One of the cutest and most articulate little actresses on the primetime small screen today was contracted last year to take over the role of “baby” Christine Booth on Bones last spring. Little Susanne and Ali Hartman, who played Christine up until she was a toddler, was the perfect physical mixture of Brennan and Booth, or so we thought. But, as the blessed parents of adopted children will attest, people see the parental resemblance they want to see in the features of children — even when there is no genetic connection.
So it is that from this moment forward in the Bones universe fans across the globe will marvel over how physically similar little Sunnie Pelant is to Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz, and how remarkably she resembles the perfect combination of Bones-Booth personality and temperament. And what a relief it is because there was much gnashing of teeth over the loss of little Susanne Hartman. A belated, but very well deserved great warm Bones-y welcome to the new Christine Angela Booth.
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We saw the little sweetie pie Sunnie in Season 10, Episode 2, “The Lance to the Heart,” when Christine came into the kitchen and perfectly delivered her line about being ready to go to the park with Uncle Sweets and Daisy. What a heart-crushing scene that was. “The Geek in the Guck” brings a lighter mood with a sweet scene at the Brennan-Booth breakfast table where Brennan and Booth discuss kindergarten options for Christine. While that conversation introduces the B-storyline of the episode, it also establishes the sparkly chemistry between Christine and her parents, but especially between Christine and her father, who both charms and is charmed by the little darling. Have I gushed enough yet? Okay, I will try to stop, but it may be a huge challenge.
Not to be overlooked in this B storyline is Brennan’s pretension in assuming that any student-to-teacher ratio over 1-13 is reprehensible. This could get interesting. I’m also not feeling real comfortable about Brennan not involving Booth much in the decision about where to send Christine for school. Later in the episode we learn more about the underlining cause of Brennan’s singular approach, and at the end there is a satisfying resolution, but for a while Brennan’s words are just shy of uncomfortable to hear. More on that here.
Pour Some Sugar On Me, In the Name of Love
One more thing on the breakfast scene, folks. Brennan gets the call about the body being delivered to the lab and gets up to leave. She says she loves Christine and Booth, bends to kiss Christine and then kiss Booth. Wait. What? Where was Booth’s kiss? What happened there? Major omission, Bones fairies. Major. Would it have killed you to add a quick kiss on the forehead there? Instead, we got a brief and subtly awkward pause. What was that about? Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup. Could you take that back and bring me the exact same thing, but with some SUGAR IN IT? That’s a nod to Def Leppard, by the way. Just a buss on the cheek, that’s all I’m asking. I’m not wrong on this, folks. Can we have a show of hands?
The Old Gutzky Just May Get Jessica Fired
Per usual, tonight’s Bones installment, “The Geek in the Guck,” wastes no time in thrusting us right into the thick of a really gross corpse discovered by two preteen boys in search of any kind of porn they can possibly get their hands on. Once in the lab, we are joined by the squint of the week, Jessica Warren (Big Bang Theory, Sleepy Hollow), whom we first met in “The Drama in the Queen” who is once again making forensic guesses based on her gut instinct. Her only saving grace in Brennan’s lab is that her hunches are correct the majority of the time. Brennan is visibly irritated and we’ll see if Jessica makes it to the end of this episode without getting her pink slip.
The victim’s lips, ears, nose, and eyes were chewed off by a turtle — thanks for that little tidbit, Hodgins (Ewww!) — and Jessica notices that the arms were pulled off. Dang, that’s harsh! Jessica draws the conclusion that the arm removal and the premium bruising probably means it was a revenge killing. This even further irritates Brennan when Booth, who makes an appearance via video conference, agrees with Jessica that this could be gang related. Jessie baby better make sure she brings her A game or she could really be on her way out now.
Squints Always Bring the B Storyline Goods
Further chafing Brennan are several texts Jessica receives in the midst of examining the remains with the team until we learn that Jessica grew up in an educational cooperative with more than 35 other people, and voila, we have a great tie-in with the B storyline of the nature of quality education. Once again we can expect to have some words of wisdom, both positive and negative, coming from the squint flavor of the month. At least, I hope we hear the negative along with the positive, because Brennan seems to need to temper her narrow opinion of what is best for Christine.
