Bones: The Critic in the Cabernet

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

I'm filling in for Jolee for the last couple Bones episodes this season, and I'm going to try something a little different. Instead of a full-on recap, it'll be more of a brief summary and review/discussion about the episode. (Well, let's hope there's a discussion -- c'mon people, we know you're reading, so let's have your voices heard!)

So... Brennan wants a baby, does she? It's quite logical (from her point of view, anyway) that she'd want a sperm donation from Booth for her potential offspring. After several years of working together, besides the feelings she obviously (to the audience) has for him, she's noted Booth to be both physically strong and attractive. And while he's not at her intelligence level, Brennan has acknowledged that Booth has a certain level of "people skills" that she often envies. Of course, the speed at which she came to the decision (mere seconds during a Sweets-led word association) and her basic reasoning behind it (she needs to be less selfish) were classic Brennan, too.

The murder-of-the-week involved a winery and, naturally, a body of a wine critic found in a 1996 vintage. I love it when these cases have an ironic twist. There was adultery, two babies both fathered by the victim, and counterfeit wine. Of course the counterfeiter did it -- it was pretty obvious when he casually tried to implicate his rival by outing the relationship between the victim and the rival's wife. The different bottles (discovered during another ill-fated lab experiment that this time got Cameron covered in watermelon guts courtesy of Hodgens and Fisher) just sealed the deal for our murderer, but it was a pretty quick and easy wrap-up.

That's because the case was definitely secondary this week -- it was really all about the Brennan and Booth and their potential baby (which the case even mirrorring the theme with two babies for Brennan to interact with), and of course at the end, Booth's health issues. The whole team thought the Brennan/Booth baby via sperm donation idea sounded insane, especially Sweets and Angela. Both of them tried to reason with the potential parents, knowing full well that Booth and Brennan love each other, which would complicate the pregnancy despite their objections. But the stubborn partners were going to go through with it anyway, until the "sweeps stunt" pushed Booth to insist he be involved with the child's life if it was his.

The stunt in question -- Booth seeing and conversing with Stewie Griffin of Family Guy in the weirdest crossover I've ever seen -- nearly wrecked the seriousness of the episode (and Booth's condition) for me, even if it was used not only to flesh out his thoughts on having a baby with Brennan but also as a catalyst to showing Booth had a health issue (which turned out to be a brain tumor). Something about a cartoon hallucination vs. the "real people" Booth had seen earlier this season (Luc Robitaille and Teddy, the soldier who died in combat on Booth's watch) made it less believable and more ridiculous. And what's with all the hallucinations in primetime these days? House, Grey's Anatomy, and Bones have all had multipile episodes feature a main character seeing things.

So will Booth survive the brain surgery to remove the (likely benign) tumor? Of course he will. But we're left with the question at the end of the episode all the same. This is the second season in a row where the penultimate episode leaves Booth's survival in question, and on a show like this, I don't see the point. There's no way he'd die or the show itself would be dead, so why even bother?

Tags: Bones, Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, TJ Thyne, John Francis Daly, Tamara Taylor, Michaela Conlin, Seth MacFarlane, Stewie Griffin

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Paul Little is the founder and Managing Editor of ShowbizMonkeys.com. When not interviewing his favourite musicians and comedians, he can also be found putting on and promoting music and comedy events with The Purple Room in Winnipeg, or co-producing the live comedy game shows Pants on Fire and The Great Patio Showdown. (@comedygeek)

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