Image Credit: Greg Gayne/FoxComing off last week’s awesome 100th episode, Bones could’ve taken a bad, bad turn by trying to pretend that Brennan hadn’t just crushed Booth’s heart. To its credit, it found a fun way to address it: By having Brennan ask him to slow-dance to “Kiss From a Rose” at her class reunion. He originally said no — the correct response for a man trying to protect himself from falling deeper for a woman who says she’s incapable of being with him. But seeing her disappointment, he said yes, insisting they leave room for the Holy Spirit between them. Then, when Brennan teared up because she was finally experiencing the prom she never had, he held her close. Swoon. No wonder every single thirtysomething woman at that reunion hit on him. (Very realistic, by the way, and they hadn’t even seen how good his biceps looked in that FBI T-shirt.) The only thing that could have made that dance scene better is if David Boreanaz had fast-danced to his full potential and not gone for a joke move (was that a sprinkler?) while Brennan did her famous Electric Slide. (I know you think I’m gonna pull out the Angel clip, but I actually prefer his pop-locking on The Graham Norton Show.)
Part of me kept thinking that Brennan and Booth should’ve been dancing close since they were, in fact, undercover as a married couple at her reunion because they didn’t want to cause panic over the return of the Butcher of Burtonsville High. I suppose, however, it made sense for them to be occasionally awkward. Her old classmates already thought of her as strange since her only real friend in high school was the janitor who found her animals to dissect. And really, who was looking? That was the most poorly attended class reunion since my own five-year soirée in 1998, held in the basement of a VFW with a plate of M&Ms and a keg. Does Bones never use enough extras on purpose?
The high school custodian, Mr. Buxley, was played by Robert Englund, A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s original Freddy Krueger. I’ll let those of you who’ve seen an Elm Street discuss any homages. I’m a wimp. Still, even I got the joke of him having all kinds of blades and appearing and disappearing suddenly. He was Brennan’s Mr. Miyagi. Their relationship was actually sweet, once we confirmed he wasn’t the murderer; she’d named the killer in her first book after him. He had the book waiting for her to sign (to the person who taught her about death). In the end, the killer was a smiley girl who’d made a pact with the victim, Evelyn, years ago to kill the prom king’s girlfriend and share him. They’d gotten away with murder then. Evelyn had refused to hand the guy over when her time was up — and so the other girl killed her, expecting to comfort the husband. Creepy.
We got the usual fakeouts. I find it hard to believe Booth and Brennan wouldn’t have told the husband his wife was dead, and, you know, questioned him since the lover is always a person of interest in a murder. Especially when both victims of an alleged urban myth — do we think Brennan had a flashback to the episode “The Headless Witch in the Woods”? — were romantically linked to him. He had money problems and a large life insurance on his wife, the virgin wood shop teacher was delusional and thought Evelyn might want him, and the caterer with her own set of sharp knives had lost her livelihood thanks to Evelyn. Somehow, the murderer was like a Martha Stewart of metal. She’d pushed Evelyn on top of the stars she’d cut to hang from the ceiling at the reunion. (Another question: Do real law enforcement determine angles on murder weapons via cellphone photos? If not, they should. Booth’s awkward face holding the star so Brennan could pretend to snap a keepsake — priceless.)
The episode’s B storyline involved Wendell finding out about Angela’s pregnancy scare accidentally from Hodgins. He told Angela he’d have faced the consequences, done the right thing and married her. Angela realized her sexy saint spoke about her as a duty, not as something he wanted (like Hodgins had). So, she and Wendell had a breakup conversation. Are love triangles ever that healthy? Wendell told Angela she and Hodgins should be together; Hodgins assured Wendell that he treated Angela well and Angela that she left Wendell a better man than she found him. What will finally bring Angela and Hodgins back together? (In my dream world, it’s the return of the Grave Digger. Would be nice symmetry.)
Your turn. How did you like the episode? (Such a better undercover episode than the circus one.) Did it make you relive bad high school memories and be grateful for the good friends you have today? Are you ready to see Booth and Brennan dating (other) people?
Question: as someone who also graduated in 1994, why have a 16-year reunion
? (My sister, who graduated 2 years later was the one who caught that for me. Obviously the smarter of us.)
I’m still dying over the Holy Spirit line. Booth is the best! (Thanks for the Graham Norton clip too!)