Throughout the rest of the examination Jessica and the team banter back and forth about Jessica’s experience in the cooperative. Turns out it was a famous experiment that Brennan had read about, one that turned out two Rhodes Scholars and a whole mess of other extraordinarily gifted progeny. Brennan is curious, but turns her nose up at the whole thing. I smell some decent learning in our future for Dr. Brennan … and maybe even myself.
Brennan and Jessica figure out that the victim was dropped into water from a great height causing the outward cranial hole. The missing arms, they surmise, must be back up where the body was dropped from.
As an aside – I have to admit that I didn’t care for Jessica in the beginning of her debut episode, but by the end of the Bones hour I had warmed considerably to her on a number of levels. Her spunk and intelligence attracted me in that the former is more subdued than Daisy’s (to whom I compare her, not because they are both female, but because they both possess an exuberance which none of the other squints display), and the later is at least equal. However, Daisy and Jessica are different in that Jessica lacks Daisy’s desperation for approval from Brennan. This episode, well, it highlighted a bit of creepiness (or incredibly dry humor, I’m not yet sure which) in Jessica’s commend about being hungry for ribs when all the meat falls off the victims disarticulated arm. Hrm. My sense is that she’s more eccentric than creepy, but we’ll just have to keep watching to find out.
Couch Potato Chic Is In
Hayes Robertson is the victim. He’s a game creator who apparently made a lot of money doing what he does. The first suspect, Hayes’ best friend game-tester and roommate, an Andrew McCarthy look-alike named Noah, seems pretty harmless. Then we have the number two game designer at Immersion Games, Ann Schamberg, who tells them a pretty important game release is coming up whose delay could cost the company upwards of $20 million. Next up on the suspect list is Jen Park, the CEO of Immersion Games who seems to have something rather substantial stuck up her, um, CD Rom Drive or whatever and it ain’t no joy stick, if you catch my drift.
Sweet Wife, Please Let A Man Have His Toys
It has been FAR too long since we had a really great lab experiment. Jessica makes the perfect Bonnie to Hodgins’ Clyde as they pull together a menage of great props: lots of crash test dummies, a kiddie pool, harnesses, pulleys, the whole shebang. Angela questions why all the fuss when the Angelatron could have simulated all this? In true King of the Lab style, Hodgins gives the usual answer: This is so much more fun and boys need their toys, he basically says as he bats his beautiful blue eyes at his wife who of course can’t resist his charm.
The goal is to figure out how far Hayes Robertson’s body would have had to fall in order to have created such a hole in the back of his head. Even Cam can’t help but get involved in the fun. Oh how I LOVE these experiments. remember the enormous fan they used to get the guts out of the air conditioner? And the goop thrower that covered Booth’s face in slime? And what about the frozen pig in the wood chipper. Classic Bones. #Excellent.
Per usual the experiment is successful. They figure out what bridge they body fell from, but of course more experimentation is needed to confirm the results and the bodies continue to be flung across the lab and into the water and who wouldn’t want to be Hodgins’ assistant when they grow up? Get in line behind me, people. Oh, and the arms are found at the bottom of the river, right below the bridge Hodgins identified, tied to something really big and heavy. And they are really, really, gross.
Angela Assures Aubrey That Size (Of Course) Matters
If you could have shoved a piece of blackest coal up Hayes rear end, it would have been a diamond by noon. Angela explains the game creator’s level of control freakiness to Aubrey who visits the lab to check out all the cool technology. When Angela senses Aubrey’s computer envy, he explains he’s pretty jazzed about a new laptop he recently got but it’s kind of puny in comparison to the toys in Angela’s arsenal.
As nothing case-wise substantial comes out of this scene between Angela and Aubrey, it seems its purpose is three-fold and quite simple. Not all scenes are designed for plot advancement, right? Some are simply for context or relationship and/or character development. From where I sit on yonder footie-pajammie hilltop, it looks like this scene is all about 1) Further establishing Aubrey’s love for toys and technology, 2) Giving us some decent Angela-Aubrey time so we can see that he’s fitting in (hey, if you get Angela’s seal of approval, you’re in like Flynn), and 3) well, simply, it’s a set up for the line about bigger always being better. #BonesHumorRocks
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Booth and Aubrey Kick Mr. Lite-Brite’s Lights Out
I just love it when Booth gets tough on a suspect. Makes me smile for a good fifteen minutes. Let’s take a moment just to enjoy the fabulous masculinity that is our Booth. Okay. That was silly, especially since there wasn’t a whole lot of bravado in the Mr. Lite-Brite scene. As a matter of fact, I’d like to lodge a gentle complaint to the Bones fairies. Once we get finish gently segueing back into life after the enormity of all the shit that hit the fan in the first three episodes of the season, can we please have some highly choreographed testosterone-drenched Boothy scenes? What’s awesome about Booth is how well-rounded he is. His character has been focused emotionally a lot lately, and while I like, hell, I love that — I also love the ass-kicking taking-no-prisoners Booth. Having said my peace, I will back off because, well, we did just have the finale of the millennia which was rife with Boothy action and the guy does deserve a break, as does Boreanaz.
