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BONES recap: Cleanup Crew
BONES 8.07: The Bod in the Pod
Case of the Week: When a garbage barge capsized during the hurricane, it led to tons of barrels of garbage washing up on a beach, including a clear pod containing, yep, you guessed it, liquefied human remains. Hodgins is really excited because of course all he can think of are aliens. He and Aristoo gleefully use a laser to cut a window into the pod. Then, for reasons that I can’t even fathom, Hodgins sticks his face down into the hole and takes a good whiff. Apparently he smells more than just long dead human goo, though, as he immediately passes out. He wakes up 52 seconds later – apparently he just got too much of a whiff of CO2 (which was a bit more instantaneous than I would anticipate for CO2…) – and is rather humiliated.
Hodgins has a theory about the origin of the pod – he thinks the body was wrapped in plastic and then after baking the sun, the plastic melted into the pod. Hodgins buys a bunch of turkeys to test his theory, which makes the whole lab smell like Thanksgiving. They also find a stamp on some pieces of wood found in the pod with the body, which leads them to a local lumberyard. An employee there identifies the facial reconstruction as Charles “Lucky” Melner, one of their good customers, who worked cleaning up crime scenes. When they tell her that he is deceased, she bursts into tears and admits that she had a relationship with the [married] victim.
Booth interviews the victim’s wife (his fourth) and she’s not surprised to find out that he had a mistress. She was willing to put up with a lot because he was good to her son. Sweets interviews the teenage son, David, who is hoping to take over his stepfather’s business. Sweets suggests to him that his mother killed Lucky and he cleaned up after it. He denies it, and suggests that he talk to Lucky’s main competitor.
Angela works her magic on the wounds found on the skull and comes up with some ideas for a murder weapon – it looks like a clawed hammer. Sweets interviews the victim’s main competitor, who tells him that he and Lucky were planning on combining their companies. He suggests that Sweets talk to David, as he didn’t want them being partners. Sweets asks to check his tools for blood, which is laughable considering he’s a crime scene cleaner. Brennan interprets this comment as a challenge to her and is determined to prove that he killed Lucky. Team Jeffersonian also collects Lucky’s and David’s tools and the plastic wrap they use in their jobs. Turns out the pod was made from Lucky’s plastic sheeting, so he was probably killed on one of his own job sites.
They track other evidence to the last crime scene that Lucky ever worked – an old woman who was killed during a home invasion looking for money that she had hidden in her walls. David tells them that he left Lucky there because he was waiting for a load of flooring. He had heard that there was money in the walls, but they never found it. Booth interviews the woman from the lumberyard, she was the one that was going to deliver the flooring. She blame the wife and son for killing Lucky. Brennan is still sure it’s Lucky’s competitor, because she has a gut feeling. Booth thinks she is wrong, and they argue about it as they tend to do.
They talk again with Lucky’s competitor, who admits that he was at the crime scene, discussing the merger with Lucky. He assures them that there is no evidence left in the house to find, which finally convinces Booth that he did kill Lucky. Booth accuses him of coming to the house because he heard there was money stashed in the walls, and then killing Lucky. The FBI guts the place trying to find anything to tie him to the scene, but isn’t initially successful. In the middle of the night, Brennan has a dream about an African shaman, who gives her an idea. She wakes Booth and they go back to the crime scene.
Using a hairdryer on the concrete floor, she is able to detect a blood stain that seems to match the victims. They find kneeling impressions in the blood stain and are able to measure the length of the legs and determine the height of the murderer. One of the knee prints is apparently from a replacement knee, and it just so happens that Lucky’s competitor fits the height and has had a knee replacement. They search his place and find a bag of cash – the reason for the home invasion, and Lucky’s death. Bones is overjoyed to be able to tell him “got you!” after he was taunting her.
Character Development:
Lots of character stuff this week! Cam’s ex, the gynecologist, just won’t take a hint that it is over and is texting Angela to get Cam’s attention. She’s over him, though, she’s got a new BF but isn’t ready to spill it to Angela yet.
We find out that Aristoo left Iran because he wrote a lot of poetry in college that got him in trouble with the authorities due to the subject matter. He has written a book of poetry and gives a copy to Cam because she helped him out by giving him time off to meet with his agent, which is how it gets out around the lab. Hodgins thinks it is awesome that he’s a political exile. Later, Cam looks in the book and sees her name written in Farsi, as he wrote for her once, and asks him to read it to her. As he’s doing so, in a romantic way, Hodgins enters the room like a kid in a candy store, sure he’s just walked into something very interesting. Vaziri confronts Hodgins later and begs him to tell no one.
Sweets is still living with Booth and Brennan and at least Brennan and Sweets are getting kind of comfortable with the arrangement. The two of them usually side with each other, but she hits a bit too close to home in her analysis of his motives for taking so long to find his own place. Turns out that Sweets isn’t so fond of Brennan psychoanalyzing him (ironic!), although Booth finds it hilarious. Booth is slightly annoyed that he is still sharing his house and girlfriend with Sweets, but he gets kind of even by making Sweets get up with the baby in the middle of the night while he and Brennan go back to the crime scene.
Later, Hodgins and Angela share a romantic evening on the balcony above the Jeffersonian (?) and Hodgins reads her Aristoo’s poem that he ran through Google Translate, which of course means that it made no sense and involved a carburetor. Conveniently, Angela picks that moment to look down into the courtyard and lo and behold, who is down there kissing? Aristoo and Cam. They watch and are impressed by his romanticism.
After the murder is solved, Cam and Aristoo sit in the garden and talk. Hodgins knows about them, so Angela definitely knows. Angela will tell Brennan, but maybe it will stop there. Cam really wants to tell everyone, but at the same time wants no one to know. Aristoo offers to resign, but she won’t hear of it. They sit cuddling on the bench with a full moon behind them.
Memorable Quotes and other Random Thoughts:
I’m currently thinking of writing a children’s book – Brennan
How are you going to fit a murder into it? – Sweets
Brennan can read Farsi!?
No, no, no, It’s my gut that bubbles, remember? – Booth
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