16 year reunion, plus between college and her dissertation that would bring her to 2002, not that many years for her to be the expert she is when the show first started five years ago.
Brennan annoyed the crap out of me. She wants her cake and eat it with Booth. Selfish idiot.
Brennan used total emotional blackmail with getting Booth to dance with her. Yeah bring the tears on, he will never say no.
Well, they *were* posing as a married couple. The dance only made sense.
Good episode. I liked that they did write the awkwardness in, but in a way feel that it is a bit on the light side for Booth as he is the “feeling one” and it would make more sense that he might be sooo professional/cold around her as a defense mechanism after making himself vulnerable and then getting shot down. (In last week’s ep, I didn’t get that he would let her walk arm in arm/put her head on his shoulder after getting hurt like that – not very realistic)… The one thing that I was wondering is it seemed like Sweets might’ve known about Booth’s losing gamble, but has Brennan mentioned anything to Angela????
This was my reasoning: Being a forster child, she really didn’t have an advocate to battle for her prodigy-self. Once she got to college and had to pay her OWN way, she let her inner prodigy roar, and flew through in just a couple of years. That’s not very likely, but the best explination *I* can think of.
sometimes i wonder if the writers know how long it actually takes people to finish school. For example, Sweets was supposed to be 23 when he started on the show in 2007. There is NO WAY anybody has either an MD or a PhD at 23.
Because in TV Land, PhDs only take six months to complete (as long as you’re really smart!), not 5-7 years (even for really smart people). And apparently having three PhDs is something that is a) considered useful and not a total waste of time and b) you can achieve before you’re 30.
I wish I lived in TV Land, so I’d be done with my (second or third) dissertation by now!
I just let them have the date and decided not to overthink it. I’m assuming the episode may have been written in 2009, so that would make it a 15 year reunion…
I thought they said the murder took place in 1994 and they were the graduating class of 1995.
I wasn’t nitpicking, I was just wondering… I just thought I saw the sign/yearbook that said 1994.
i didn’t notice the sign/yearbook, but Kiss From A Rose was out in 1995, so I figure it was actually ’95 when she graduated. That could just be me, though.
I want to know how someone who graduated in 1994 has time to earn 3 PhDs and establish herself as a world renowned anything. It really impacted my enjoyment of the episode.
no offense intended here, but if it impacted your enjoyment of the episode, then shouldn’t it impact your enjoyment of the entire series? this episode didn’t change how old Brennan is, it just definitively established her graduating year. yes, she’s always seemed a bit young to be so very learned in so many things, but that’s just her. it really shouldn’t matter that she’s only 33. it’s Emily Deschanel’s real age, so it’s not really a decision on the part of the writers, it’s just the way it is, and they (and we) have been conscious of it from the beginning. it would have been kind of weird for them to have her going to her 20th reunion, no? i mean, she definitely does not look 38. that said, i really really enjoyed this episode, and i thought it was a realistic and great expansion of what happened last week. keep up the good work, Bones!
It’s not that uncommon for really brilliant people to earn two degrees at a time, and if they’re was a recognition of just HOW brilliant she is, I don’t imagine a school would have held her back from doing the level of work she was capable of, thus earning doctorates in a shorter time than the average bear.
My best friend in High School graduated in ’96 and has two PhDs, is a Professor at an Ivy League school, and is well respected in her rather specialized scientific field (which I don’t understand at all.) So I buy that it’s possible.
I love that Angel dancing clip!
Me too. The clapping part gets me every time!
I don’t see how he could do that and not die laughing.
It’s the clapping that perfects this clip.
Actually, I think there’s a blooper reel on the DVD set for this season…in which the whole cast/crew cracks up at Angel’s dancing..
When I bought the DVD for that season, I just rewound and watched that clipfor like three days. It NEVER got old
What’s funny is even my husband – who didn’t watch THAT much of Angel and has never watched Bones *knows* that “David Boreanez can’t dance.” I was somewhat impressed by the pop-locking in the Graham Norton episode, but his lack of terpsichorean flair is such a legend, I hope no one ever catches him *really* dancing well! LOL
OMJ I think it would be impossible for me to ever watch this without laughing like crazy.. I love it!
David was so fat and ugly in Angel.