How cool was it that Aubrey also took a shot at Lite-Brite, aka Travis Leete, the game-acrobat? It wasn’t incredibly impressive, but it was there and hopefully we can expect more of that. Lite-Brite, apparently, beat the poo out of Hayes with a special six-punch combination and ended up seeing an expensive watch on Hayes’ wrist which he seemed quote secretive about. This leads Angela to track down his movements and identify that he was sneaking around in the middle of the night with Chloe, who has since changed her name to Alice Kelly and moved one town over, hoping to disappear.
Tub Sex, Kindergarten, and the Truth Behind the Pretension
Angela and Brennan have some time together watching Christine and Michael play at the park. Talk turns to sex and Brennan admits she had Booth in the tub last night while Angela admits she and Hodgins get wild an wooly in the kitchen so they don’t have to move far for food afterwards. Hm. There’s some blissful logic to that, methinks.
Then the topic of the kids arises, though, once again, all of this is a cover for the real issue at hand: Brennan’s fear of being incapable of being open to new ideas and learning to trust environments without much structure. She does see their value as a counterbalance to her own white-knuckle grip on structure, which is pretty astute. Did you catch that? There’s more to say on this topic and once again I feel a post-recap editorial coming on so keep a browser tab open to our BuddyTV Bones page and our Bones Ultimate Fan Page on Facebook for the next 48 hours to find out what we come up with. If you have thoughts too, scribble them (electronically) below.
Angela, as usual, tells Brennan to do what feels right for Brennan (Um, and Booth, too, right? Where’s the inclusion of Booth in all this discussion? Hell-o?) because kids will blame their parents for everything that goes wrong in their lives anyway. Too true.
Who the Hell Are You, Catfish Cyber Boy?
Booth suspects Chloe and Hayes were having an affair under Noah’s avatar nose. But when they get Noah and Chloe, who looks kinda like Princess Amadaluh with a tan, she has no idea who this Noah guy is. Uh oh, trouble in cyber paradise! Turns out Hayes was catfishing Noah. he stole Alice’s image and probably broke into her computer, then became Noah’s “girlfriend” using the Chloe identity in order to control Noah. Or, so Booth believes until Noah says he’s still been chatting with Chloe online all week. Whomever he’s chatting with is probably the killer. And the plot thickens…
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Turns out Hayes used Cyber Chloe to break up Noah and Ann Schaumberg who wanted to move in together. If they had done that, control freak Hayes wouldn’t have been able to control either of them. Ann figured it all out and killed Hayes on the gaming floor. Bingo! Case solved.
Brennan Entrusts Christine’s Education to Booth and the Beer Hat
Brennan finally realizes that she has been too rigid and presents Booth with a stack of school options for Christine. She says she trusts his choices and values the fact that he is way more open-minded than she is. At the conclusion of their discussion, Booth grabs the beer hat and the two dance toward the bathtub. Decent. This is a super cute scene which we will explore further in our upcoming editorial. However, the charm between the two and the mention of tub sex will certainly make the most ardent Bones fans happy.
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Hey, speaking of items from Bones mythology like the beer hat, did anyone else notice the Donkey Kong arcade game in the victim’s apartment? That was from “The Gamer in the Grease” in Season 5. It was also great to see Angela and Brennan having a moment along as BFFs and to hear the two of them repeat their old pattern of Brennan asking Angela for her opinion and Angela doling out the most candid and common sense words of advice. Ahhh. It feels good to be at home with Bones, doesn’t it?
The evidence is clear, the Bones universe is recovering from the recent tragedies and settling into a new life that promises lots of good new stuff without losing all the good old stuff.
Bones aires Thursdays at 8pm on FOX.
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(Images courtesy of FOX)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
