Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family"

Funniest line of Bones 6.15 - in contention for funniest line of the season, maybe of several seasons - came from Mr. Nigel-Murray, commenting upon a slab of deer meat on the lab table that was part of the investigation: "Are we investigating a murder or preparing lunch for the Palins?" he asks Bones, in a perfect non-smiling delivery.

Sign of a great detective show is when a funny line can transcend the story, and in this case, it's even better, because the venison indeed has a connection to the case at hand:  Broadsky, last seen at the end of the last episode, as Booth's former military buddy and assassin of the Gravedigger, is using a deer for practice with his new smart-bullet rifle.  The weapon, by the way, is so futuristic, that Bones pipes up when someone says it may come from the future, that "time travel is impossible" (I agree completely - see my The Enjoyable Trouble with Time Travel).

Booth and Broadsky (played by Arnold Vosloo) have a conflicted relationship, to say the least.  Broadsky has apparently become a vigilante super-hero, meting out death not just to deers for target practice but to real-life criminals.   Booth can't let this stand, and feels guilty that he in effect let Broadsky go at the end of the previous episode.   But when Booth pressures Broadsky's connection in the military to help him get Broadsky, she takes her own life.  This gives Broadsky a slight boost in the ultimate morality of this, telling Booth that Booth was responsible for the contact's death.  (Oddly, Booth doesn't respond that Broadsky killed an innocent bystander in one of his vigilante executions.)

All of this puts Bones in a difficult position, too.  She doesn't want Booth to be Broadsky's executioner, and doesn't want to assist or enable Booth in that role, either.  And Booth, for his part, is hurt that Bones may think he and Broadsky are alike.   In the end, Bones is a little slow in giving Booth a crucial detail (from our point of view, it looks as if she didn't see it, rather than she saw it and withheld it).  And Booth stops Broadsky's latest execution - but Broadsky escapes.  Deliberate on Booth's part?

I was actually glad, and hope Broadsky stays around for a while - he brings out good narrative qualities in both Booth and, as a result, Bones.   Good to have Bones back - and, hey, I didn't even mention Angela's father ...

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

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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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery

A tip-top Bones 6.11 tonight, which features the return of the Gravedigger, in turn touching the lives and stirring deep emotions in many of our major characters.

In Bones past, the Gravedigger kidnapped and killed children, kidnapped Bones and Hodgins and nearly killed them by burying them in a car.   In a subsequent season she nearly did in Booth, but in the aftermath of his rescue by Bones he dreamed a beautiful dream of the two of them happy together.

She - the Gravedigger - was  revealed to be US Attorney Heather Taffet, and tonight's episode opens with Sweets accompanying her in the paddy wagon on the way to her final appeal.  Taffet gets off my favorite line in the show, ridiculing Sweets, observing "you remind me of a little boy dressed up in his father's suit."   This line was nastily finer that her subsequent comment that Sweets is "a repressed, immature, imbecile," which Sweet nonetheless almost torments himself with later, playing the recording he made of it.

It's close to the last thing Taffet says, because her head is clean blown off shortly after she and Sweets get out of the vehicle, with Booth and Caroline standing by.  This becomes the main mystery of the evening - who killed Taffet - and motives and possible suspects abound.  These range from Booth himself and Hodgins, who have understandable hatred of the Gravedigger, to parents of the murdered children, who have even more hatred, to Max - yep, it's good to see him back - who, as Brennan's father, would have reason to want to snuff out Taffet to keep Brennan safe.

But though all of the above have reason to be happy about Taffet's head blown off, only one has something to do with the act, and he's not a member of our crew or one of their relatives.  He's the father of two sons killed by the Gravedigger, and we find that he paid a marksman who approached him with an offer - give me the sum of two million dollars to take out Taffet.

But why did the sharpshooter approach the father in the first place?  Just to make money, or for some other motive?   Is it possible a third party - like Max - put up the money and all the rest of this in motion?

Apparently not, but we don't get too many answers, which is good, because it leaves open some tantalizing loose ends.   What we do know is that a shooter played by Arnold Vosloo - last seen as Mossad Officer Amit Hadar on NCIS (and a lot earlier in The Mummy - a natural for Bones)- is likely to have pulled the trigger.  But in an inconclusive confrontation with Booth, Vosloo's character denies that he did the deed, even though he defends the murder of a prostitute by the shooter (he was using her window for the Taffet kill) as "collateral damage".  This could be something a killer would say, but it could also be something an assassin pro might say, whether or nor he was the killer in this case.  And Vosloo - I like his name better than the character's, which I can't quite recall, anyway - did let Booth go...

And to top off the episode, there's this ... the long look that Booth gives Bones, through the window, as she holds a seashell to her ear that Max gave her.   That's a good look for Booth.

And it makes sense, since the Gravedigger in general and its likely unconscious reminder for Booth of his dream of being a couple with Bones put him in a frame of mind to feel what he felt and on some deep level still feels for her.

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

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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The Plot to Save Socrates




"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

NCIS 8.8: Ziva's Father

As I noted in my review of last week's NCIS, this has been a season for fathers and their offspring.  Gibbs and his father, DiNozzo and his father, and tonight Ziva and her father, Eli David, head of the Mossad.

The problem Ziva has had with her father makes all the other parent-child difficulties pale in comparison.  Eli left her to die.   Tonight he explains to her that he had a whole country to protect, and could not sacrifice that even for his daughter.  That may well be true, but it's cold comfort to Ziva.

This makes her protecting him tonight from Palestinian assassins all the more difficult.  Eli's in the United States to bait the trap, but these are no run-of-the-mill assassins.  Indeed, they are connected in some way to a high-level meeting that Leon is attending, leaving Gibbs and team the task of keeping Eli alive.

Almost succeeding won't suffice in this case.  If they kill every assassin save one, and Eli is killed, NCIS and their Israeli allies (Malachi - a regular, first seen in NCIS episode Aliyah a few seasons back - and Liat, a blond Ziva) will have failed miserably.

And in the end of tonight's two-part story, that's just about on the edge of where our people stand.   Ziva and our team killed more than one terrorist, dismantled two automatic shooting devices, but when Eli and Leon were taken back to the safe house, they were vulnerable to someone on our side who had inside information.   (Best guesses are the characters played by The Shield's Catherine Dent and The Unit's Michael O'Neill.)

So Eli's bodyguard - Mossad Agent Hadar (played by Arnold Vosloo of The Mummy movies) - is dead (too bad, I like actor and the character).  Eli and Leon are missing, and NCIS, the Israelis, and the bigwigs at the meeting - likely one of whom is an evil apple - have their work cut out for next week, which means an exciting show for us.

See also NCIS Back in Season 8 Action ... NCIS 8.2: Interns! ... NCIS 8.3: Tiff! ... NCIS 8.4: Gary Cooper not John Wayne ... NCIS 8.5: Dead DJ, DiNozzo Hoarse, and Baseball ... NCIS 8.6: The Written Woman ... NCIS 8.7: "James Bond Movie Directed by Fellini"

And see ee also NCIS  ... NCIS 7.16: Gibbs' Mother-in-Law Dilemma ... NCIS 7.17: Ducky's Ties ... NCIS 7.18: Bogus Treasure and Real Locker ... NCIS 7.21: NCIS Meets Laura ... NCIS Season 7 Finale: Retribution

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The Plot to Save Socrates




"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book