BONES: Cat and Mouse

Bones 7. 06:  The Crack in the Code

Case of the Week:

A dissected spine and skull from a young adult woman are found in the National Historical Museum along with the message “Where is the rest of me?” in blood on a statue of Lincoln. The vertebrae of the spine have been taken apart and realigned using human gut as suture. The blood found on the monument is determined to be from 5 different people – all FBI agents. All of the agents are still alive and the blood was obtained from an FBI blood drive. Sweets profiles the killer as being an extremely intelligent person who enjoying playing with the Jeffersonian and the FBI.

Caroline  pulls the records of all computer and gadget guys who might have a vendetta out against the FBI. Based on this data, the investigation focuses on a hacker (“hacktivist”) named Christopher Pelant who has hacked the DOD and Senate website and was convicted of wire and computer fraud and sent to prison. Booth and Sweets go to visit him at his home where he is on house arrest. He claims not to have a working computer, but he does have an ancient one that he claims is broken. He can’t be involved, though, as he can’t leave his house because of his ankle tracker.

Hodgins (with some help from Angela) decodes a message from the order of the vertebrae which gives him the address and a key code to access a room in the justice department archives. Inside a vault they find a badly decomposed body – the rest of the victim. The body is found on a shelf of files for criminals whose cases were never prosecuted because they were FBI informants. The worst of the lot is Daniel Cussutto who ran a real estate scam. One of his victims committed suicide in front of his daughter, Sophia. Booth and Sweets talk to Sophia, but it seems like a dead end.

Meanwhile, Ezra Krane, a journalist from the Washington Standard, keeps popping up with knowledge that he shouldn’t have. Booth interrogates him but he refuses to review his source. Booth accuses him of being the killer but has no evidence to hold him.

The victim is identified as Inger Johannsen, a Danish girl who had been house-sitting for a D.C. family. When Booth and Sweets go to the house, no one is home, but they find a jacuzzi full of blood and another message written in blood, this time on a fence – “this won’t stop”.

Hodgins finds camphor, an ingredient in fireworks, in one of the rib bones and he and Wendell experiment with models to determine if the victim could have died from an internal explosion. They determine that she didn’t. Angela tries to use her computers to determine the cause of death based on scans of the bones. The computer suggests a gunshot, but there are no bullet fragments. Before Angela can run any additional simulations, her computers die and a fire starts in the corner of the room in a CPU and has to be put out with a fire extinguisher.

Angela determines that malware in her computer caused the CPU fans to fail and then the computers to overheat. The malware came from inside, and the only data Angela had uploaded that day was the bone scan. She and Brennan examine the bones and find something like a QR code carved into the bones. Hodgins, meanwhile, determines that the weapon was a “bang stick”, used by divers to fend off sharks.

The team is soon called to a new crime scene, where they find the body of the reporter, Ezra Krane,  hanging from a flag pole. It’s face is missing and there are burns on its neck. Cam takes swabs and they package up the body. The body never makes it to the Jefferson, however. Falsified paperwork at multiple locations leads it to be incinerated without an autopsy. There is thorium dioxide on the swabs, and it is found in things such as vacuum tubes.

After they find out that Pelant’s old computer is missing a vacuum tube, Booth and Sweets bring him in for questioning and he basically admits to planting the worm that burned up Angela’s computers and to putting the code in the spine. He’s read all the court transcripts where Sweets has given testimony and is very confident that they can’t convict him because there is no way he could leave his house with his anklet. Booth and Sweets confirm that his tracker is working and realize that they have nothing to hold him on.

The episode ends with Pelant at home making some sort of device (a bomb?) that seems intended for Booth and Brennan.

Character Development:

Booth and Brennan are still looking for the perfect place to live. With some help from Sweets, Booth thinks he’s found a place that might work, but it used to be owned by a person who is now in prison at Levonworth. Deciding that the previous owner doesn’t matter, they go to see the house, but it’s a mess – the roof leaks and many of the walls are gutted. Despite the fact that it needs a lot of work, Brennan likes it and they decide to buy it and fix it up.

Sweets also buys Daisy what he thinks is the perfect birthday gift – a powder blue Vespa

My thoughts:

This episode was originally supposed to air as a midseason cliffhanger back in December, but was bumped to this week to provide a lead-in for the new spin-off The Finder. Unlike the rest of the episodes this season, there was little character development as the episode focused mainly on team Jeffersonian unraveling the clues that Pelant left them. Although BONES has done variations of the super-smart I-can-get-away-with-anything-villian plot before, in my opinion, these have been some of the strongest episodes of the series (e.g. Gravedigger). This upcoming arc with the team trying to out think Pelant will hopefully be BONES at its [dramatic] best. The Pelant character was well-written and both diabolical and believable and the rest of the characters’ frustration, awe,  and fear were palpable. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all works out when new episodes return, likely some time in March.

Memorable quotes:

We better solve this before the whole thing turns out to be your fault – Caroline to Booth

Anything is possible, Mr. Bray, except finding affordable housing in the District of Columbia – Brennan

I’m going to kill this man. You should record this so you have the evidence to convict me! – Caroline

Do you have any shrinky goodness to sprinkle on that one?  – Caroline

I don’t know anyone smarter than I am – Brennan

Are you talking about putrified urine, or a mighty hut? – Brennan

Watch for new episodes of BONES on FOX 9/8c in March!