BONES Recap: ‘The Diamond in the Rough’
January 14, 2013 by Sarah Curtis
Hello BONES fans, and welcome to 2013! First of all, congratulations to the show for getting renewed for a ninth season. Good times!
How did you like this episode, “The Diamond in the Rough”? The ‘B&B go undercover’ episodes are historically not my favorites, but I actually thought the Booth & Brennan moments were some of the better parts of this ep, and it was fun to see guest appearances from Fox’s SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE’s Mary Murphy and Tyce Diorio. Let’s discuss!
THE CASE:
The Scene of the Crime: A television show host illuminating the extraterrestrial stumbles across a skeleton that appears to be covered in sparkling gems. The body is transported to the Jeffersonian, and Brennan determines the victim is a young female. Bone damage to her feet indicate she was a dancer.
The Victim: Katarina Wirz (played by SYTYCD’s season 9 co-winner, Eliana Girard), one part of the dynamic dancing duo “Special K”, on her way to fame through auditions for “Dance to the Top!”.
Potential Suspects and Motives: In the world of competitive dance, there are all kinds of motives, leading to all sorts of suspects like the other “K” in “Special K”, Kendrick (played by Dmitri Chaplin), his new partner Blossom, other competitors Rocco (played by SYTYCD season 9’s co-winner Chehon Wespi-Tschopp) and Leila’s overbearing mother. With Katarina out of the competition, others have a greater opportunity to win.
The Case Progression: While Booth and Brennan go undercover as Buck and Wanda Moosejaw to try to determine why Katarina was killed (and by whom), Hodgins, Cam, and Wendell attempt to figure out how she died. Hodgins tries several experiments to clean the crystals from the skeleton. They also determine that Katarina’s neck was broken.
Brennan and Booth try to keep up in the dance competition auditions while also subtly interrogating possible suspects. Booth talks to Kendrick to see if he had anything to do with Katarina’s death, and Brennan questions Leila about her new chance at success now that Katarina is out of the picture.
Both are verbally accosted by Leila’s mother, and when it’s revealed that Katarina suffered from lead poisoning, Brennan begins to suspect the mother, who used lead-based dye when sewing dance costumes.
Booth and Sweets discuss the murder, and Sweets suggests that the killer tried the lead poisoning but failed and resorted to breaking Katarina’s neck.
The Verdict: After getting pressure from B&B, Leila confesses to poisoning Katarina, and when her mother flips out, Booth realizes that Leila’s boyfriend killed Katarina. He was hoping Leila would make it big and they could escape her mother.
The Squints:
After the (much loved by me) ending of “The Method in the Madness,” where Booth and Brennan affectionately gave Sweets the fun send-off, Hart Hanson mentioned something to the effect that it was just too much fun having Sweets living with B&B and they (the writers) couldn’t quite part with that storyline yet. I was bummed at the time, because I thought it lessened the specialness of the send-off, and I’m still a little bummed. It hasn’t been the worst ever that Sweets is still living with B&B, but there just isn’t a point to it, except for possible ease of staging, which is not a good enough reason. Having the episode open with Sweets just hanging out by himself in B&B’s living room was a turn off for me. And while I thought it was SERIOUSLY odd that Booth mentioned his mother, I liked the conversation with Booth and Sweets about Booth’s possible past as a gigolo.
Wendell is my favorite squintern, so I liked that he was in this episode, and that he participated with Hodgins in the experiment. The gem encrusted skeleton was pretty cool, and it made for some cool lab-work.
On the other hand, Angela is still the worst. I understand having a job crisis, but she is being so immature.
She:
- Was condescending to Brennan (twice) when she tried to help put things into perspective
- LEFT WORK FOR THE DAY, presumably without telling anyone. It was only when Cam stopped her that she said what she was doing, in a very passive aggressive way, as if it’s Cam’s fault Angela has a job. So completely inappropriate.
- Brought Michael Vincent to the lab, and blamed Cam and later complained to Hodgins that she was “called back” to work
- Allowed Hodgins and Cam to finagle her freedom for her, without actually taking any responsibility herself
I get that the Jeffersonian job is very demanding, and yes, we would all like to do whatever we want to do, whenever we want. But what sucks the most is that there are a TON of creative people in real life who are in jobs that aren’t as fulfilling creatively as they’d like. But they don’t whine about them. They figure it out. Presenting Angela’s actions as okay BECAUSE she’s creative and artsy, and “oh, no one at the lab would ever understand TRUE art” is garbage. Moving on.
