Bones: 4.18 The Doctor in the Den

This week’s episode, titled “Bones and Booth Go to the Zoo” contains adult language and profanity. The adult language belongs to the show. The profanity is mine from having to sit through it.

One day, Hansel and Gretel went driving through the forest, er, Rock Creek Wildlife Park, in their Reptile House vehicle when they stumbled across a mostly-skinless, mainly masticated corpse in the tiger enclosure. A tiger is still chowing down on a human drumstick.

Our heroes arrive seconds later. Booth is playing “Pinky Stumps the Brain” with his giraffe facts. Oh my God, he’s channeling Wiki! Bones determines that the tiger ate the flesh and internal organs first and left the skeleton till the ends so he could pick his teeth with the bones. Those darn tendons do get stuck between one’s teeth. Meanwhile, back at the lab, our intern of the week is… drum roll please… Mr. Clark Edison! Clark-baby, long time, no see. He’s only returned because Cam has promised him a purely professional work environment. Yeah, good luck with that one, babe.

Despite Clark-baby’s utter dislike for personal information at work, he immediately gets on his “zoos are animal prisons” soapbox, nearly drowning out Hodgins’s discovery of a shoelace in the wound and Cam’s notation that the victim was not killed by the tiger – he was cut and bled out.

Since they are down to the bone, Angela is brought in for facial reconstruction. It’s immediately announced (for the audience’s benefit) that she is now celibate on Sweets’ recommendation that she learn how to have a non-sexual relationship. How’s it going, you ask? She immediately hits on Clark like a submariner on shore leave. “Clark, welcome back!” – hey, I already said that – “you look HAWT!” (She totally spelled it that way in her head.) Clark tells the horny woman to back off. Angela gets the message but tells him he is still squeezable. What, like a ketchup bottle?

Anyway, there are other fish in the sea for our chaste friend. The victim’s dental records pop up an ID. He is Dr. Andrew Welton. Angela totally digs him – the photo, not the body. He’s handsome. Smokin’ hot, even. She only stops there because Cam blurts out that Andrew was her ex-lover. Awkward!

Since Cam has the only decent scenes this week, I’m glad she’s sharing them with Booth. Booth comforts Cam as she fills in the back story of tonight’s episode. She lived with Andrew for 2 years and was mother to his little girl. She hasn’t seen either of them in 10 years but they were a family. Cam says that the little girl, Michelle, would be about 16 years old. Since Michelle’s mother died in childbirth, Michelle has no other family and Cam would like to be the one to break the news.

It works in theory. Michelle doesn’t remember Cam at all. So a complete stranger came and told her that her father is dead, likely murdered. Smooth. Meanwhile, waiting in the car, Booth tries to explain to Bones (who is losing her already limited social skill exponentially as the season draws to a close) that Michelle is likely the reason Cam didn’t have children. Cam considered her as her own daughter. Cam returns to the car and says that apparently, Michelle doesn’t have the same good memories about her.

Meanwhile, back at the lab, they have determined that something gouged Andrew’s pelvis. Also, he had opiates in his system. Cam insists the doctor would never self-medicate. The others try to convince her that people change in 10 years but she won’t believe it. In the background, Angela eyes a skeleton’s femur with an appraising look. Booth also tells Bones she should stay in the lab and let Cam handle this case in the field because Cam needs the closure. Thank God SOMEBODY has some compassion to draw on.

Field trip! Booth and Cam go to the hospital where they meet this week’s first red herring, Dr. Maura Bailey, the hospital administrator. She has no idea who would want to kill Andrew. She last saw him at the fundraiser at the animal park. Cam knows that Andrew did his rounds in the evening so they are off to the last people who saw him at work. It is Nurses #1, #2 and #3 in the cardiac ward. Yes, he was there in his tux looking mighty fine just before he went to the fundraiser. A lot of help THEY were.

Meanwhile, back at the lab, Angela goes to Hodgins’s works station and is attracted to his new cologne, Pee de Big Cat. Angela shouts to her ex, “Take me! Here on the table! Now!” But Hodgins is not a sex toy and he tells her to go to the gym and work it off.

