BONES Recap: ‘The Lady on the List’
October 15, 2013 by Sarah Curtis
Hey, BONES fans! How did you like this episode, “The Lady on the List”? I have to say I enjoyed quite a lot of it, from the beginning to the end. Sometimes the cases feel too forced in terms of being intertwined with the characters’ personal lives — but I thought this one was perfectly done, where the situation made the characters reflect. There is a lot to discuss, so let’s get to it.
THE CASE:
The episode begins with Booth and Brennan on the side of a cliff, checking out a corpse. I loved the visual (well done directing, as always, Chad Lowe!), and it was a fun sweet moment…with a dead person. As B&B examine the victim, they also discuss making plans for their future wedding. Brennan also spots a hawk and wants it transported back to the lab.
The Victim: The victim is Charlie McCord, a high school principal with terminal cancer. Charlie created several online videos, discussing his new perspectives on life and death. When Angela finds a video on his phone of him punching out MMA champ Chuck Liddell, the team finds out Charlie had a bucket list.
Primary Suspects:
- Linda McCord, Charlie’s wife. She is sad and shocked that Charlie is dead, but when the team figures out that Charlie’s video sales have skyrocketed after his death, they smell a motive.
- Chuck Liddell, MMA fighter. He insists Charlie called him a few days after he hit him, and they made up, but he has a reputation for wanting revenge.
- Martin Proctor, Charlie’s friend and bucket list assistant. Charlie gave him a job coaching baseball after an arm injury. Martin is Charlie’s emergency contact, and his alibi of going to a movie alone is a bit shaky.
- Lena Silver, a woman fired from Charlie’s school district for embezzlement. She had priors and is on parole. She has motive, but when Sweets speaks with her, it appears she has turned her life around.
The Case Progression:
The FBI is considering an electronic profiling system called VAL, basically threatening to put Sweets out of a job. Booth and the Jeffersonian team measure VALs assessments against Sweets’ skills as the case progresses.
Brennan and Oliver Wells take the primary on examining the skeleton. They notice trauma to the skull, indicating Charlie was dead before his body was tossed over the cliff, where it then suffered more injury. Preliminary facts show Charlie was not an experienced climber.
Hodgins spends most of the episode with the hawk, trying to get it to produce the insides of his stomach — hoping to get more evidence on what killed Charlie. He also finds traces of several things from Charlie’s ear wax, including some tire recycling materials.
Booth and Sweets pay Martin Proctor a visit, hoping to get more information on Charlie’s bucket list. He gives them his movie alibi and also shows them a plastic box of quarters they’d received during a fundraiser. When he gives them Charlie’s bucket list, they see there were only two more items remaining — rock climbing and “make Lena whole.”
Booth and Brennan go to Lena’s home and when she brandishes a pipe at Booth, he takes her in for questioning. Sweets talks to her and she is very much at peace. She did not kill Charlie, and she admits the wrongs she did commit. She does still have a bit of a motive, when the team finds out Charlie’s will indicated a percentage of the money from his video sales would go to restore Lena’s well-being. Additionally, VAL puts Lena at an 85-96% chance of being the killer, much to Sweets’ chagrin. He feels justified when the pipe she had was not a match for the murder weapon.
The hawk produces more rangle, and it includes arsenic. Booth and Brennan question Mrs. McCord again, who insists her homeopathic remedies were meant to help Charlie, not kill him.
The Verdict: Brennan and Oliver examine the skeleton again and realize that the damage was done with an upward blow, by someone who lacked full range of motion in their arm. Booth and Sweets interrogate Martin, who admits he hit Charlie, but never meant to kill him. He was angry that Charlie planned to give the money they were making to Lena.
THE SQUINTS:
I might be the only person who actually likes Oliver Wells as a squintern, and I’m okay with it. His “Murdered before he had a chance to die. Sad” was a great line! He makes me laugh, and it’s not like he really wins in the long run against the team. I liked his interactions with Brennan, and it was funny when he asked her on an intellectual date (which she turned down). I thought Cam’s moment of standing up for Brennan was ruined when all she did next was ask Brennan about a wedding date in the next breath — not exactly relevant to the case!
I am an unapologetic non-Angela fan, but I really liked her scenes with Brennan in this episode. It felt like even-ground friendship, which is what made them so great in the beginning of this series. Angela providing a bucket list to Oliver worked for me too. I really also liked Hodgins’ work on the case and all of the items on his bucket list. Like I said in the beginning, the theme of the episode was fun and nicely woven between the case plot and the characters.
As far as Sweets goes, it was fun to see him a little flustered by Val, and cute to see him basically glowing like a happy puppy when Booth got rid of the system altogether. I laughed at the diner scene between Booth, Brennan and Sweets. That was very fun.
BOOTH AND BRENNAN:
As far as B&B getting married, I’m not one who needs it to happen, but I’m okay with it happening. Brennan wanting to get married in a white dress in a church is a bit of a stretch for me…BUT that she doesn’t care one way or the other and is mostly doing it because she thinks it’s important to Booth makes it work more for me.
Again, I liked the theme of bucket lists in this episode, and I thought both Brennan and Booth’s lists were pretty realistic. I loved the beginning of this episode and really loved the ending. Like with the end of “The Fact in the Fiction” (interestingly enough, also an episode with Oliver Wells), Brennan makes it clear that she is very happy with her life as is. Also like with that episode, I don’t see it as her trying to be incredibly romantic — she is pragmatically weighing all of the evidence in her life (job, house, child, soon-to-be-husband-Booth) and is very, very satisfied and happy.
