BONES Recap: The Truth in the Tequila

7.10 The Warrior in the Wuss

Case of the Week:

Two guys fake being sick to go canoeing and of course they stumble (literally) on a headless body.  Bones, Booth and Hodgins go to the scene to investigate. The victim has a wedding ring and is missing his head. Booth is impatient to see his son, Parker, who is back for a visit after months in Europe. While Brennan and Hodgins methodically examine the scene to determine where the head likely is, he manages to slip and roll down an embankment. After going a$$ over teakettle all the way to the bottom, he lands in a big puddle – where he promptly finds the victim’s head.

Back at the lab, Angela uses facial recognition to identify the victim as a man named Tony Cole, once squintern Clark deduces that the victim wore lifts in his shoes and so his driver’s license has him as taller than the body they found. Sweets and Booth interview his wife, who says she last saw him several days earlier when he texted her to say that he was going to be home late. She tells him that Tony was under a lot of stress from a new coworker, Carl. Carl would make fun of how short the victim he was. She excuses herself to go pick up their son who is coming home from a week-long school trip.

The “Justice League” (per Hodgins) determines that the victim was stabbed and bled out when a major vessel was severed. Brennan and Booth go to interview Carl, the victim’s work rival. They tell him that Tony is dead and was stabbed by a big metallic weapon. They look in his tool truck, which is full of hundreds of tools that fit that description.

Sweets profiles the victim as someone who was bullied his entire life for his height and is insecure, so he picked his job selling tools and wore lifts to seem more manly. He shows Booth a police report from the day before the murder when the victim tried to instigate a fight with his son’s karate teacher. Turns out his son was the one who made the 911 call.

Sweets and Booth interview the victim’s son, Danny. He tells them that he got into a fight after school with his sensei’s kid, Blake. Danny admits to starting the fight to show his dad how tough he was, but it failed. He tells them that he actually only took karate because his dad made him – he isn’t any good at it. Danny went with his dad to confront the sensei and his dad lost it on the sensei, scaring him into calling 911. After the police came, they went back home and didn’t tell his mother. One of the last things that Tony said to  Danny was that he’d keep fighting for him.

Hodgins identifies the weapon as being made of stainless steel, but more like a knife than the tools that they found in Carl’s tool truck. Cam finds a strange worm in the stomach contents, while Brennan identifies a unique bruising pattern on the body – the victim fought with someone with martial arts training. Booth and Brennan go to visit Danny’s sensei, who claims not to have seen Tony since he stormed into the dojo with Danny the day before his death. He refuses to let Brennan make casts of his hands, but he has a bunch of DVDs of himself in action for sale, so Brennan buys one so she can measure his hands on the DVD.

Using the DVD and the Angelatron, Angela and Brennan determine that the sensei was not the one who fought with the victim – the fighter was smaller, maybe a child. Hodgins identifies the worm found in the victim’s stomach as being from a bottle of tequila. He does an worm autopsy (actually the correct term would be necropsy) and removes the worm’s digestive tract so he can determine where the worm originated.

Sweets and Booth go back to visit the dojo, looking to talk to the sensei’s son, Blake. They find out that Blake is the sensei’s daughter, not his son. She is a decorated karate champion. Booth tells her that Danny’s father was murdered and she admits that Tony stopped her on the way home from school that night. Cole blamed Blake for picking on his son. She repeatedly asked him to leave her alone, but when he wouldn’t, she fought with him. Her friend taped the whole thing with her cell phone and uploaded it to the internet as “grown man and little girl beat down”.  After he gave up, she left the scene.

From the worm’s digestive tract, Hodgins is able to determine the location where the tequila was produced and determines that only a few bars in the area actually sell that particular variety. Booth and Sweets visit one of the places and the bartender remembers the victim and said that he was at the bar, having a bad day, so he poured him some of his best – the tequila with the worm. Soon other patrons (including some of Cole’s client) in the bar were looking at Cole and laughing, apparently because they all saw the online video of of Blake beating him up.

Angela manages to determine that it was Carl, Cole’s rival, who distributed the video by emailing a link to all of Cole’s customers. Over lunch, Booth and Brennan realize that the weapon is a fishing knife, and Carl just happens to be a fisherman. Carl claims that it was self-defense, but Booth tells him off for picking on a smaller man and cuffs him.

Characters:

Hodgins is way over budget buying fancy tech toys and Cam isn’t happy. She tasks him with deciding which of “his children” he’s going to return. He tries to enlist Angela to help him convince Cam, but she’s not buying it, either. Cam also tries to enlist Angela into helping her convince Hodgins to send back some of the stuff, but she refuses. He spends the rest of the episode whining about how if he only had the proper equipment, he could solve the case much faster. He makes sure that he uses every single new toy in the lab to work on the current case, so he won’t have to return them. Cam tries to explain that there are major budget cuts and that the Jeffersonian has even cancelled the annual Founder’s Day party, which sends Hodgins into a tizzy. After they solve the case, Cam walks into a party in the lab – turns out the fancy equipment is also useful for making guacamole and distilling tequila. Hodgins is throwing his own party for everyone in the lab and using the new equipment to do it. Cam tries to be upset, but is finally won over as they keep filling her glass with tequila.

Booth’s son Parker is back after 4 months in Europe and Booth is very eager to see him. He has set up Parker’s room in the new house just like it used to be and introduces him to the baby. Booth and Brennan try to make him feel like part of the family, but soon they both become quite worried about him – he spends a lot of time in his room alone, sneaks away from his babysitter, and lies to Booth. Later Brennan finds a broken solar system model, broken radio control car, one of her Jeffersonian lab coats, and a bunch of pictures of Brennan and the baby that Parker has cut up, in his room.

Booth talks it over with Sweets, who encourages him to talk to Parker and assures him that he will do a much better job than his dad ever did. Brennan and Booth confront Parker and tell him that it is natural that he feels some resentment towards Christine, but it turns out that they read the evidence all wrong. Parker is very excited about his new sister and used the car motor, solar system and pictures to make Christine a mobile for over her bed. Cue touching family moment….

My Thoughts:

BONES is always great at including lots of pop culture and “ripped from the headlines” plots and I loved how a  viral “MeTube” video ended up leading the victim’s death in this episode. As I mentioned last week, I’m a big fan of seeing Booth and Brennan interact at home and the subplot about Parker was well-executed. It never even crossed my mind that Parker might have a good (even sweet) excuse for his behavior. The plot also gave an opportunity for Booth to revisit his daddy issues, which have got to be a bit exacerbated by the new baby. The Booth-Sweets team continues to be a source of amusement and occasional hilarity.

The “nerd toys” plot with Hodgins was too over-the-top for me, but otherwise it was an enjoyable episode (which may have seemed a bit familiar due to a spoilers post I wrote a while back).

What did you think? Tell me in the comments!

Memorable Quotes and other thoughts: 

We’re still missing the victim’s head – Bones
You really need that?! – Booth

Hodgins installed motion sensing blinds on their bedroom windows?

I think we could do something together, as a family, since Parker’s home now…I thought we could search [the woods behind the house] for carrion and re-articulate their skeletons. You know, a family project. – Brennan

I got this belt buckle for winning the trout classic! What did you get yours for? – Carl, the victim’s rival
For holding my pants up  – Booth (still love the “Cocky” buckle!)

Watch BONES on Mondays at 8/7c on FOX!