BONES Recap: ‘The Repo Man in the Septic Tank’

Hey BONES fans! How did you like this episode, The Repo Man in the Septic Tank? There was sewage, seduction and…a dinosaur impression. It’s true, and there is a lot to discuss, so let’s get to it.

THE CASE:

The Scene of the Crime: A man is found in a septic tank, and Brennan calls for the tank to be delivered to the Jeffersonian. There, she is introduced to Dr. Fuentes, a new intern from Cuba. Dr. Fuentes is Brennan’s equal in (most) knowledge, but his forensic science credentials did not transfer to the US. Brennan is less than pleased, but she agrees to allow Dr. Fuentes the opportunity to assist on the case.

She sends him down into the septic tank, where he discovers a fingernail from the victim. The victim drowned trying to escape the septic tank.

The Victim: The victim’s body shows he suffered several injuries, possibly during fights as a prison inmate. A tattoo on his skin provides his identity — Benny Jergeson. His parole officer, Officer Fowler, tells Booth and Sweets that Benny was on the straight and narrow after being released from prison.

Primary Suspects:

•    Georgia, Benny’s boss at a car repo site. She is aggressive and violent, but insists she didn’t kill Benny. She cared about him and even let him sleep in her building.
•    Graham, a food truck driver who came after Benny when he repossessed his truck. Booth and Sweets nail Graham in a drug bust as well.
•    Horatio Mancini, Benny’s friend from prison. Officer Fowler tells Booth that Benny was released from prison early because he gave up information on Horatio and that Horatio was released from prison a week before Benny was murdered.

The Case Progression:

Georgia tells Booth and Sweets that she required all of her workers to carry around digital recorders, but she doesn’t know where Benny’s is.

Booth figures out that Graham has an alibi (going on a drug run), and Brennan and Dr. Fuentes determine that damage to Benny’s skeleton was caused by a car accident.

At the lab, Hodgins has found tree particulates on the victim. Fuentes suggests that Benny was chased after the car accident.

Booth and Sweets discuss the mangled car. It was registered to Benny and it was scrapped a week after it was found. Brennan later points out that Benny wasn’t alone in the car — there was also a passenger.

Fuentes asks Brennan to reenact the accident with him. He suggests the damage indicates Benny had one arm in the direction of the passenger. She agrees (and also takes the handsy Fuentes down) and they discuss damage to Benny’s ribs. The fracturing was caused by something on his body or in a coat, because the damage is localized to that area.

Booth and Brennan pay a visit to Horatio at a restaurant where he works as a valet. He tries to escape them, but B&B chase him down until they end up in the restaurant kitchen. Horatio grabs a knife on Booth, who responds with various items including a whisk and ultimately the broad side of a frying pan.

When B&B question Horatio at the FBI, he tells them Benny was like a brother to him, that he told Benny to rat him out in prison in order to help him get out. Booth is still suspicious, especially because they know Horatio was stealing entry system info from the cars of restaurant patrons. Horatio tells them that Benny was on the right track, that he wanted Horatio’s help stealing on BMW and that he refused because he figured Benny had a better future without him in the picture.

Angela, Hodgins, and Fuentes are able to take a piece of silicone chip from the victim’s rib and identify it as part of the digital recorder. Angela pulls up 11 seconds of Benny arguing, but the other person’s voice isn’t heard.

Sweets talks to Georgia and accuses her of killing Benny but keeping quiet about it on the recording. She denies it and refuses to say anything else.

At the lab, Brennan realizes she and Dr. Fuentes can gain insight into the killer’s identity by thinking of the killer as the passenger of the car. Angela runs a possible scenario to show impact. The killer was facing the victim, and they were fighting and they went off the road.  There were fractures to the right side of the body, especially the skull and right arm. Whoever has arm damage is likely the killer.

The Verdict:  Georgia and Horatio both agree to arm x-rays, which prove their innocence. Sweets points out to Booth that the dates of recently stolen cars correlate with when Benny met with Officer Fowler. He tells Booth there is no way to arrest Fowler with that little evidence, but Booth has an idea. He brings Fowler to the FBI where Brennan is posing as a security guard. They keep him in the metal detector and Brennan notices the possibility of damage to the front, right side of his scalp. It’s enough for Booth, and he makes an arrest.