I liked Booth getting rid of his list and I really loved when he said he loves the “everyday” nature of their lives. That is just Booth all over, if we want to analyze him (and while fun, there are OTHER things we could do to him too), but it’s true — he wants and has always wanted familial, emotional stability. When he met Brennan that shifted a little bit, because he just wanted HER, and because she wasn’t interested in traditional romantic relationship at the time, he had to figure out some other way to keep her in his life (voila, partners!). Now he has both, and he’s at peace in a lot of ways. As a fan, I’m happy for both of them.
Okay, enough analyzing! What did you think? Were you surprised by the killer? What are your thoughts on Oliver Wells? What’s on your bucket list? What do you think should go on B&B’s bucket list?! See you next week, but for now, the comments are open, so sound off!
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Loved the review Sarah, but I have to disagree about Brennan not really caring one way or the other about being married in a white dress in a church. Maybe not the church so much, but if she’s been carrying that picture of the wedding dress since she was eight years old that tells me that was something she wanted. That was a really touching moment and a peek into the girl Brennan was before her life fell apart.
Dr. Wells…I liked his last appearance much more than this one. He was funny last time and he challenged Brennan. This time his blatant rudeness was so out of line that I didn’t think it was a bit funny. Loved that Cam squashed him and that Brennan told him “no” for the date. I hope he doesn’t make many more appearances.
Loved the final scene and hearing Booth say he loves the “everyday” that was perfect. I never needed them to be married, but I’m very happy and excited that they are.
Had a bit of difficulty with this episode. Probably the only one after reading other people’s comments elsewhere. I have sort of lost hope in Booth being the romantic one. There has not been one episode this season where Booth has independently gone out on a limb to do something romantic for Brennan just for the sole purpose to make her happy despite that fact he broke Brennan’s heart. To be honest I didn’t need much — maybe even a scene with him searching for shiny shoes at the end to please her (instead of having him sit with sweets). Brennan choosing to have a Catholic ceremony in his church and circling pigs in a blanket is so sweet and I just feel all the romantic moments are initiated by her. The end scene was totally lost on me for 2 reasons– Booth basically laughed off her incredibly sweet sentiment of being happy in her life that she didn’t need anything else. Secondly the fact that it wasn’t him realizing that he already had everything he wanted in life. I guess it would have worked better for me if they had reversed the bucket lists. It would have felt like they both love each other so much. This episode showed how much Brennan loves Booth and as usual for this season Booth’s feelings are very lacklustre. He talks a big game about dying/killing for her and how romantic he is but when it comes down to it he just doesn’t come through.
I had a hard time staying with this episode. I found myself irritated with Bones and Angela’s relationship. I’m not sure why. I get that Bones struggles with emotions but she seemed lost beyond comprehension on this episode. She was almost childlike seeking Angel’s guidance. Then Angela tried to correct Bones. She’s done it before but the whole matron/maid of honor thing felt off. Then the squint. I’ve never seen him before and I didn’t think Bones would put up with his behavior but when she tried to correct him for praising her and he asked why he couldn’t she said she didn’t know. I can’t see Bones saying she didn’t know something. I liked Booth’s reaction to the tapes. His enthusiasm was cute. 🙂
Heya Sarah. Didn’t like the further retconning of Brennan’s character. A picture of wedding dress that she’s carried around since she was 8? Really HH? That’s like changing her entire history with bringing back ghost mom level of retconning. Or saying that Booth taught her about the truth or you know, about the fundamental principles of science like questioning herself and being sure?
As usual Brennan demonstrated that she was the romantic one of the pair. Gotta agree with you there @bountypeaches. Oh, and she called him a ‘good man’ again this week! Oy vey! Hodgins’ reaction to Wells asking Brennan out? HAHA! Loved it! And as much as Wells grates, I love that Brennan is so uncaring about what he thinks of her and that she gives as good as she gets.
@LanaSweet, Wells was in ‘The Fact in the Fiction’, the ep about time travel where interestingly enough, Brennan also said that she wouldn’t do anything to change her life because she’s happy with how it turned out (yet again something that Booth didn’t echo). The writers love having Booth and Angela play Brennan’s teacher to school her in the art of being ‘normal’. While I agree that it felt a bit off, I think they were going for when Angela asked Brennan to be hers. Brennan has always been comfortable saying that she didn’t know something when it comes to social interactions and non-scientific stuff. Does ‘I don’t know what that means’ ring a bell?
Brennan and Hodgins win again. Hopefully there’ll be an appearance of ‘Old Booth’ in the wedding ep next week. Thank you for sharing Sarah. 🙂
@Alex Indigo:
Be prepared for another “Booth is a good man” next episode. That seems to be the theme of the season so I can’t imagine its not going to come up again (vows maybe?). How about someone say how good of a person Brennan is once in a while? Not all of her positive traits have come from Booth. Brennan has always been a very kind and generous person with a passion for truth and justice.
She has always recognized and valued the intelligence and expertise of others and knows how work in a team. Booth was the one that underestimated team dynamic to begin with (“squints don’t solve murders cops do”). She may have been (still is) socially awkward like Wells but I really get confused when people say she would have ended up like him if she hadn’t met Angela and Booth. She wouldn’t have had as full of a life because she never put a premium on personal happiness (thinking it was all transient) but she would never be that dismissive of other people’s talents. Brennan kept herself alone because she felt there was something wrong with her but Well’s keeps himself isolated from others because he thinks he is better than the rest.
What kind of hawk was in this episode? Thought it was a red tailed, but not sure because it is so light. Anyone know? It’s gorgeous.
I thought it looked like a Swainson’s hawk… but I could be wrong…
Looking it up online though… someone else says it’s an “AUGUR BUZZARD” from Africa!!! (They like to use birds from ALL OVER THE WORLD!!!) I think it would be better if they would use INDIGENOUS species!!! (But it makes people learn more about ANIMALS so…) *GRIN*
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