Have you ever heard the saying, “Never argue with an idiot. First they drag you down to their level and then they beat you with years of experience?” Cam argues with Bones about how trust is based on emotion while Bones says it’s based on history. It’s a pointless scene that is interrupted by a phone call from Booth who has news about Andrew being named in a lawsuit.

Chad Lowe’s brother died on the table a couple years ago while Andrew was operating. Andrew had to get a restraining order but Chad was at the fundraiser. Oh, boy, new suspect! They bring Chad in for questioning. He wants to know why he is there. His brother sister has been dead for years. He eventually cops to wanting to see the dead doctor to apologize for his actions while he was grieving for his brother sister wife. (Seriously, I swear that every time they talked about the dead patient the relationship changed. And I was taking notes as I watched!) Chad never got to talk to Andrew but he did see him arguing with someone. When he can’t remember details, Sweets asks if he will be hypnotized to improve his recall.

The skeleton is not yielding many more clues although Clark-baby has discovered that the gouge tore through bone. He also found defensive wounds caused by blunt force. Angela calls him “Sweetpea” and continues the sexual appetite metaphor with “I won’t eat you, not that I don’t want to”. Bones says that most men would be flattered by Angela’s interest but Clark-baby is not most men. This is so badly done it’s painful. For the last 4 years, Angela has been Bones’ voice of reason in social situations and while she’s always been a sexual character, she’s never been a slut. Somebody smack this episode’s writer. Anyway, the point of the scene was to determine that the dead guy was hit either by a tall assailant with a short pipe or a short attacker with a long pipe.

They are interrupted when Sweets asks to borrow Angela. We would have continued the sex/food thing (his name is “Sweets” for goodness sake) but instead she gives him a once-over and replies, “With what?” in her sex kitten voice. Then she rightfully apologizes because, really, Sweets! Sweets needs a sketch artist for Chad’s description of the person Andrew was fighting with.

Skipping over the weirdo Twin Peaks dream-scene re-enactment of the fundraiser, they come up with a new suspect, hospital patron and board member Mrs. Diana Annenberg. Mrs. Annenberg was unhappy that Andrew passed her son over for the internship program. With the amount she has donated to the hospital, she feels she should be able to buy her son’s medical degree.

Cam wants to help question the suspects so she can catch Andrew’s killer. She admits that her style is more “beat them until they confess” so perhaps it’s best that she stayed in the lab. Otherwise we may not have knows that there were particulates in the wound. God bless Hodgins and his particulates. This time he tells us, er, them that they came from a plastic knife. So, plastic knife + shoelace = somebody tried to stop the bleeding. Personally, I’m a bandage + ambulance girl but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Son Annenberg says that he begged Andrew to turn him down for the residency because he didn’t want to work under his mother. He had no reason to want Andrew dead. And if they don’t believe him they can check the clothes he was wearing. If he were the murderer they’d be covered in blood. So, point to the not-intern.

Cam returns to Michelle’s house, this time bearing photographic evidence that they do indeed know each other. Michelle tells Cam she’s been punk’d. She remembered Cam all right. She remembers that Cam said that she loved her and that she never came home. Cam explains that she and Andrew were engaged but they broke up when Andrew cheated on her. Michelle twists the knife by saying perhaps Cam just wasn’t good enough to keep her dad. The teenager is still bitter about her abandonment and sends Cam away.

Cam replays the scene in the Estrogen United locker room. Also known as the coffee alcove. “She said I wasn’t good enough for her dad!” Cam weeps to her teammates. Bones asks, “Did that bother you?” Cam says , “No, I”m crying because of the pollen count, moron.” The consensus is that men, even dead ones, are nothing but trouble. Angela concurs with “Despite the fact that I want to wrap my legs around one, men are awful.” So is your TMI attitude this week, chickie. I was going to put something in at this point about alternatives but then I saw the rest of the episode.

Hodgins approaches bravely, knowing that the future of his genetic line is at stake. “Before I flee with my life, there are scales in the wound. Snake scales.” Well, that’s a little odd. Angela invites him to stay but he escapes intact. Angela enjoys watching the back of his front as he hightails it out of there. “He has a great ass.” Well, then, you probably shouldn’t have dumped him now, should you?

