Not with a fizzle, but with a bang, Bones is back! In a darker turn than usual for a show that usually blends comedy with its morbid premise, a shocking twist emerges, and I warn you, it ends in tears.
Picking up three months after the blistering finale, Booth (David Boreanaz) is in prison and Brennan (Emily Deschanel) desperately trying to figure out the conspiracy that put him there. It’s a more bitter and broken Booth, under constant threat in prison with the criminals he helped lock away. On a visit, Booth asks, “So how is Christine?” to which Brennan, with uncharacteristic emotion replies, “Terrified that she’ll never see you again, and so am I.”
The action thankfully moves along swiftly, and Brennan pulls out the shots and proves she can be a bad-ass blackmailer, as she coolly and determinedly secures Booth’s release.
Back at the Jeffersonian, the ‘squints’ have secured the exhumation of Cooper, a man whose death sixteen years ago, supposedly from leukaemia, seems to tie this conspiracy together. Everyone is working as quickly as they can, with a desperate sense of urgency and secrecy as they keep their work hidden from the FBI. Hodgins (T. J. Thyne) is in his element as finally all his conspiracy theorising can be put to good use. This episode’s stomach-turning fact is that urine can make remains difficult to be examined. Finally, they figure out that Cooper was poisoned, and after discovering old injuries that were covered up, trace it back to the doctor who is central to the blackmailing.
Sweets (John Francis Daley) is at the heart of this episode, and it soon becomes clear why. He’s the steady good guy – the role Booth normally occupies. “You sound like you want vengeance” he tells Booth, “usually you talk about justice.”
Brennan turns to him for advice, and even goes so far as to validate the ‘pseudo-science’ she often criticises him for. The first surprise of the episode is that Daisy (Carla Gallo) is pregnant, and she and Sweets are back together. The second surprise is of a different nature.
In a shocking twist, the lovable, boyish psychologist dies after being beaten while trying to gain documents to help Booth. The scene is heart-breaking and beautifully played, especially by Deschanel, as we watch Brennan knowing with her medical expertise that Sweets will die from his injuries, comfort him in his last moments and Booth in his denial.
Sweets is taken back to the Jeffersonian, a morbid and tear-jerking move and Dr. Cam Saroyan (Tamara Taylor) must undertake his autopsy. Brennan motivates her team with characteristic logic, “this is not Sweets, this is a set of remains that will give us the man who killed Sweets.” And so the investigation into his death begins with the Jeffersonian team up against a large and still unknown enemy. If this episode is anything to go by, it is going to be a thrilling season.
Review Score: FOUR AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Bones screens on Channel 7 in Australia.
———-
