must have happened off the ice. They go check out the ice rink for blood and DNA, and bring back a bunch of ice-water to analyze. It definitely contains the victim's blood, and also the murderer's!

Albie, at the Chinese gambling place, tells Booth and Payton that Carlson came in a lot to play, but about a month ago he lost a lot. He paid Albie with a big bracelet – lots of bling. She hands it over, Booth doesn't shut down the gambling operation, and they call it square.

For some reason, Hodgins gets obsessed with finding out why the fish were dead in Carlson's apartment. If they had just gone hungry, they would have eaten each other, but they didn't. He breaks into the apartment for analyze the water, and finds a lot of ammonia, enough to poison the fish.

Sweets interviews Booth about his violent tenancies. Booth is all happy and smiley, saying "That's just how hockey is played!", until Sweets brings up his father again. Then Booth gets upset, and leaves.

Booth: (Leaving) Sweets, I've killed, but I've never murdered before, look up the difference in your little black book, okay?

The find lots of calls to Lou Heren (the guy that the hockey players pointed at) on Carlson's phone records. Booth wants to get his DNA to test against the sample found at the scene, but they can't get a warrant. Booth decides to get it during the next hockey game, by basically beating up every guy on the ice. After sawing off his cast so that he can play, he manages to make almost every player on the ice bleed, including Lou Heren. The Squint of the Week (another hockey guy) goes around getting samples afterwards. Lou retaliates by knocking him down and out, and we are treated to a Booth Hallucination.

He hallucinates playing hockey with Luke Robitaille, the great left-winger of the L.A. Kings. Luke gives him some insight on the case, telling Booth to forget the blood, and look at "what brings the team together". He also tells Booth something he needs to hear:

Luke Robitaille: Listen, Booth. You're not your father, okay? You protect the ones you care about, on the ice and off the ice. That's who you are. You're not your father.

Booth wakes up with a concussion, and finds out that the blood from Lou Heren does not match the murderers blood. Luke Robitaille was right! Booth looks up the guys on the hockey team to find out what "brings them together", and finds out that they all played in high school together, and now they are all firemen together.

Angela and Hodgins have a cute talk about the people they are seeing now. Angela is still going slow with Roxy, and Hodgins has had a date or two. They seem okay, which is nice to see. Hodgins goes back to Carlson's to inspect the fish tank, and finds a whole bunch of jewelery in the bottom. They had been cleaned with ammonia, which killed the fish.

The jewelery had been reported "destroyed by fire"... remember how Carlson was a fireman? Turns out he stole some goodies and just reported them destroyed. The remaining firemen are brought in, and there is one guy who had been injured by Carlson in high school, just when he was being scouted by the NHL. The would-be NHLer admitted it with very little prompting. He wanted Carlson to give back the stolen jewelery. Carlson called him a coward, saying that "he didn't do anything to him back in the day, and he wouldn't do anything now". So, he proved he wasn't a coward. Case closed.

Booth and Brennan go skating, under a romantic disco ball. Booth has to stay awake because of the concussion, so he figured this was the perfect way to do it. Bones brings up working with Agent Payton, and tells Booth that "he's the only FBI agent she wants to work with". Cute.

Tags: Bones, Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz

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