"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Monday, January 21, 2013

Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil

As much as I enjoy the dancing, comedy, flirtation, and intellectual puzzles in Bones, it's always good to see the team beset by a good old-fashioned psycho genius.   Zack Addy is still the quintessential best example of this - what more could you ask for, the beloved Bones intern in this role - but Pelant in his own way is fairly horrendously remarkable.  He has almost none of Zack's charm, is hated not beloved by the team, and is relentless.  In other words, he's just undilutedly evil.  And he's back in 8.12.

Even Bones admits he frightens her.  He begins his return by drugging Hodgins and Angela, putting crocus petals in their baby's crib, and a skinned corpse in their ceiling.   Everyone is motivated, but Hodgins in particular has a special edge to obliterate this guy.

And indeed this fast-moving kick-in-the-plexus episode revolves more around Hodgins than anyone else.   He resists Cam's well-meaning but not necessarily correct guidance in one of the best displays of anger this year, does a painful biopsy on his lung (and Angela's, who volunteers) to discover the gas that drugged them, which points to the place that Pelant acquired the gas, and all of this leads to an ending that gives Hodgins a punishing choice.

Before that, Booth almost takes out Pelant with a sharp shot, but Pelant escapes and initiates his final gambit of the night: a drone plane on course to take out a schoolhouse of girls in Afghanistan.  Angela can use her computer skills to maybe deflect or self-destroy to the drone, but Pelant has also set loose a program to drain every cent of Hodgins' mega-rich funds.   If Angela destroys the drone, Hodgins' (and her) fortune will be gone.  Hodgins thinks a split second and of course opts to save the girls.   The right decision, for sure, and Hodgins still has the bigger fortune of Angela.  But welcome, Hodgins, to the 99% and the low end of it at that.

This Bones also had some fun peripheral stuff, including Hodgins hauling out of mothballs two old Enigma cipher machines to communicate in a way impervious to Pelant's masterful cracking.  (They must have cost Hodgins a pretty penny he no longer has.)   But most of all this episode was a refreshingly bracing reminder that beneath the fun and games there lurks a very dark and deadly grit to Bones.  Good thing to keep in mind, because Pelant, face disfigured by Booth's bullet as we see at the end, will no doubt return, even angrier and uglier than he was tonight.

See also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera ... Bones 8.10-11: Double Bones

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

                                                            

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