Loved Hodgins’ experiment, and I while I hated Angela getting everything handed to her, I did like how he went to Cam for help about it. I liked that Cam approached Angela about fewer hours at the Jeffersonian and also how she didn’t lie when Angela told her she knew Hodgins was behind it.
BOOTH & BRENNAN:
Cheers to Emily Deschanel (Brennan)and David Boreanaz (Booth) for their willingness to just go for it, humor wise. The dance competition and rehearsal scenes were over the top, but go big or go home, right? It’s kind of interesting that in every undercover operation they’ve had, Booth is a surprise expert (knife throwing, bowling and now ballroom dancing), and when I say interesting, I mean convenient for the writers.
Speaking of the writing, was anyone else surprised that Brennan mentioned sneaking around in building basements with guys in high school? Based on what we know of her past relationships, that seemed OOC to me. It was very in character for Booth to say backseats were more his style, haha, and I liked their little private moment and it was cute when the janitor left them alone.
The one thing that saved this episode for me was the genuine looks of adoration on Booth and Brennan’s faces at the very end, when they were dancing with one another. I guess the empty room was supposed to symbolize that when they are together, it’s like no one else is there…and not that they kept dancing for hours until everyone left. That was sort of strange. BUT the general vibe was sweet and the scene reminded me of season 4’s “Fire in the Ice” end scene, which is one of my all time faves.
Thoughts from you? Did you like the case? Did you like B&B’s undercover dancing work? What do you think of Angela’s actions and how it turned out at the lab? The comments are open–sound off!
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My intention is not to review the whole ep, but regarding the end scene. I think it was overly sweet, but I liked it. In many ways, the show, over the years, has had light hearted and sappy storylines from time to time. I think that the way the choreographed the dance was very symbolic of B&B’s relationship… they struggled with each other at the beginning, both wanting to lead, then Brennan just did whatever the hell she wanted to do, regardless of what Booth tries to get her to do…. but in the end, they dance together, regardless of who is or isn’t watching. they move gracefully and as one unit, no longer fighting each other. I think *that* is what Booth’s final statement was trying to convey…”It’s always going to be like this, Bones…” Because they’ve already done their major struggling and overcome the high hurdles… Now they can dance together like they have always been meant to do.
That’s what I took away from this episode, anyway. They struggled, now they don’t…
There were so many callbacks in this episode and in “Archaeologist,” like Brennan’s development of the illiac crest from season 2′s ‘The Girl in the Curl” and Angela thinking about leaving and focusing more on art from seasons 1′s “The Boy in the Bush.” I love it because it reminds me that this is still the show that I fell in love. The ending scene was really sweet too and it was longer like we used to get earlier seasons 🙂
I completely agree on many points. The case was weak, but it wasn’t supposed to be the most important part of the episode. The episode was cute and funny and I loved the ending scene. The looks between B&B were adorable, and the actors are really good at the whole “I Love You” with the eyes alone.
Angela was immature and ungrateful to a degree we have never seen before. I understand that the showrunners have a reason for this storyline, but Angela has been whiney for a few eposides and it is a tad annoying.
Hodgins and Wendall were great in the lab. Cam is so soft with her employees now. I really thought she would have put Angela in her place, the same way she has with Brennan time after time.
And the Sweets lives with B&B storyline better lead to something interesting because there is no reason for him to still live with his friends. I would think that the B&B would want their privacy, as they always have in the past. They have a child and it wasn’t too long ago that they spent 3 months apart. I mean, Sweets is a doctor with a good job and can more than afford to live on his own. I can only hope that this storyline has something to do with the next Pelant episode so we can be done with this. Sweets just seems like comic relief to me anymore.
I loved “Diamond in the Rough” best episode this season. It has all the elements that make Bones so special. B&B were wonderful, funny, serious and especially the romantic love scenes, they are so great togeater. The beauty of this episode was that each were bad dancers and perceived themself the superior dancer. I don’t think the TPTB were trying to make Brennan the enept dancer, they both were. Remember, Brennen could teach herself by watching the other Dancers and Booth was taught by his mother, he remembers dancing on his mothers feet. Yes he taught Dancing but to senior’s who were surley range of motion deprived. I love the episodes when B&B go undercover they are super enjoyable.