Oddly again, the Pee de Big Cat turns out to be lion urine, not tiger. It’s used around the fences to ward off other predators. Conveniently, a photo of the Reptile House vehicle is displayed prominently in one of the crime scene photos, which leads the squints to notice a big ol’ snake hook in the background. Egad – the murder weapon!

In a final effort to fend off Angela’s advances, Clark-baby brings in his Romantic Partner Dr. Nora (not to be confused with Dr. Laura.) Nora and he have sex. With each other. A lot. And they have been having sex for some time. Exclusively. Therefore he will not be having sex with Angela. Ever. He explains to Dr. Nora that he does actually have to be this forward with people in the lab because they are exceptionally dense. He also explains about Angela’s attempt at celibacy. Dr. Nora understands how it can be hard for a healthy young woman to go cold turkey (I thought that males would have a harder… never mind.) In fact, Dr. Nora goes on that in the 1800’s, women would see their doctors about anxiety and such and the treatment would be for the doctors to manually… gah – can I please stop watching now? Yes, they do finish the conversation. When Angela says she will no longer hit on Clark-baby but asks Dr. Nora if she was right about him in bed, Clark runs screaming from the room. I wish I could.

In their search for suspects, Cam admits to Booth that Andrew cheated on her and since he was a man of habit he was probably cheating on his current squeeze. The habit extends to his rendezvous, which also hasn’t changed. Booth brings in motel owner Deus ex Machina, who remember Cam as Andrew’s former Room 301 girl. Andrew’s latest partner was a redhead, though, which leads us back to the red herring, Dr. Maura Bailey, the hospital administrator.

Dr. Bailey doesn’t cave in the interview room. Booth tells her to give up the clothes she was wearing the night of the fundraiser so they can check them for blood stains and they won’t tell her husband she was having an affair. I don’t think that’s legal but they do it anyway. She tells them to go blow smoke.

Without the clothes, the Squints must go through photos taken at the fundraiser to see if they can spot Dr. Bailey covered in blood. Yeah, ’cause that wouldn’t have been noticed at all. But Cam’s heart isn’t in the photo analysis. She’s still upset that Michelle is mad at her. Before Cam left, she gave Michelle half a salt and pepper set that Cam’s grandmother had given her. She always said that if Michelle looked at her shaker, Cam would know she was thinking about her. Bones starts to explain the statistical improbability of two people thinking of each other at the same time over a ten-year period but thankfully stops. And actually gets the point. Bones says that if she never stopped loving Michelle, she should go tell her that.

Surprisingly, Cam listens.

A clue appears in the photos. No, not Dr. Bailey, because she was wearing a light coloured dress and it wasn’t covered in blood. Shocker. They do, however, find a woman in a black dress (which would cover the stains) holding a snake skin purse. Damn, that’s a detailed photograph. It’s Nurse #2!

Booth goes to the hospital to arrest this character WHO WE’VE ONLY TALKED TO ONCE IN THE ENTIRE EPISODE and she blurts out her confession. She also tells them that she burned the dress she wore that night because it was covered in blood. She had to kill the good doctor because he was cheating on her after everything she did for him! “All those years I was there for him! If anyone knows how I feel, it was you!” she says to Cam. Cam says no. She left Andrew; she didn’t turn him into Meow Mix.

Cam returns to Michelle’s house one more time. “Why did she kill my father?” the teenager asks her former surrogate mother who replies that, although Andrew was a cheater with a zipper problem, it does not take anything away from the fact that he was a good father and doctor. Cam asks if Michelle has anywhere to live. Yes, Michelle has a cousin in Chicago. Cam pulls out her shaker. “I’d like you to live with me.” Michelle runs away upstairs. Cam leaves to go, heart-broken. Tamara Taylor did a great job on this episode. But before Cam makes it to the door, Michelle returns to the top of the staircase. “Where are you going?” She comes back downstairs with her shaker and completes the set on the table. There is a big hug and everybody lives happily ever after! Except poor, dead Andrew. And horny Angela.