BONES Recap: ‘The Mystery in the Meat’

Hello, BONES fans! The show gave us a little trip down memory lane…at least for those of us who were served “mystery meat” in our school cafeterias. It also provided several laughs, an interesting case, drunk!Brennan, a reconciliation, and some new character interaction dynamics in the squint department. All in all, it was a fun episode, making BONES 2 for 2 on Friday nights, in my opinion.

There’s more to discuss, so let’s get right to it!

THE CASE:

The Scene of the Crime: A high school bully confiscates a bowl of beef stew in the cafeteria, but when he takes a bite, he finds a human tooth. Another spoonful provides an eyeball. “IT’S PEOPLE!” he shouts, and “ewwwwwwwww” we all reply, some more delightfully than others.

Booth, Brennan, and Cam arrive to the high school and quickly ascertain that the human remains are split up into several cans of beef stew. B&B follow up at the processing plant, where the research and development director, Susan, tells them they’ve collected the remaining cans of stew from the batch. They are shipped to the Jeffersonian.

The Victim: Howard Compton, a food scientist who worked at the company that provided the cans of stew. He was killed and then thrown into the meat processor…and then canned.

Primary Suspects:

• Susan, the R&D employee — Because of Howard’s great success with food products, he is poised to swoop in and get a promotion in Susan’s department. She admits she and Howard didn’t get along, but insists that she didn’t kill him.
• Howard’s research peer — Booth and Brennan question her in the lab. She has an acute sense of smell and basically pinpoints Howard’s death from Brennan’s presence. She is rational and lacks frivolity of any kind. She posits that Howard was working on something much bigger and got killed over it.
• Howard’s boss — Sweets questions him, particularly on whether or not Susan is a likely suspect. He says she’s more than likely innocent.
• Raymond McCants — a creative food supplier who sent Howard threatening emails when Howard fell behind on some deadlines. His “Hot Bacon” edible lubrication was to be a big success.
• Evelyn Cheevers — a local chemical-free farm representative. She admits to slashing Howard’s tires and being somewhat aggressive with him, but she insists she didn’t kill him.

The Case Progression:

Booth and Caroline question Susan and suggest motive, but her alibi checks out.

In the lab, Oliver finds some partial remodeling on the finger injuries and Sweets and Booth discuss how Howard thought he was being followed. The attacks seemed to intensify. Strong emails, then slashed tires, then physical assault/death.  Sweets brings Raymond in for questioning. He insists that he didn’t kill Howard.

Daisy and Oliver find a stabbing mark on the clavicle, and Brennan later identifies the weapon as a meat injector.

Hodgins finds some flower particles in the slashed tire, and the serrations on the cut lead Angela to suggest a Japanese garden knife. When two bank accounts in Howard’s name point to Evelyn and she has the garden knives for sale, she quickly moves up the suspect list. She tells Booth and Caroline that Howard was funding her research, but that he couldn’t quit his job because (in his words) there was someone he had to expose from the inside. He wouldn’t tell her who it was, considering it safer if she didn’t know.

Booth then speaks with Howard’s lab associate. She insists she would never do something so rash as commit murder and suggests that he figure out who might do that.

At the lab, Angela, Wells and Daisy show Brennan a recreation of the death, leading Brennan to realize the murderer would have been drenched in blood. She also points out a piece of horse bone in the skeletal remains — the canned stew was made of horse and human. Howard knew it was happening and threatened to sue the company.

The Verdict:  

Booth and Brennan bring the company executive back in for questioning and accuse him of selling horse meat to schools. He says it was a quality issue. Booth shows him records of him working with a meat plant in Mexico. The boss said they sold beef, but Brennan points out that they only sold horse meat. They have a warrant to check his hair, and when Brennan sheds her light on it, there are traces of blood spattering.

THE SQUINTS:

I liked Sweets in this episode, and the Booth/Sweets banter was fun and smart, especially when they bonded over lava chips.

Cam cracked me up in this episode, especially at the bachelorette party. I also loved pretty much every Caroline moment (as always).

I’ve said before that I like Oliver Wells as a character (and that Daisy makes me nuts), but these two annoying people annoying one another was pretty fantastic. I laughed a lot, and I definitely agree with those online who have suggested that a Daisy/Oliver romance may eventually be in the works. It also led to some fun moments between Hodgins and Daisy, and Hodgins and Oliver. Speaking of those two, their scenes in this episode were epic, none funnier than when they realized the Hot Bacon was a sexual lubricant. So funny!
All in all, I thought each storyline for the squints was pretty great in this episode. The only exception was Angela being on Brennan’s case about Booth being #1 in her life. Angela is married and has a child of her own! A conversation about how it’s important to stay well-rounded in relationships would have been better than the guilt trip she tried on Brennan (including the idea that her marriage doesn’t count unless she has a bachelorette party). The party was fun, though, and exactly what I imagined an Angela-planned party would be like.

Regarding Angela and Booth, I thought this was a nice way to resolve that storyline. Again, Angela talking about making a move on Booth is annoying, because HELLO HODGINS!, but I’m glad that Angela and Booth were able to hug it out.

BOOTH AND BRENNAN:

The scene where Booth helped Brennan when she was drunk is probably up there with some of my all-time favorite scenes. It was just funny, and sweet, and hot and well, great. I didn’t necessarily like how the episode began, with B&B (and then Angela adding her two cents) bickering about this idea that because they were married, everything needed to have deeper meaning. Disclaimer: While I see Booth’s point, I agree with Brennan that nothing much has changed in her life. She didn’t need to let go of her single life; she had done that long ago!

Anyway, I was glad that the deeper meaning idea didn’t last long in the episode, and that it quickly became more about B&B knowing one another well and some definitions in their relationships.

It made me laugh at the end that Brennan doesn’t want to be best friends with Booth, and I took that to mean that she equates “best friend” with “friend-zone,” or in their case, a platonic partner-zone. But I absolutely do believe that Booth considers Brennan HIS best friend, and she probably knows that too. It was a great end scene, both of them secure in their relationship with the other.

Regarding the bachelorette party — I thought it played out perfectly, with Booth encouraging her to go and trusting her, but then also being tense and checking his watch every few minutes because of the “excessive alcohol and flirting.” Good times!

Other great moments:

• A hung-over Caroline. (And Booth getting her coffee!)
• Daisy declaring that Brennan et al are her homies.
• The Hodgins and Wells look-alike discussion.
• B&B “bathtub” and “puppy” talk, and physical contact.

Enough from me — what did you think of this episode? Were you surprised by the killer? Do you think Oliver and Daisy are inevitable (and if yes, what are your thoughts on that)? How about B&B — did you like their interactions? The comments are open, so speak up!