What Drew's Watching: Bones (Quadruple Review)

With my sincerest apologies to Drew, I present to you his four most recent reviews which, for whatever reason, I neglected to post upon initial receipt of them. Please enjoy a quadruple dose of Drew’s dramatic writing now.

Season 6, Episode 12 “The Sin in the Sisterhood”

NOTE: From this episode on, I will be reversing the polarity of the "Bones's Makeup" category to make it consistent with the others.

Remember back in the day when I expressed unparalleled joy over guidos? Well, now I'm expressing equal but opposite dismay at the groupe du jour. Granted, they handle the whole polygamist thing pretty well; everyone's at least marginally grossed out by it (with the sole exception, of course, of Bones). This episode is disproportionately about Cam, whom I find pretty boring overall in anything above small doses. I will admit, however, that Cam's gynecologist boyfriend gets this episode's favorite line: "I told this woman to stay off the trampoline!" Bones speaking loudly with the earplugs is stupid -- she should know better. It also seems odd to me that Booth would need Cam to tell him that one of the wives might have killed the husband. (Aside: the first wife kind of resembles Nancy Pelosi. Makes her look pretty suspicious!) Hodgins and Angela are super-nauseating in this one, to the point where the formatting is necessary. Bottom line: this episode's pretty lackluster -- not horrible, but if you find yourself closing the window or turning the TV off halfway through, I can't say I'll blame you.

Plot: 4/10
Action: 1/10
Characters: 3/10
Comedy: 4/10
Bones's Makeup: 8/10

Overall Grade: D+

Season 6, Episode 13 “The Daredevil in the Mold”

This episode's off to a stupid start. And the tagline -- "Booth and Sweets take steps to advance each of their relationships" -- has me pulling faces. For what gender was this show designed again? Oh, whoa! Ooh. Bones's good makeup streak is officially over. Blech. Hodgins' and Cam's conversation over snacktime had me cracking up. The idea of performing a postmortem on a bicycle is cute, but the application is rather lame. The scene in the jewelry store is offensive, but I'll spare you the gender-studies rant; all I'll say is that I'm surprised they didn't make the obvious "jeweler thinks Booth and Sweets are gay together" joke. The mystery's pretty predictable in this one; I admit that I got it on my second guess, but I'm not very astute. More cerebral viewers will have no problem. The breakup scene could have been heartrending, but they botched the hell out of it. Too bad. The following no-kidding scene is marginally better, but again, it leaves something to be desired. All told, though, I'm pretty happy with this one, considering the banality of its predecessor.

Plot: 5/10
Action: 7/10
Characters: 8/10
Comedy: 7/10
Bones's Makeup: 3/10

Overall Grade: B

Season 6, Episode 14 “The Bikini in the Soup”

This corpse is so disgusting that I can hardly look at it. As damning as that sounds, it's actually a good thing, and here I am wondering how to account for it in the final score. Maybe action? Watching all the women be catty and weird to each other is a fun side-effect of Valentine's Day, although I'm not sure I'm ready to get back into "OMG Booth and Bones should totally b--"...well, you know. Again, it seems stupid that Booth wouldn't know about the first husband. I guess we can chalk it up to post-girlfriend stress syndrome. Favorite line comes from Hodgins this time around: "Speaking clock doesn't help." I hate to admit this, but new Clark is starting to grow on me. That Cam said "fungis" has me making faces of annoyance. I couldn't help smiling at the revelation about the wedding planner's assistant three-quarters of the way through the show. The climactic scene is so stupid that I have a hard time watching it, but I will give the writers credit for referencing Wuthering Heights, which is one of my favorites. And then it's a bunch of stomach-turning Valentine's Day sequences, so men will have no problem tuning out before the coda. (Aren't you glad you have me to bear these burdens for you?) In conclusion, this episode is really, really stupid -- but so is Valentine's Day, so I'd say it's 325% appropriate.

Plot: 7/10
Action: 5/10 (+2 for the disgusting corpse)
Characters: 8/10
Comedy: 6/10
Bones's Makeup: 7/10

Overall Grade: B+

Season 6, Episode 15 “The Killer in the Crosshairs”

Well, it's high time we saw Mr. Sniper again. I thought this plotline (and character) was kind of stupid the first time around, but our new chronic bad guy is off to a good start in the intro to this episode. And it's a lot of fun to see Booth interrupt Bones's prognosticating by looking authoritative himself for once. Hodgins insisting on finishing his counterfeiting spiel cracked me up, but I'm leery of bad guys counterfeiting money as badly as these ones apparently did. The whole Booth-sniper angle is extremely heavy-handed, but I'm enjoying it because it's been too long since the show has explored this element even close to sufficiently. Favorite quote from Caroline today: "Man sneaks into your house? Threatens you with a gun? That's unforgivable. He should get lethally injected just for that." Watching Hodgins stand up to Mr. Angela is a thrill -- for the first time in quite a while, Hodgins is not nauseating me. The wind-up for this episode is that there are too many logical eyebrow-raisers for me to mention here, but the show has enough tense and action-y scenes to (almost) make up for it. So I'm satisfied.

Plot: 5/10
Action: 10/10
Characters: 7/10
Comedy: 6/10
Bones's Makeup: 8/10

Overall Grade: A-