…yes!, I too love the Angel dancing clip; please please upload it…
I did like the episode – nice to have some lightness after last weeks kick in the heart. I loved Robert Englund – inspired casting and Sweets’ throwaway “He’s creepy, like Freddy creepy” was great. As for being ready to see them date other people, no, never. They belong together. But my hope is that actually seeing Booth date someone (who coincidentally looks and acts a great deal like her), Brennan will realize that whether she thinks she can or not, she wants to try to be with Booth.
I don’t know if anyone else caught it when Robert Englund said “It gives me the willies”. But Willie was his character name in the original V series. It probably was not intentional–I just thought it was funny.
I was thinking it was a nod to The Simpsons’”Groundskeeper Willy.”
Had to be intentional. That and Freddy are the 2 roles Robert’s famous for.
I caught that – but actually thought it was intentional and really cute
I’m just wanting for one of his “cameo”-type characters to tell someone that he’s “just” and needs help getting somewhere. That would be too much fun.
LOVED the “Freddy creepy” comment from Sweets and he delivered it perfectly. My husband and I both cracked up.
Wait… you didn’t like Double Trouble in the Panhandle? I love that episode!! I thought the being undercover in this episode was so pointless that it really didn’t even need to exist. The only change in their day to day relationship was that they called each other “honey.” It was a good episode though.
It was a good episode but my main problem was how they didn’t tell anyone even the husband but that has already been said so i will keep my big mouth shut
Really disliked this epi. I had no sympthany for Brennan at all. I’d run a mile from her as a teen. And Booth please move on, find someone that actually understands that she devastated you. Brennan grow up.
Episodes that point out how creepy Brennan really is don’t do her character a great service. I don’t like her and don’t know what Booth sees in her. I watch the show for everything and everyone else but her. She is rude, arrogant and has few social graces. Is she supposed to have Aspergers? That’s the only thing that would explain her behavior. Being intelligent doesn’t make you obtuse to cultural references and idioms. Maybe that was mildly amusing at first; now, not so much.
That part definitely bugs me…are we really supposed to believe shes as clueless as ever 5 years down the road? Where is the character development?
I really enjoyed the 100th ep, but I think all it did was give me a good point to break with the show. As sweet as the final scene was, it proves that the show has decided these 2 won’t be together until the show ends. This episode made that even clearer. I’m just not interested in that.
Good catch, Ad. I liked this episode that showed her high school issues. I work with clients who have Asperger’s Syndrome. There are many fewer girls properly diagnosed than boys. I use Bones and some of the characters at the Jeffersonian with my Aspies and their families to get a better idea of what it can look like. I also guide them to Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory. He’s played for laughs but there’s a lot of Asperger’s info and behavior insight. The new show Parenthood has a young character just diagnosed with it. Brick on The Middle also appears on the spectrum.
AD, totally agree with you. I HATED this episode. Absolutely false behaviour between two people who just realized they can’t be together. No way they just blithely carry on as if nothing happened. Booth is NOT that obtuse, and Brennan isn’t either. She is smart, so she would know how she has hurt him. She’s not a complete social illiterate, despite the writers pretending so. Bah humbug to this epi.
P.S. to my previous comment. I like the Sweets character, but it bothers me that he hasn’t identified her Asperger’s Syndrome. Adult Aspies that I work with say that they wish they’d gotten their diagnosis earlier (it wasn’t in the DSM-IV until 1995/96)so they would have had a better understanding of themselves, as would others.
ITA, this epi was Brennan being Me Me Me Me. Just get your lame dance. Forget that you made Booth cry. Hated her and this epi.
I totally agree with AD in looking up the symptoms it does sound like her to a tee.
Also while watching the episode I was wondering wouldn’t she look up all of the references that people are throwing at her on the net or in books. If someone kept calling me “Morticia” and Brennan always says something like I don’t know what that means. I would think she would be at the very least be curious as to why people were using that terminology and look it up. jeez.
You guys really saw a different show than I did last week.
The Brennan bashers purposefully forget Sweets’s observation that at reunions people revert to the way they were years before. Brennan did the same thing.
Oh one more thing. “Like Freddy creepy” HA HA Sweets I get it. Its funny because Robert Englund played Freddy Krueger ha ha that was so hilarious
I am still holding on to the sad from last week…maybe next episode.