THE SQUINTS:

High Points:

•    I liked Dr. Fuentes pretty well; it was definitely unprofessional of him to tell Brennan they should act on sexual tension between them, but I think he won’t proposition Brennan again and that they could work well together in the lab. It was frustrating toward the end when he admitted that sometimes he likes to let the bones speak to him, and she called him out on believing that inanimate objects can “speak.” That sort of literalism is annoying because Brennan herself is known to defer to the bones, so to speak. But all in all, I think this professional relationship could work.
•    I really liked Hodgins cooking a meal for Fuentes in the lab — that was very cool. He’s the real natural leader in the lab; for all of Brennan’s declarations and then Cam’s over-assertions that she’s actually the boss, Hodgins is the one who really looks out for the interns. Bonus high point: Angela was nowhere to be found and therefore not unnecessarily explaining how special the moment and Hodgins were.

Low points:

•    Speaking of the interns, seriously, what kind of internship program is this that there are times none of them are available or that they are still interns after six years at the Jeffersonian. I like all of the characters, but I think the writers have to do a better job making their existence plausible.
•    It’s the same as always, but the writers continue to use Cam to character-bash Brennan. Sometimes her analysis of Brennan is true, but I’d argue that the writers make Brennan do obnoxious things to basically give Cam something to talk about.
•    Hodgins is so great (see: High points), and Angela really just is the worst.  I don’t know which is worse, that she flirts with people when Hodgins is not around or when he is. At least he has enough self-esteem to know she is ridiculous, but I honestly wish he would dump her most of the time. Plus, she compared her best friend to Fidel Castro. Good times.
•    The dynamic between Booth and Sweets was a little off in this episode. Not bad necessarily, but just different.

BOOTH AND BRENNAN:

High Points:

•    I liked the diner scene where Brennan told Booth that Fuentes was annoying because he was brilliant and arrogant. While Booth poked fun at her a bit, he also had that gleam in his eye that tells us that he thinks she’s freaking amazing and wouldn’t change a thing
•    I loved that Brennan told Booth about Fuentes hitting on her and that he basically went through the roof. I really loved that he brought up the monogamy thing, because I can see it bothering him at a basic level, and it was nice to see Brennan put those fears to rest.
•    I enjoyed the subsequent scene at the restaurant, especially seeing B&B sort of getting in each other’s way running to catch Horatio. And I liked the action scene in the kitchen too. If Brennan showed (acceptably) flattered kneejerk reactions to Fuentes flirting with her, she was definitely into Booth’s performance in the kitchen.
•    I laughed out loud and loved Booth’s idea of Brennan posing as a security guard to catch Fowler. It was perfect.

Low Points:

•    B&B bickering over religion is old, and it really didn’t need Brennan learning a “lesson of understanding” from an intern to resolve. It forced the characters into a plot, which always sucks. So the set up was bad, it had little to no impact on the rest of the episode, and the resolution was contrived. The only nice thing was the denouement where B&B compromised about church and the Natural History Museum dinosaur exhibit. Diving deeper into the abuse of power between Fowler and Benny would have been a nicer subplot.
•    I enjoyed the B&B SUV scene, but it does annoy me when Booth rates Brennan’s expressions of love, loyalty or affection on some “romance” scale…mostly because she seems to fall short, which is dumb…and it actually plays Booth as dumber than he is. And while I think it was Brennan’s moment to express her feelings, (and this episode didn’t need the reciprocation from Booth) it would be nice if a future episode had a similar turnabout where Booth made it very clear what Brennan means to him. There have been a few already this season with Brennan being very vocal about her feelings for Booth, and I love it. But she is as much his home, nurturer and protector etc. as he is hers.
•    Minor, but the other thing I thought was off was how the entire restaurant kitchen applauded when Booth knocked out Horatio — they don’t know Horatio is bad or that Booth is good. What was that?

All in all, this episode wasn’t one of my favorites. It’s not one of my least favorites either — it was pretty much fine. There were some really good moments in it, but the rest of the episode kind of felt all over the place.

What do you think? Did you like Dr. Fuentes? Were you surprised by the killer? And did you ever think you’d see David Boreanaz do a T-Rex impression? The comments are open; speak your mind!