The interaction between all the team members to solve the case were like season’s 1, 2 & 3. This was the reason I fell in love with Bones. Hodgen’s is always so speciall His experiments were great and funny as usual.
I hope the writers continue giving us more scenes with Booth and Bones expressing their special connection. Give us some kissing teasing bickering or their long expressive eye to eye contact. B&B always had their moments of acting as if they were the only two people in a room excluding all others. Such as the scene so beautyfuly done with their last dance. I haven’t felt the special connection B&B have this season. I felt it in tonight’s episode thank goodness I was about to give up. They finally became a couple and then the romance went poof. They act more like bother and sister now. Tonights episode gave me hope that the writers haven’t forgotten the wonderful connection these two characters have. They are the reason Bones has been so successfull.
I didn’t like the episode. However I did like the ending when they were dancing, though it did seem obvious that it wasn’t them in some of the more difficult movements. I don’t watch SYTYCD so I didn’t care about the judges. Booth looks heavier, Sweets looks heavier, and Bren looks heavier than after she had her baby. I agree that it’s time for Sweets to go. He is taking over more and more of the show. He’s in nearly every scene now. I also agree that Bren’s closet statement was off given that she was hated in school. I didn’t like Booth’s reference either or the gigolo discussion. Who talks about previous dalliances while kissing? Hopefully the next episode with Pallant will save this season for me.
Jazzypraz that’s an excellent way of explaining the dance at the end; I hadn’t thought of that analysis! Wow that’s awesome-the dance definitely told the story of Booth and Brennan. I liked the episode-it was sweet and light and funny. Yes Angela was a bit “whiny” (I was surprised that Brennan didn’t point out the similar feelings she had at the end of season 5 when she started questioning the importance of her helping solve murders instead of focusing on anthropology) but sometimes artistic people can be a bit more emotional/sensitive when they aren’t realizing their artistic potential. So I understand where Angela is coming from but she could have figured it out for herself-she’s an adult! Sweets still living with Booth and Brennan is understandable because he always wanted to be part of their “family”, but eventually he’s going to have to move on! I remember my husband and I let friends “stay” with us until they got back on their feet and they were there for five months which needless to say started causing a bit of friction after awhile. Anyway, good episode. Looking forward to next week when Pelant makes his creepy re-appearance.
I liked the episode okay. The end scene was very sweet and seemed very genuine. I admit that the character discontinuity is distracting at times, but the writer of this episode didn’t join the staff until this year, so the odd WTF out of character moments are just something I’m going to have to hand wave from now on, I guess.
The Angela storyline had me yelling at the TV like Sweets at the beginning. Complaining that she doesn’t feel fulfilled in her job? So quit already. Hodgins is loaded. If Angela can go from a drifter drawing caricatures in a park to being able to run a sentient magical computer with unlimited databases that solves ALL THE CRIMES, surely someone else could too. So go. Play at the art museum with Michael Vincent and make paintings of rainbows and unicorns and spend Hodgins’ money* all day. (*Assuming the new writers are aware that Hodgins is rich). And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I was worried that this show was going to be cringe-worthy due to making Brennan the inept dancer. I am pleased it wasn’t (except for the very beginning part of the final scene), although I don’t really understand why Brennan would have to be so. She is not necessarily graceful, I suppose, and does strike me as someone who would insist upon leading. The scenes in the lab with fellow squints could have been cringeworthy, but they are totally saved by Brennan’s attitude and dialogue. I would have liked the final scene to have been Booth stopping them and simply saying, “trust me, I won’t lead you wrong” and going from there. I had actually expected it. Haha!
Re: Angela – I have to agree. She frustrated me in this episode. I thought, you want to do your art, then DO your art! I don’t understand what is stopping her. I want to write, so yes, I have a day job, and a family, and I still write.
However, I did not like Hodgins going behind her back to Cam. A) you’re right – Angela should take responsibility for her own life and B) I’d be ticked off at my own husband if he did that. Don’t run my life for me.
Wendell and the breaking the bones and that opening scene with Brennan was priceless. I also really enjoyed the Hodgins-Wendell experiment.
I might agree that it’s time for Sweets to leave B/B’s place. I DID really like the opening scene with him. I would bet they didn’t even have to write that dialogue for Sweets, JFD could have ab libbed it just as it was. 😀 (Of course, that scene could have just as easily occurred in his own place.)
what’s the name of the song booth and brennan danced to at the very end of the episode?