Found the awesome dancing clip on Angel. That was one of my favorite scenes ever on the show.
…Thanks, Paige!…
the “mystery” was stupid this time because it was so obvious (this problem shows up a lot on this show–too easy to figure out). The rest of it was great! My favorite moment was in the creepy custodian’s “lair”–X Files lighting, creepy guy, Booth’s face, and then Brennan: “Aw, that’s so sweet” with a beatific smile on her face when the janitor says “I got a dead rabbit back here.” So. Much. Win.
My sister said they even played the music too?
“Would you like some ribs?” I may never eat ribs again…
Good episode, but you missed what I think is the most telling of Brennan’s “growth”….. at the very end when she said she was lucky to have such great friends? That was so jarring it took me awhile to realize that it’s a sign of her getting more in touch with the intangibles of life. She never would have used such a subjective word as “lukcy” before….
Wow – and apparently it’s too early for me to spell correctly.
THANK YOU, Aileen! I noticed that, too! She has NEVER been like that with any of the group even though they are all very close. And to see her letting her guard down and laughing, actually laughing and having fun, was a very telling moment. HH said that we will be seeing changes with Brennan because of that 100th episode and Booth’s proclamation to her. I think we saw the changes start last night. I think we’re going to see a lot of Brennan evolving the rest of the season.
PS The look on Booth’s face when they were dancing was priceless! Bones, too, looked VERY comfortable dancing so cllose to him but probably doesn’t realize why yet.
I thought that Bones being so appreciative of her friends and what they brought to her life fit very well with what she did last week. IMO she refused to gamble on love at the possible expense of her friendship with Booth. Breenan looking around and really offering up a thanks for what she had felt like she was still feeling she made the right choice since she’s sure that the other option would be doomed to fail.
i definitely agree with Aileen and Chloe. it’s moments like the end of this episode and the love toast earlier this year that prove that Brennan is really growing emotionally, especially with people who are close to her. yes, she’s still sometimes (entertainingly, endearingly) awkward around people she doesn’t know very well (ie. her old classmates), but if that’s the (realistic) trade off that has to be made for her to grow with people she’s close to hand have these adorable moments with them, then it’s a trade off that i support.
that’s meant to be ‘and’, not ‘hand’.
If she were truly in touch with the “intangibles” in life, she would never have expected Booth to continue acting as her partner as if nothing at all had happened between them. The reunion behavior (cold, efficient except with Englund character) justaposed with the ending of the epi, just didn’t smack of realism at all. Totally false and fake.
I never saw the whole “Nightmare on Elm Street,” but wasn’t that a little snippet of Freddy when Mr. Buxley opened the locker door and kind of drummed his fingers on the door as he opened it? Robert Englund was great.
I noticed that too…
and have minimal Freddy knowledge.
Good episode. It seems Bones should have fit in better at this high school because it was filled with so many weirdos. Mr. Buxley was a great; creepy and endearing. I liked the “friend scene” at the end. Bones is appreciating more things in her life, maybe Booth is next.
Hated this episode. I don’t care that Brennan was a clueless, creepy, emotionally stunted kid. Cos she is still a cluless, creepy, emotionaly stunted adult. After this epi, I have no desire to see Booth and Brennan hookup. She didn’t gve a hoot that she broke his heart last week. Just as long she got her dance.
Totally agree with you Maxine. The writers seem to want it both ways – warm and mushy at the end of the epi, cold and heartless throughout, and as you pointed out, emotionally stunted. Bah!
I had the murderer pegged so early in this episode it was kind of disappointing. But still a great episode. Who is Booth’s date with, that he mentioned to Sweets? Loved the Graham Norton clip! Thanks!
They haven’t named the character yet put the part is being played by Rena Sofer. If anyone can make Bones jealous it would be her! She is beautiful.
Her name is “Catherine Klein” and she starts her episode arc next week.
Rena Sofer is gorgeous. Whether her character and Booth end up together (my guess, no), it’ll be fun to watch.
I don’t believe Booth had a date lined up. That was a throwaway line to get Sweets off his back and stop bugging him about what happened with Bones. He won’t even meet the person he’s going to date until next week’s episode (Rena Sofer).
I agree, he just said that to throw Sweets off, and Sweets didn’t buy it for a minute.