Bones – Episode 4-6 Review

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It isn’t often a television show creates for itself the opportunity to offend both the transsexual community and the Pope, all in one episode.

But Bones did just that, dabbling in topics widely considered touchy without skipping a beat. Not to worry, the show’s take on gender issues sent a positive message, despite the Tevye-style penchant of its leading man to partake in pro-traditional stumping. How the Pope would feel about it, I wouldn’t presume to know. (see line: “One pastor gets her teeth whitened and the other drinks wine on Sunday mornings and tells everyone that it’s been miraculously transformed into blood. Which of those is more outlandish?”)

Controversies aside, two potheads discover the corps du jour, a legless skeleton washed up on the shores of Chesapeake Bay. Meet Patricia, a victim complete with serial numbered breast implants handy for posthumous identification. We learn Patricia is the pastor of Inclusion Church, an all-are-welcome worship group that meets on the isolated island Patricia calls home. Locals report she had gone out for a swim and never returned.

Funnily enough, records for Patricia only go back five years; FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) tells Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) he thinks the lady’s got a suspiciously unshady past.

But things really get interesting after the discovery of a set of skeletal gams thought to be Patricia‘s other half. The pelvis says male, but the vagina says, well, you get it. Records on Patricia only go back five years because six years ago she was a he. A male mega-church pastor, preaching against evils of the world and siphoning money from the wallets of devotees. His name was Patrick Stevenson, and he had a wife and son. Safe to say, the skeleton’s split-in-two state is a handy metaphor for the pastor herself.

Booth and Brennan get the gender bending phone call while searching the victim’s home, and immediately head back to FBI headquarters. (What’s the rush? The deceased is already a decomposed skeleton. I think the need for speed has lapsed.)

They begin to dissect a telling phone message left on Patricia’s machine from JP, one of her parishioners, a married man fresh out of jail. It’s beginning to look like the two had an affair, and it’s here that buttoned-down Booth starts to get uncomfortable.

“Look, there’s no way the guy on that answering machine knew that he-she-he knew that she-he was transgendered,” he says.

Holy personal pronouns, Batman!

When questioned, JP insists he did know of Patricia’s past, and it didn’t bother him. Cross Suspect One off the list.

Meanwhile, Cam (Tamara Taylor) is busy in the lab trying to identify the cause of death with the help of this week’s alternaZack (see definition: al-ter-na-Zack, noun – single-episode lab rat filling in for much beloved season one through three regular who is now behind bars for a murder he only kind of committed; it‘s complicated.) Vincent (Ryan Cartwright) is a British grad-student with a retentive mind, meaning the guy has an affinity for TMI moments. His knowledge repertoire includes such nuggets as:

– Women blink twice as often as men.
– Tongue prints are as distinct as fingerprints.
– Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, but only in tropical fish stores.

Next!

As the search continues, Booth and Brennan track down Patricia’s unhappy ex-wife, and eventually her son, a young man who bucked the commercial religion life for one of down-and-dirty, honest servitude. Both were told Patrick had died; they believed him a man so devout he was a part of some Running Start Rapture. When he’s told of his father’s transformation, however, the son’s features take on a look of relief. He understands, he says, and only wishes he could have known his father after he became Patricia.

Cam nails down the murder weapon: a boat. After a survey of particulates and other cool, science-y stuff, the team heads to the docks where they locate JP’s vessel and determine it to be the one that twice ran over Patricia. JP denies involvement; his guilty looking wife standing in the background doesn’t. Gotcha.

In other developments, Angela and Hodgins are back to their awkward, post-breakup unfriendliness, despite last episode deciding they were no longer going to avoid one another. (The two did complete the night’s funniest two-parter. Vincent puts the moves on Angela, and Hodgins sets him straight: “That’s too much car for you,” he says. The clueless newcomer gives it another go, and Angela delivers a saucy, steeled rejection: “Vroom, vroom kid. You’re already in my rearview mirror.”)
But the best line of the night came from Booth – who throughout the episode referred to Patricia as “not a real woman” – while sitting in a service at Inclusion Church, where Patricia’s son begins preaching in his father’s footsteps.

“Redemption through transformation. I get it,” Booth says, and it seems he truly does. Turning to Brennan, he asks “What do you believe in Bones?”

“I believe in always swimming with a buddy.”

Jennifer Morris is a journalist and frequent contributor to the What’s Up Arts and Entertainment movie review column The Screening Room.