BONES Recap: ‘The Lost in the Found’

Hey BONES fans! What did you think of this episode, “The Lost in the Found”? I have to say that I felt pretty strongly about it; it was an episode where what I loved, I loved — but what I didn’t like, I really, really didn’t like. The case was excellent, sad, and meaningful. The Brennan-in-denial about her pregnancy (and every person mockingly commenting on it) was just awful. The worst. More analysis later, for now let’s discuss the case.

THE CASE

The Scene of the Crime: A group of people cleaning as part of community service come across a body. One man is so horrified that he drops his walkie-talkie and a pot brownie and runs. The team arrives and figure the body belongs to missing prep school student Molly Delson.

The Victim: At the lab, Molly’s identity is confirmed, and it’s up to the team to figure out how such a bright, promising student was killed.

Primary Suspects:

• The Delsons: When Molly’s body shows signs of bone breakage, Booth and Brennan wonder if she was abused as a child. Her parents insist that isn’t the case, and Brennan realize Molly’s childhood weight contributed to bone fractures.
• Tyler O’Brien: The guy who fled the scene when Molly’s body was found. He has past priors as a sex offender for statutory rape.
• Cayla, Arianna, Catherine: Fellow classmates at Pemberley of Molly’s. When Booth and Aubrey find Molly’s diary, they find detailed notes on the bullying these girls have committed against Molly.

The Case Progression:

Molly was the top of all of her classes and subject to bullying and ridicule from other students. Booth and Aubrey also find signs of depression in her diary, notes that she fears disappointing the people she loves most. It’s heartbreaking and it motivates both men to work hard to solve the case. They also find evidence that Molly was going to tell the school’s headmistress, Ms. Minchin, that Catherine was using alcohol in her room. This gives the girls motive to get rid of Molly.

In the lab, the team tries to figure out what caused various stab wounds to her body and determine they came from a pair of scissors. They also find a small injection site. Angela traces Molly’s cell phone usage and sees a ton of incoming calls and data in the few days before her death — the result of a nude photo released online, likely against Molly’s will.

The photo is traced to Tyler O’Brien, and Aubrey brings him in to read him the riot act. He insists that Molly wanted him to take the photo and that he did it in exchange for pills. Aubrey doesn’t know why Molly would want depressants, and it seems like a dead end…except that he can press charges against Tyler for posting the photo online. GO AUBREY!

Hodgins and Cam swab particulates from Molly’s body and the scissors, and they are traced back to Cayla. Booth and Brennan question her with Arianna and Catherine, and they all insist they didn’t kill Molly. They admit to drinking some alcohol on the night she was killed, but they say they then passed out. It doesn’t match up with the amount of booze they drank, but Booth still arrests them all. Um, okay?

Later at home, B&B discuss the case, and Brennan is moved enough to go back to the lab to keep working. She gathers the team together and when she realizes Molly had no injuries on her left arm, she knows exactly who killed the girl.

The Verdict: Brennan realizes that Molly used the pills to drug the girls in order to frame them for her death, after which she took her own life. It’s tremendously sad to know that Molly took her own life as a result of bullying, and Brennan completely understands the feeling from her own childhood — she just wishes Molly could have had someone to talk to, someone who could give her hope that a happy life could be a very real possibility.

Like I said before, the idea of this case was excellent, and I thought it was a great case for the team to solve. I like “Pride and Prejudice” and “The Little Princess” as much as anyone, but using those names (Pemberley and Ms. Minchin) was a little over the top — kind of like fan fiction, really. But other than that, I really liked the case. I just wish the show had used some of the time spent on other meaningless plotlines toward this case and the issue of bullying against youth, especially those who are bullied for doing well.

THE SQUINTS

The main squint b-plot revolved around Daisy wondering if she should move on in her personal life and start dating and/or having sex again. This storyline, in theory, is fine, but like with Brennan’s pregnancy (or when it coincided with it), the execution was awkward and over the top. The scene at the yoga class was cute.

All in all, the squints on the case were good; it was great seeing Aubrey so focused on solving Molly’s case. The Hodgins and Daisy scenes were nice at first, but then were weird. It was interesting to me that Daisy called herself a widow, a title I thought was reserved for married women. (But I could be wrong!) I liked her conversation with Brennan too, in theory. It would have been good if she’d just been asking for advice, without including all of those stupid side comments about her pregnancy. It was like the storyline needed to pick a tone — was it going to be serious or for laughs? And it turned out neither. In my opinion, of course.

Likewise, I had issue with Angela’s conversation with Brennan about her “denial” about her pregnancy. Angela/Brennan convos always straddle that line of Angela interpreting Brennan’s feelings for her, and this one was guilty of that — something I’m not a fan of. So when later, Brennan told Booth she’d been constantly thinking of how the pregnancy could affect their family, it seemed to contradict their talk as well. Either she was thinking about it or repressing it!

BOOTH & BRENNAN

The show was in a bit of a challenge regarding Brennan’s pregnancy. When Emily Deschanel announced her real life pregnancy a few months ago, it was understood it would be written into the show — but not yet. Viewers agreed to go along with it and *wink wink* pretended to be surprised when Booth and Brennan found out about their pregnancy a couple of episodes ago. All fine. They wanted to keep it a secret, and again — all fine. Nothing more was said for a bit, but in this episode, everyone had a comment. Unfortunately, the only way to express it was in a fat joke or by making a comment on the size of Brennan’s body/waist. UGH! The show was sort of “damned if they do and damned if they don’t” regarding mentioning the pregnancy again (in this episode), but at this point I really wish they hadn’t.

To then have Brennan get into a verbal argument with the mother of the victim over body size and such was just terrible. I wish the entire storyline had been scrapped for a more in depth look at the case, and even Brennan’s personal connections to it.

Speaking of, I liked that Brennan had empathy for this victim, and I liked how Booth worked the case and interacted with Brennan too. The scene at the diner was cute, and the end scene was nice, if not a little tame.

So all in all, not one of my favorite episodes ever or of this season. But enough from me — what did you like or not like about this one?

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