BONES Recap: ‘The Maiden in the Mushrooms’

Hey BONES fans, how did you like this episode, “The Maiden in the Mushrooms”? It involved a salacious TV courtroom filled with jealousy, romance and alcohol (and that was just the judge and TV crew!), some legendary hot sauce and “Christine B. vs. Emma C.: The Tale of the Pre-School Biting Incident.” Let’s discuss!

THE CASE:

The Scene of the Crime: A woman’s body is found in an abandoned building by two reluctant treasure hunters. She is found face down, and well dressed, with manicured fingernails and nice leather shoes. Brennan estimates the victim was female, in her mid-20s. The body is taken back to the Jeffersonian for more research.

Cam finds DNA and another fibrous material under her fingernails, and at the FBI building, Sweets and Booth discuss the case. Sweets suggests that because the victim was face down, it means the killer knew her, and didn’t want to see her face.

The Victim: Rebecca Pearce, a producer for a TV courtroom show featuring Judge Trudy Morris. Judge Trudy is who reported Rebecca missing, since she hadn’t called off and she’d never missed a day of work before.

The Case Progression: Booth and Brennan talk with Trudy, who tells them that Rebecca was incredibly dedicated to her job. They are approached by Jill, Rebecca’s former assistant and the new producer. She is also shocked that Rebecca is dead.  They both suggest Rebecca might have been on the wrong side of town seeking out litigants for the show — =another example of her dedication. Trudy also mentions that Rebecca had once been romantically involved with Griff, the bailiff, but they’d amicably split the year before.

B&B talk to Griff at the TV studio, and he says that after they broke up, he sued her for alimony and won. Now that Rebecca is gone, he figures there is more than one victim. He also mentions the dog they shared, Iris, and that Rebecca’s intensity for the job is what ultimately broke them up.

There are many possible suspects for Rebecca’s murder, as she often found herself on the angry end of disappointed people who lost cases in Judge Trudy’s courtroom, especially if she incited them to revenge or justice for ratings. But one by one, their alibis check out.

Booth also finds Gordie Rand, a man Rebecca had a restraining order against. They’d met through an online dating service, but the evidence suggests that Gordie was stalking Rebecca. He insists he would never hurt her, since he loved her. Booth is not convinced, but Gordie’s alibi checks out.

At the lab, Brennan and Finn are able to find many fractures to Rebecca’s skeleton, but none of them are cause of death. Hodgins determines that the fibrous material under Rebecca’s nails was some purple dyed nylon fabric. Finn suggests that perhaps Rebecca was strangled; that she was young enough to still have a flexible hyoid…something that wouldn’t break during strangulation.

Booth and Sweets question Trudy, after some footage indicates she has a drinking problem. She finally admits to it, but says that she didn’t kill Rebecca. Booth then interrogates Jill, accusing her of killing Rebecca to get her job. He offers up a scarf found at Jill’s apartment, suggesting it was what was used to strangle Rebecca. Jill is horrified and states she is innocent.

Booth is still convinced Jill has the motive, but Sweets reminds him that the killing likely occurred as an impulse, not in a calculated manner.

Angela works through the possible strangulation scenario and Brennan and Finn watch, providing insight. The scenario of being strangled and then tossed to the building floor doesn’t match up with Rebecca’s injuries. Brennan asks for the simulation to show a 90 degree drop. Angela displays it, and the team realizes Rebecca was hanged. Hodgins arrives and has identified the purple fabric — it was a dog collar.

The Verdict: Brennan realizes who the dog collar belonged to, and she and Booth question Griff at the FBI building, suggesting that Iris was neglected by Rebecca to the point of death (hanging by her own collar/chain), so Griff took it upon himself to enact the same killing on Rebecca.

When they state they will dig up Iris’ remains to find out her cause of death, Griff stops them and tearfully admits that it was how Iris died, and he couldn’t let Rebecca get away with it.

THE SQUINTS:

It was sort of strange that the titular mushrooms in the episode actually had nothing to do with the case and served as the springboard for part of the Finn/Hodgins hot sauce storyline, with Hodgins wanting to think of a reason to make more money. That’s kind of rare, but I guess it worked. I actually thought the hot sauce storyline was fun, especially toward the end when Hodgins was trying to figure out all of the ingredients, and the very end, when Hodgins and Finn sold it to a local restaurant. The only part I didn’t like was the idea of Hodgins using it in the first place, when Finn had so clearly marked it as his. Come on, Hodgins! Don’t you know the rules of workplace food labeling?! Of course, this is the guy who also uses the team blender, etc. for all kinds of nasty case experiments…so maybe he doesn’t!

I liked how Angela was able to reconstruct the murder, and I thought it was interesting that she hacked into the pre-school’s server to pull up pictures of Emma C.’s bite wounds. The whole biting storyline was pretty ridiculous, and that was just an example of how incredible it got.

Sweets was great in the interrogation room, and it made me laugh throughout the episode when he knew so much about fabrics. It’s true, knowing about nice things is not a crime!

BOOTH & BRENNAN:

Most of the B&B plot revolved around Brennan wanting Christine to be innocent of the crime of biting another girl at her pre-school…or at least to be offered a fair trial with all of the possible evidence brought to light. Brennan can be zealous, no doubt, and it didn’t surprise (or bother) me that she chafed at anyone calling Christine average. But this seemed like a completely different level of zeal — even more so because by the end of the episode, she just seemed to mostly shrug it off, which was just weird.

The whole biting storyline didn’t do much for me, but I did laugh at Booth’s “monster under the bed” police report joke and appreciated that while Brennan didn’t laugh, she at least saw that it was funny.

I also enjoyed the way Booth and Brennan worked in the courtroom together to question Trudy and in the interrogation room to talk to Griff. And it was really great to see them share a drink together at Founding Fathers after the case.

This makes two weeks in a row where Brennan put the pieces together to identify the murderer, and that works for me. I also liked the way Booth handled the suspects in the interrogation room, especially when he was real with Trudy, calling her on her alcohol problem with the example of his own past gambling issue and his dad’s alcoholism.

While this episode didn’t stray too far into “hijinks” territory, it still wasn’t one of my favorites of this season. But what did you think? Did you like the case? Did you like how the hot sauce scandal was resolved? The comments are open — speak your mind!