Bones 9.7: Watch Out, Buenos Aires

A nice light Bones 9.7 tonight as we find our newly married couple on their honeymoon in Buenos Aires.   But as is always the case with Bones, there's profundity undergirding the frivolity and making for an altogether satisfying episode.

Bones of course can't resist getting involved in a bones case in Buenos Aires, and Booth's resistance melts with the flattery he receives from the many who recognize his greatness in Argentina.  How does that happen?  Well, we're treated to another episode in which Bones' work as an author of forensic science detective fiction figures in the story - novels in which Bones and Booth are both characters under other names, and in the case of Bones, with the always fine meta-touch that her character is named Kathy Reichs, who of course is the author in real life of the books upon which Bones the television show is based.   There's just no better example of such meta-twistery on television.

Meanwhile, the murder to be solved is that of a Nazi in his 90s who's bludgeoned to death by a bar of his ill-gotten gold.  The suspects are plentiful, and, for once, I was mostly fooled as to who did the murder until close to the very end.

But my favorite part of the story, old softy and sentimentalist that I am, were Angela and Hodgins taking care of taking of Christine while Bones and Booth are in South America, along with their own little boy Michael.  The kids of course keep them up, the couple are sleep deprived and grousing, but in end agree that they both want another baby.

So, once again, Bones proves to be about death only on the surface.  Deep down, the series is one of the best celebrations of life and its joys you're likely to see on any screen.

See also Bones 9.1: The Sweet Misery of Love ... Bones 9.2: Bobcat, Identity Theft, and Sweets ... Bones 9.3 and NCIS 11.2: Sweets and Ziva ... Bones 9.4: Metaphysics of Death in a Television Series ... Bones 9.5: Val and Deep Blue ... Bones 9.6: The Wedding

And 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 ...Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil ... Bones 8.13: Two for the Price of One ... Bones 8.14: Real Life ... Bones 8.15: The Magic Bullet and the Be-Spontaneous Paradox ... Bones 8.16: Bitter-Sweet Sweets and Honest Finn ... Bones 8.17: "Not Time Share, Time Travel" ... Bones 8.18: Couples ... Bones 8.19: The Head in the Toilet ... Bones 8.20: On Camera ... Bones 8.21: Christine, Hot Sauce, and the Judge ... Bones 8.22: Musical-Chair Parents ... Bones 8.23: The Bluff ... Bones Season 8 Finale: Can't Buy the Last Few Minutes

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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Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson

Yes, the corpse was Hanson on tonight's hilarious Bones 7.12 - not Hart Hanson, the brains behind the real Bones, but Hanson Stephens, fictitious head producer of the fictitious Bone of Contention movie based on Temperance Brennan's characters.  Given that the real Bones is based on Kathy Reichs' characters - that is, a real human being writer's characters, in contrast to Temperance, who of course is fictitious, too - not to mention that Stephen Nathan is a real producer of the real Bones - tonight's episode was one fine meta-meta-show indeed.  Bertrand Russell would have been proud, and it's all the fault of Hart Hanson (also a real person) and Kathy Reichs (also mentioned as the fictitious writer of the episode).

Well,  if that's too heady I probably should stop this here, while I'm ahead, but there's more.  Bones objecting to the shoddy science in the movie, a podiatrist we've seen before on the show now on the set as the technical adviser, a superb Hodgins fictitious character in the movie, and of course a murder victim - Hanson.   The investigation into who killed him - conducted by Bones and Booth - seems to have something to do with Cherie, the seductive blonde playing Kathy (Bones' counterpart) - I thought I was watching Smash for a second - but the real murderer (oops, maybe true murderer would be a better word) has other motives.

Booth has some of the funniest lines and set-ups in the episode.  He enjoys the comparison to Steve McQueen, loves the donuts, and I always like how one thing he never kids around about on a case is the FBI - at least, not to someone not really on the team.

And - as icing on the cake - it turns out Hansen's is not the only dead body on this show.  Cam starred in a vampire movie years ago, fro and all ala Blacula, and she gets a stake through the heart at the end of Invasion of the Mother Suckers, to the delight of all of our real characters back in Washington, DC.

I don't know where to score a copy of that movie, but I'll be first in line for Bone of Contention when it opens in the summer of 2013.

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

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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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

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Bones 5.20: Ergo Together!

The two big frustrations I had going into tonight's episode of Bones - 5.20 - is that Bones and Booth are not yet together romantically (hopeless case, maybe) and that neither are Angela and Jack, especially given the salient fact that they once were.  Well, leave it to an episode written Kathy Reichs - anthropologist and author the series of novels upon which Bones the TV series based - to take care of the second, in a delightful, superb episode no less!

Here's how that happened:  Angela and Jack are driving back from the crime scene (more on that, below), Jack's "driving like an old lady" (Angela's description), i.e., weaving a little as they're doing some research via their iPhone or whatever, when the last of the straight-laced sheriffs pulls them over.  When it turns out that both have outstanding warrants for minor nonsense, the sheriff puts them in jail until the local judge can adjudicate.

Thanks goodness for the sheriff!   The single cell Angela and Jack are in - overnight - gives them a chance to realize what we've all realized, that is, the two are right for each other.   Before they're sprung from the pokey, the pokey judge at last arrives, and not only springs but marries them.  Excellent!

Meanwhile, back on the forensic anthropology front, the real culprit in this crime, which entails the murder of a witch by other good witches, is one of the ergot fungi, of the genus Claviceps.  Ergot grows on rye and related grains, and produces profound hallucinogenic states.  It's been implicated, via anthropological forensic theory, in everything from belief in demons in the Middle Ages to demonization of witches then and in more modern times.   Tonight it's the trigger that transforms a coven of good witches into killers.

Kathy Reichs should write more episodes.    It's been original author's night on television, with Reichs writing this episode of Bones and Robert J. Sawyer, author of the novel upon which FlashForward (also in the 8-9 hour) is based, writing tonight's episode for that series (see my review).  A great night of television!

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



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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

Page 187 on Bones 5.15

Bones 5.15 provided a delightful, insightful lesson in the morality of authorship and attribution - to wit, regarding Bones' new novel, featuring the exploits of Kathy Reichs, which is itself a most cool meta-mirror, since Kathy Reichs, a real forensic anthropologist, professor, and author in our world, is responsible for the character Temperance Brennan, aka Bones.

The nub of the novel - its most interesting part for our characters - is what transpires on p. 187, where Kathy and Booth's analog have some kind of fantastic sex.   Hodgins gets a look at the page, and discovers mostly to his pleasure that the sex hinges on a technique that is his - one, moreover, which he assumes is pretty much unique.   Since Hodgins hasn't slept with Bones, where did she get the details on this?   From Angela, of course, who, it turns out, helps Bones edit her novels.

The case - which I haven't yet mentioned - proceeds.   It, too, revolves around authorship and attribution - who wrote what and who assumes who wrote what.   And there's also an hilarious Japanese reporter, interviewing Bones for a story on Bones the writer.   And Sweets has a defining moment which clarifies and changes his life.   All of this percolates and develops against the backdrop of the events on page 187 which, as Bones comes to realize, are at least as important as all of the forensic detail and characterization in her novel.

In the real world of writing, stories abound of people who contribute ideas to books and television shows and get nothing but thanks from the author or creator if they're lucky.  But in the ideal world that is Bones the television show, Temperance in the end does something amazing and generous:  she gives Angela a check for 25-percent of the advance and royalties earned for her novels.

The show may not have happy endings for its victims, and not quite yet for Bones and Booth, but this is about happy and just as it can get for authors and their partners.


5-min podcast review of Bones

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




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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